June 23, 2025 • 48 mins
It’s here. The one we’ve all been bracing for: Last Salute to the Commodore. As the final episode of Columbo’s fifth season and a proposed ending place for the entire NBC run, it manages to sink the ship with an almost gleeful disregard for coherence, tone, and character.
Mike and Chris try to make sense of the chaos—was it Jackson Gillis’s bewildering script? Patrick McGoohan’s direction? Peter Falk’s performance? Or all of the above? Whatever happened, the result is a baffling, self-sabotaging parody of the show itself. Come for the messy nautical metaphors, stay for the analysis of Columbo’s most infamous misfire.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.
Mike and Chris try to make sense of the chaos—was it Jackson Gillis’s bewildering script? Patrick McGoohan’s direction? Peter Falk’s performance? Or all of the above? Whatever happened, the result is a baffling, self-sabotaging parody of the show itself. Come for the messy nautical metaphors, stay for the analysis of Columbo’s most infamous misfire.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Columbo podcast. I'm
your host, Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister Christashue.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Boy, you, my friend. You did not bury the lead
far enough. Mike, this is just.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Whoof I thought you were just going to say, isn't
it isn't?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, paint tis more like you.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
On this episode, we are wrapping up season five of
Colombo with the sixth episode of that fifth season came
out May second, nineteen seventy six and ninety one minute
episode written by Jackson gillis directed by our old friend
Patrick McGowin. Welcome to the most bizarre episode of Colombo
(01:11):
that ever aired. Last salute to the commodore. This is it.
No matter what, Chris, no matter how bad the ABC
years get, and there's going to be some bad moments,
it's never going to get as bad as this. Again,
this is the nature of Colombo.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That's good to know. This is, without a doubt, the
worst episode of the show that we have seen so far.
And if it is the worst episode of the show overall,
I believe it. It is a unusually framed episode of
Colombo that the framework of the episode makes no sense
(01:55):
in terms of the way that these stories are always told.
It feels like somebody is I'm going to do something different, yes,
and how did that work out for you? They don't
know how to write the character of Colombo at all,
and in not knowing how to write the character of Colombo,
they effectively rob the episode of any goodwill that it
would have had otherwise, because in not having Colombo act
(02:18):
like Colombo, you have this weird fake Colombo facsimile, Colombo,
pseudo Colombo who stumbles around the episode just being mean
to everybody. And I cannot abide this episode. Man. I
know we're gonna have to talk about it. I know
it's an hour and a half long. It's as long
as a goddamn movie. It's as long as the early
(02:39):
Marvel films are. And yes, that should be insane, because
this does not justify an hour and a half running
time at all.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've seen this episode many times, more times than I
wish to remember. I think I finally figured it out
last time I was watching it. I said to myself,
this is a bad Colombo parody. This is somebody saying,
let's make a complete fool out of Colombo for the
(03:12):
entire episode. It might as well have been Bert Young
playing Colombo in this episode. It has that tonality to it.
It's the strangest, most perplexing, wrongheaded thing I've ever experienced.
I felt like I was having a mental breakdown when
I was watching this again the other day, because this
(03:32):
is the first time I really sat down and paid
attention to it. Like, that's the thing with this show
that I've really come to appreciate. And I really like
watching Colombo with you. I really like hearing your thoughts
about Colombo, and I really like watching these episode with
new eyes thinking about how you might be experiencing them.
But also for me, I grew up on this stuff,
(03:55):
so now finally sitting down, I'm sure it was very
much like with the Kolchak, where it's, oh, yeah, you
grew up on that stuff. I had seen Kolchak before,
but not nearly to the extent that you had, so
you're familiar with it. I was coming to it as
a nube definitely, as we're watching the Sopranos, that's the
exact same feeling. So this is giving me a new
(04:16):
found appreciation of Columba, which makes this episode even more
painful when I see just how weird this shit is.
We've talked about double murderers before, but we've never been
led down this path to think that somebody is a murder,
to think that somebody else is a murderer, and then
(04:38):
to finally come up with the real murderer. And I
will tell you, and I know we're jumping ahead a
little bit, but I will tell you as far as
the oh, Robert Vaughan is covering up for Diane Baker,
that never entered into my head whatsoever. Like I was
never anywhere near that. I was just like, yep, it's
Robert Vaughan. And then when it wasn't, Robert Vaughan killed
(05:00):
off screen, just disappears from the fucking episode. Then I'm like,
you know what, I have no idea who killed him.
Diane Baker never went through my head because she's fucking
drunk through the entire fucking episode. I think there's like,
what two scenes where she's not drunk. Maybe well, I
think she's hungover when they give the news that the
(05:21):
Commodore is dead.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okay, fair god, I was wondering that the entire episode.
