For Falk’s sake

Sunday viewing consists of snooker tournaments and back-to-back episodes of Columbo .All day long. You drift in-and-out of sleep.

The couch is your friend.

The only movement of the day is to switch the channel every now and again.

You get sidetracked by a wildlife programme.

You never realised you were interested in giraffes so much.

You could watch them for hours, it seems.

And you do.

But then at the end of the day, you always return to Columbo.

A pizza is ordered for delivery.

But you have to wait an hour for its dispatch.

You have to wait your turn.

It seems you are not the only Columbo-watching pizza-eater around these parts on any given Sunday.

The town is crawling with them.

All licking their wounds from the devious alcohol abuse the night before.

And, is it just me, or was Columbo always an old man?

Even when he was a young man?

It seems in every episode he has been the same age, and the series lasted for decades.

And does anybody recall the ill-fated spin off series, Mrs Columbo?

Where they attempted to introduce his wife as another crime solver?

I believe the idea was shelved after only a few episodes.

It is barely spoken about these days.

Like a lost nightmare.

Best left forgotten.

Buried deep in the caverns of memory.

But it did have an episode that starred Donald Pleasance.

That, alone, gives Mrs Columbo a reason to be watched.

But rumour has it that Mr Columbo, himself, the great Peter Falk, was not pleased about this spin off.

He was venomously against it.

He was happy for his wife to remain nameless and faceless, as she had done throughout his series.

There was a shroud of mystery around her, which led many, including me, to suspect that Columbo was hiding something.

Perhaps she didn’t exist at all.

And he was a madman.

Perhaps he wasn’t even a police officer.

Just a lunatic who lurked around murder scenes every week, and harassed rich people to the point of insanity, until they admitted to a crime they didn’t commit.

Anything to get away from this raincoat wearing psychopath, rambling on about his wife that doesn’t exist.

Watching episodes of Columbo from this perspective gives a whole new sense of entertainment.

Try it, on your next Sunday.