A Podcast About Columbo
When is a Columbo not a Columbo? When it’s Season Eleven’s “No Time to Die,” based on an Ed McBain 87th Precinct tale of a kidnapping, not a murder. What happens when a beloved program strays wildly from its patented format? We’ll find out on our next show, with author Amanda Reyes (Are You In the House Alone?)!
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Grab a bottle! In Season Three’s “Any Old Port In a Storm,” Columbo comes up against Adrian Carsini (Donald Pleasance), the prestigious head of a winery who locks his brother in the cellar when the younger sibling threatens to sell out the family vineyard. Steven Goss (Columbo Interiors) will be the guest.
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Staying with the military theme, as we visit Season Four’s “By Dawn’s Early Light.” Columbo mainstay Patrick McGoohan is the commandant of a military academy who’d rather commit murder than see the institution become a co-ed prep school. Michael Grasso (Hold My Order Terrible Dresser) joins to discuss.
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Rocketing back into the 90s for the season eight episode, “Grand Deceptions,” in which Columbo has to dig into the secrets of a military think tank that also runs a little paramilitary ripoff school on the side. Joining in the pain of combat are writers Jennifer Wright (Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them) and Daniel Kibblesmith (Late Show with Stephen Colbert).
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Season Two’s “The Most Dangerous Match” pits chess grandmaster Laurence Harvey against Lt. Columbo in a case involving garbage crushers, garlic snails and garish hallucinations. Game designer Nathan Paoletta (Who is working on a game based on Columbo!) will be the guest.
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Vaughning it up again with Season Five’s “Last Salute to the Commodore,” a perennial favorite of all Columbo fans! Sure, why not? An exclusive LA island community turns out to be a hotbed of murder and betrayal as the patriarch of a shipbuilding (boatbuilding?) company is found dead upon the ocean he loved so much. First-time guest Christy Blanch joins to discuss.
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Next up is Season Three’s “Candidate for Crime,” in which a politician figures he can get away with literal murder and still get elected. That could never happen in a million years, right? Right? ANYWAY, JD Ryznar (Beyond Yacht Rock, Hot Streets) joins us to discuss this wildly implausible scenario. The episode is available on DVD and Netflix Instant (for now).
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It’s a Robert Culp! In this season two episode, he’s the day-to-day manager of a sports empire owned by dissolute heir Dean Stockwell. For hazy reasons, Culp kills the guy and, well, the episode just looks awful pretty, okay? Author Glen Erik Hamilton (Past Crimes, Hard Cold Winter) joins Jon and RJ to break it all down.
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When you’re one of Mexico’s national heroes, it just doesn’t do to have someone going about who has witnessed your act of true cowardice. That’s just the problem revered matador Ricardo Montalban faces in season five’s “A Matter of Honor,” and he finds no way out except murder. Laura Coleman (farrahda5hy.tumblr.com) joins Jon and RJ to discuss. The episode is available on Netflix Instant and DVD.
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Our next episode is a Jack Cassidy one! He plays a sleazy publisher who hires a bomb freak to murder Mickey Spillane (really) and then kills the killer. It’s a darn good one, and Leonard Pierce comes back to the podcast to talk all about it. If you’d like to check it beforehand, it’s on DVD and Netflix Instant.
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