I was like, man, Mike must really love this episode
on top of everything else, because we all know how
much you love people pretending to be drunk, and not
only that, but like the most like on the nose
kind of drunk possible, like the belligerent, like forgetful drunk,
and it's like, who fucking care? I guess I had
(05:42):
a hard time figuring out who fucking cares in this episode.
This episode did a very poor job of getting me
to understand why I should care. And also I really
hate that this episode does not play fair at all.
I find that to be absurd because it's like I
inherently trust this show, and the show is just squandering
(06:06):
all the trust that I have in it because we
want to do something different for one episode. It's like
the formula of the show's not good enough, Like it's
not good enough for you. Like I just I have
a hard time understanding what would motivate you to write
an episode so atypical for a show whose formula works
so well and is so fine tuned that there's no
(06:26):
need to like really upend the apple cart that much.
And Jackson Gillis.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He's a regular writer on this show. I don't know
why he did it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, he's written plenty of episodes for this show. Yeah,
makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
And I don't know how much is Jackson Gillison. I
don't know how much is Patrick McGowin. I feel like
a lot of this lance at the feet of McGowan
just based upon that Identity Crisis episode that we watched,
and to see how falk was playing Colombo differently in
that one. Thinking about like the revelation of Colombo when
(07:02):
he's walking down the beach and there's the smoke and
all that stuff, and just the weirdness when he was
flipping over the body and all that stuff. That's this
for ninety fucking minutes is just why did you make
this decision? Why are you doing this? They are keystone
copping it up. Every single time you see Dennis Stugan
(07:27):
and Bruce Kirby on screen, they might as well be
playing like Yakay Sacks or something. It is bizarre. The
whole thing in the car, Oh my god, when they're
just like, oh, excuse me, car bullshit, the clown car yes,
and the zooming around the parking lot, I'm like, what
(07:47):
are we doing here? What are we doing people?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Tonally, it is one of the weirdest episodes of this
show because it makes no sense. And then on top
of everything else because the tone doesn't make any sense,
because we have Dennis Dugan in this episode, because we
have Bruce Kirby in this episode. We have all of
these moving parts exterior to Colombo that go nowhere and
ultimately make Columbo seem like a moron on top of
everything else, because it's like, why are you even having
(08:13):
these people around if they're so in neept, Just get
rid of them, like you don't need anybody, Like Bob
Dishy in the last episode was great and all, but
Colombo works alone. He works alone, that's his thing. He
doesn't need anybody to help him. And when people do
help him sometimes they just get in the way.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Literally, would you be surprised if I told you that
Dennis Dugan was a late add to this show and
had no dialogue written for him. It's all improv. What
they're doing is fucking improv when they are having those conversations,
the embarrassing conversations, and this whole thing about his character
(08:54):
Mac having a Polish name and not being Scottish or
Irish at all, and Colombo just can't accept that. For
whatever reason, all of that horseshit totally made up on
the spot. That's why Duken is constantly repeating what people say.
He doesn't know where to go. Dennis dukean' is a
(09:14):
talented actor, but he was given this shiit sandwich and
then we're expected to eat it.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
D This is uh Ensen, O'Connor, Tenna Columbo, Sergean Kramer, O'Connor,
Stargust and sixteen Charles play and this is Bold and
Mate Murray, Sorry, Lieutenant Columbo both in Mace Murray. This
(09:44):
is Sergeant Kramer, argue. This is a to Clay. Charles
says Boden mart to gentleman, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Board, Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. We talked about
this at the end of the last episode. Dennis Dugan
had his own pilot for his own show that would
cut or not even a pilot. I guess it was
a full show. It ran for one season where he's
essentially playing a detective.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And I don't know if that game I need to
talk to. I've got a couple of friends that I think,
even Richard Adam is a huge fan of The Rockford Files.
I need to find out if Ricky Brockleman was before
Rockford and then just showed up on The Rockford Files.
It was to.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Watch the character.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Okay, that makes a lot more sense because in one
of the books that I read, I was just like,
am I reading this right? This doesn't seem right? So
I must have been incorrect about that.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And what's actually fucking wild to me is this came
before that. Somebody saw this and was like, this is
the guy we want to give a show too. He
has no charisma whatsoever. Dennis Dugan is just I can't
wait to see him in Haviy Gilmour too. What is
one say about a guy who's clearly more adept at
(11:02):
being a director than he is an actor. And even
you're directing Sandler movies, not to diminish what you do,
but Adam Sandler movies, I feel like Adam Sandler knows
what he's doing. And that's probably the benefit of working
with Adam Sandler, as he knows what he wants and
knows how to get there. So I mean he directed
some of Adam Sandler's better movies. I would say Happy
(11:25):
Gilmore Big Daddy. I know people like Big Daddy a lot.
