Along with the murder mysteries where we know know the culprit from the start and the overly friendly detective that annoys criminals into defeat, one of the components of Columbo's simple formula was that his opponents were all celebrities. The ones that weren't rich were famous, at least within a particular field. There's often a bit where they show off some luxury like caviar or fine wine which Columbo doesn't have regular access to.
Now, this was generally just meant as a fun, mildly cathartic thing. Hard-working blue collar Columbo takes down the big guy, and you get to see different environments related to whatever profession in each episode. I'm not sure I've seen this episode, but I think there's one where he take on a police chief, but it's just bringing down another bad guy rather an anything to do with corruption. Sometimes villains were spoofs of real life celebrities but there was rarely any apparent malice towards them, and sometimes the guest stars would be playing someone inspired by themselves; Johnny Cash is a gospel singer, William Shatner was an arrogant actor, and so on.
But nowadays, I think that even doing the same thing would have a much stronger catharsis factor. Wealth inequality has widened and become a more popular issue. Social media has led to the airing of a lot of celebrity dirty laundry. Imagine if the show ran with that, and we got Columbo going up against foes like:
- A Silicon Valley entrepreneur
- A wrestler
- A family-oriented sitcom star
- A YouTube influencer
- A Hollywood producer
- The president
I don't think any of these would be out of character for the original show in and of itself. Even keeping up with evolving technology was something the series tried to do. Obviously, it wouldn't be as simple as this to revive the show as to just pick villains out of the headlines - whoever plays Columbo would inevitably be compared to decades of the late Peter Falk's performances, which can't be easy. But I think it would have an opportunity in today's culture.
Now, this was generally just meant as a fun, mildly cathartic thing. Hard-working blue collar Columbo takes down the big guy, and you get to see different environments related to whatever profession in each episode. I'm not sure I've seen this episode, but I think there's one where he take on a police chief, but it's just bringing down another bad guy rather an anything to do with corruption. Sometimes villains were spoofs of real life celebrities but there was rarely any apparent malice towards them, and sometimes the guest stars would be playing someone inspired by themselves; Johnny Cash is a gospel singer, William Shatner was an arrogant actor, and so on.
But nowadays, I think that even doing the same thing would have a much stronger catharsis factor. Wealth inequality has widened and become a more popular issue. Social media has led to the airing of a lot of celebrity dirty laundry. Imagine if the show ran with that, and we got Columbo going up against foes like:
- A Silicon Valley entrepreneur
- A wrestler
- A family-oriented sitcom star
- A YouTube influencer
- A Hollywood producer
- The president
I don't think any of these would be out of character for the original show in and of itself. Even keeping up with evolving technology was something the series tried to do. Obviously, it wouldn't be as simple as this to revive the show as to just pick villains out of the headlines - whoever plays Columbo would inevitably be compared to decades of the late Peter Falk's performances, which can't be easy. But I think it would have an opportunity in today's culture.
