Despite the occasional flaw the original Columbo series is one of television's all-time classic crime shows. So successful in fact that when Peter Falk originally bowled out in 1978 NBC came up with a brilliant idea, why not make his never-seen wife 'Mrs Columbo' a part-time crime solver, using the same methods employed by her husband?
This premise would be stretching things somewhat if Mrs Columbo appeared as surely how most people must see her, a forty-something, fiery Italian matriarch, perhaps in the mould of English actress Miriam Margolyes. But to employ the services of glamorous 24-year old actress (of Irish extraction) Kate Mulgrew is totally ludicrous.
I have only seen one episode Murder Is A Parlour Game, and despite a superb cast including Donald Pleasence and Don Baker, it was enough to convince me that Mrs Columbo was a bad idea. The plot was wafer-thin and offered very little to hold viewers' interest. The police are made to look like stupid meat heads leaving glamorous Kate to use her feminine charm to solve the mystery. Only she doesn't have any charm. Unlike her hubby who wins the murderers round with wily cunning, Kate is just an annoying, know-all. Fans of the original Columbo series should avoid this like the plague.
NBC knew they were onto a looser when the ratings dropped after the first few episodes were aired. Viewers just couldn't believe that Kate Mulgrew was Columbo's wife so the producers changed the name of the series, twice, eventually giving Kate a different surname, Callahan, to completely disassociate the series with Columbo. If they had done this in the first place it might just have been a success.
The quickly edited opening titles and Bach-style theme music reminded me of the later, vastly superior crime series Murder She Wrote. Both shows were created by Richard Levinson and William Link so in a way Mrs Columbo was a blueprint for that show. Curiously Kate Mulgrew guested in a few episodes of Murder She Wrote and I wonder if she thought to herself 'this should've been me'.
This premise would be stretching things somewhat if Mrs Columbo appeared as surely how most people must see her, a forty-something, fiery Italian matriarch, perhaps in the mould of English actress Miriam Margolyes. But to employ the services of glamorous 24-year old actress (of Irish extraction) Kate Mulgrew is totally ludicrous.
I have only seen one episode Murder Is A Parlour Game, and despite a superb cast including Donald Pleasence and Don Baker, it was enough to convince me that Mrs Columbo was a bad idea. The plot was wafer-thin and offered very little to hold viewers' interest. The police are made to look like stupid meat heads leaving glamorous Kate to use her feminine charm to solve the mystery. Only she doesn't have any charm. Unlike her hubby who wins the murderers round with wily cunning, Kate is just an annoying, know-all. Fans of the original Columbo series should avoid this like the plague.
NBC knew they were onto a looser when the ratings dropped after the first few episodes were aired. Viewers just couldn't believe that Kate Mulgrew was Columbo's wife so the producers changed the name of the series, twice, eventually giving Kate a different surname, Callahan, to completely disassociate the series with Columbo. If they had done this in the first place it might just have been a success.
The quickly edited opening titles and Bach-style theme music reminded me of the later, vastly superior crime series Murder She Wrote. Both shows were created by Richard Levinson and William Link so in a way Mrs Columbo was a blueprint for that show. Curiously Kate Mulgrew guested in a few episodes of Murder She Wrote and I wonder if she thought to herself 'this should've been me'.