I'm not a huge fan of Big Daddy. Jack and Jill.
I think Honestly, it's just such a fucking weird ass movie.
And that thing at the end without Pacino is truly
you know what I'm talking You know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Talking about du from Jack and Jill.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That is the singular thing from that movie that is redeeming.
But Dennis Dugan primarily just works with Adam Sandler from
like the nineties on. So I don't like him as
an actor because every time I've seen him in anything,
I'm like, Okay, you've very just generic white guy. But
to see him in like the Sefan Dei's and they're
like trying to get him to be a thing, it's
(12:04):
like Dennis Dugan's with hindsights, so not a thing.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I remember liking him on Hill Street Blues and Mash,
but that's about it. He earns some goodwill from me
for those I haven't gone back and watched those episodes.
He also lost a lot of goodwill from my perspective,
because I want to say he played the astronaut in Moonlighting,
(12:30):
and it was during that horrible last season of Moonlighting
that just had like barely any episodes. It just felt
so thrown together. That whole will they won't they thing
that has ruined so many shows that for me, like
the ground zero is Moonlighting and just how they just
had no fucking idea how to handle the will they
(12:53):
won't they with Bruce Willis and Sybil Shepherd and then
they stuck Dennis Dugan in there like Dennis do and
compete with rhyme Bruce Willis.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
No, no, not even remotely, man, that will they won't.
They became so oh it'd infected some of the best
shows of the nineties, like The X Files ends up
having a lot of that. Like, I'm so glad TV
shows really have walked away from some of those conventions
because that was just the worst, the drizzling shits, because man,
(13:26):
once you give up the ghost, what do you do then?
But you're so sucks. That's what happens with most of
these shows.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I was surprised they actually seemed to handle it okay
for Bones, But that's one of the few shows that
I can point at and say, oh, they fucked. They
stayed together, they had a relationship, they had kids, they
got married, not in that order, and the show kept
going and it was actually decent. But then yeah, even
(13:53):
like some of the side characters that got together I
was like, no, we don't need that. Keep that out
of here. We don't need everybody to get married. We
don't need everybody to ruin the will they won't they
Just let's keep some sexual tension on the show.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Play Supernatural is the ultimate sexual tension show.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Sam and Dean definitely got them kinkiest gay sex imaginable.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
My God, glad that Colombo doesn't have that, And to
be fair, if it did, it would not be with
Dennis Dugan, because Dennis Dugan is again a two by
four with googly eyes, and that's being kind. Bruce Kirby,
on the other hand, him and Colombo might have They
have a good time two kind of gruff guys together.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I want to talk about some of just the strange
things in this episode eight minutes in the Commodore is dead.
First off, when they show the title Last Salute to
the Commodore, it's not John Dyer on screen, it's Fred Draper.
It's interesting too that their names sound a little similar,
because there's this whole thing of them being mistaken for
(14:58):
each other, which is also weird because I think the
last time we saw Fred Draper, he was the twin
brother of the Blind guy, and we've seen Fred Draper
a lot. Fred Draper is not quite val Avery level
as far as appearances on here, but he's definitely there.
Like we've seen him four times maybe, and then I
know we saw him in Woman on the Verge of
(15:18):
a nervous breakdown. Woman on the Verge. Sorry, keep getting
mixed up with the al Madovar film, so we've seen
him spoilers by the way, he is not the caliber
of an actor. Sorry, Fred to be the Killer, he's not.
He's just he's a big player suddenly elevated in this episode.
(15:40):
To be at the Killer, we.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Had to subvert the expectations of the audience. Mike, It's
like the most exhausting shit, so unrecking, believably exhausting. Like
the thing that made this episode so exhausting is, see,
I'm clever, and it's no, you're not. Everybody knows somebody
like this. It thinks they're clever or smart or they're
(16:02):
gonna ha gotcha. I don't know how to tell you this,
but you fucked up the formula of Glumbo royally and
you wasted our time, the audience's time, which is an
affront in and of itself. It almost feels like you
wasted everybody else's time too, because to your point with
Dennis Dugan and Bruce Kirby, like they're painted as morons.
(16:22):
They're spinning their wheels all episode, like even the people
that are meant to be the villains, it's that's not
even believable. It's just you're doing this because you're trying
to trick the audience, Like what tell a good story.
Don't worry about tricking the audience. It'll come if it comes,
and there will be some people that are just smarter
than you anyways and will know exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So we have someone dead. Eight minutes into this episode.
