Cult TV Blog

I find that this is only the second episode of Columbo I’ve blogged about here, and for the same reason I wrote about the first: for the sake of the guest villain, in this case Patrick McGoohan. I realised I hadn’t seen any of the Columbo episodes in which McGoohan guest stars, and found the box set for a song. In case I should be seen to damn with faint praise, perhaps I had better just observe that I rarely watch Columbo, so the fact that I have made a point of writing about two episodes for the sake of the guest stars, isn’t really an indictment of the series, more an indication of my interests. I am very interested to see how McGoohan – notorious for being temperamental, overpowering and difficult – plays his part in this episode. I started off thinking that he would be overpowering, just by his sheer presence in the opening scenes in comparison to Leslie Nielsen, himself no bit-part actor. As the episode goes on I was relieved to find McGoohan becoming more subtle in his portra...

I bought two series of Columbo (from a charity shop, they didn't cost much), wanting to see the episodes in which Patrick McGoohan plays the baddie, in the certain knowledge that the episodes in question were in the first & second series. Of course they're not but I've been watching them anyway. I am perhaps unfairly biased against Columbo, having been forced to watch it as a child because my mother had a pash for Peter Falk. Friends were forbidden to watch Tiswas but I had to because my father had a thing for Sally James, & similarly the Dukes of Hazzard because of Daisy Dukes in the quicksand. I liked Grange Hill, myself, & to this date associate a London accent with everything sophisticated, rebellious & grown up. All of this is by the by, of course. I've been watching the Columbo episodes though, & on the whole I don't really take to them, but this one catches my eye for two reasons: the first is it has my beloved Honor Blackman playing ...