When I was younger and when the world seemed to revolved between the late 80s and the early 90s, I used to spend countless hours debating with my friends on who's the best detective we've ever come across on TV. There were many TV series at the time that includes MacGuyver, Matlock, 21 Jump Street, Dark Justice, Jake and the Fatman to name a few, so naturally each of us has different views and opinions on who would take the crown.
We didn't want to go into the movies because usually, more than often those film detectives have a solid one and half or two hours to themselves to crack their cases open, unlike the classic TV detectives who share their screentime with the perps during their less than an hour-long weekly slots. And that was that.
My vote goes to the Columbo TV series, which stars the excellent bumbling yet sharp witted police Lieutenant Frank Columbo, played by the unimitable Peter Falk, who spent each episodes hounding suspects like they're already destined for the slammers. They barely mention (or more like never if my memory recalls) his first name throughout the series and I only got to know his first name on wikipedia.
The thing is, there is a stark contrast between the detective shows of yesteryear of today's standard. Let us take Columbo for instance. It started out in the 70s....
...reappeared again in the late 80s...
....and for that brief stint again in 2003, yet the format remained the same. I'll explain why.
Each of its episode started out with the bad guys carrying out their evil deeds and we're treated to every detail of their twisted scheme. Very different from modern detective shows (think CSI or Criminal Minds for instance) where we barely see or don't see at all until the very last reveal scene. So it's really up to Columbo to discover the clues and hints already left behind by the perps in the opening scene. Audiences were really waiting to see if Columbo was sharp enough to piece everything together to solve each case and not to be also guessing throughout together with the protagonists like we do during modern TV shows.
Columbo gets my vote as one of the most unique and interesting TV detective series ever. It was a hit in the 70s, with 10 seasons; again in the late 80s; and there was still demand for the detective to make his return at the turn of the century in 2003. In fact Columbo was making yet another return in '07 if not for the unfortunate health condition that had befallen Peter Falk. Recently my family and I had the chance to re-watch (first time watch for my son) the 70s Columbo series on the HITS channel (Asia's retro channel that shows classic shows and films from yesteryear) and we realized that Columbo was so much better than some of the detective shows of today and Peter Falk's acting was sublime for its time.
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