We get that weird shot of these curtains and Robert
Vaughan looking out the curtains and him cleaning this boat
part whatever, and then so we don't see the murder,
which is unusual. Sometimes the deaths take place off screen
(17:07):
or they're toned down, but this one we don't even
see John Danner's face. He's in the outfit, maybe he
was watching before, barely on screen. No real reason to
kill this guy either, Like a lot of times when
we're watching these, it's just like, oh wow, there's a
big reason why we want this person dead. You think
of Ida Lupino or somebody, and it's just, oh my god,
(17:29):
Like Johnny Cash wants to fuck these groupies. He's got
this horrible Holy Roller wife. Let's get rid of her.
If it's not sex, it's money. We talked last time
as far as like the whole thing of Okay, what's
the motivation, Like, we don't know what the motivation is.
We don't know that Jack Cassidy or Colombo didn't know
(17:49):
that Jack Cassidy was a Nazi for the whole thing,
and he's struggling to find out that motive. I don't
think we really have a motive here at all. That
the thing is. I don't know who Fred Draper's character
is so much of this episode because I'm like, wait,
is he like a cousin, a nephew, a hanger on?
(18:10):
Like it just seems so obscure as far as who
he is and how he plays into this because he's
just kept over to the side through ninety percent of
this episode. It's almost like they bring him out to
be like and it's this guy who you might remember
from earlier.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
To your point again, all of this is serving a
different kind of purpose than I would say is normally
being served. And I think is the correct way of
making this show, which is serve the fucking narrative. Don't
serve these plot twists like your M proto M night Shamala.
I'm like, you've taken something that Again, there had to
be a show bible. We're five seasons in. You're taking
(18:48):
the show and what I would perceive to be the
show bible and just throwing it out the window. And
I don't and like, you can do it. I'm not
saying you can't anymore than you are. It's just it's
like offensive comedy. There's all these assholes that complain that
offensive comedy is gone. He can't be offensive anymore. No,
you can. If you're not funny, you're not funny and
people aren't gonna laugh and people will find it offensive.
(19:10):
If you're funny, people don't give a shit that you're offensive.
And if this episode had been atypical Colombo had been
shirking all the conventions of the show but had nailed it,
we would have nothing but praise. But because this episode
is such a fucking dud, because the reveal at the
end is he knew that the watch was broken. The
most circumstantial motherfucking evidence I've ever seen, Colombo.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Saying that the watch wasn't broken. Is your confession to
the crime, and you basically just said I did it?
Who gives a shit? Even there's not even any.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Way, there's no way to even prove it at this point,
like this guy actually gets away with a crime like
he could. He actually does, even though he says, no,
isn't the watch, Like, I don't think that would stand
up in a court of law. We talked about this before,
like not to be that guy, but I will be
that guy this time. This is one of those times
(20:10):
where I feel like Fred Raper just walks out of
the room and is like, can't fucking prove it? Can't
fucking prove it, can't That wasn't me, Cisco's himself, you know,
wasn't me? Like all right, just because he knew the
watch wasn't broken, what.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Are you gonna You're gonna hold a watch up to
somebody's ear and say this is the Commodore's watch. Could
be any watch, we don't know. Yeah, you get out
of this. It's not even a Trump deny, deny, deny
until the papers finally fall in line, or you just
move on to the next thing. It's just no, you
(20:42):
have no legal standing yet I know it's so bad.
And we spend so much time with Vaughan covering up
this crime because he thinks that his wife murdered her father.
And like I said, I did not get that impression
at all. Even after Robert Vaughan just mysteriously disappears from
(21:05):
this show, I never for one time thought, oh, what
must have been Diane Baker and her drunken thing, even
when they go, well, we found lipstick and we found
this brooch, or that he handed the brooch over to her.
I didn't even get that, Chris. I didn't get when
he handed her the brooch that was left at the
(21:25):
scene of the crime, and that was implicating her. That's how.
And I'm a smart person. I will sometimes I downplay
it and I go, I could have missed that.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Sometimes you gonna play it up for the plot.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
And sometimes yeah, I mean we get into midnight viewing
and a lot of times I'm honestly baffled by some
of these plots of The Night Gallery or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Shit. Though, Like there are some episodes of that show
that are beyond understanding, Frank.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
This is storytelling, one oh one. This is the basics
here that I should have no, oh, maybe she was
the one that did this. No, that never crossed my
mind one time. Oh my god. And then it just
continues to go on from there. We have one of
the earliest appearances of Colombo. And even then it is
(22:17):
the strangest thing of the finger on the lips and
the turn, and then Diane Baker finally comes to the door,
like he's standing there with his finger over his lips
for it feels like thirty solid seconds, and I'm like,
what is happening?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I was wondering the same. I'm wondering what the fuck
is going on through most of this episode because Colombo
just we've seen these episodes before where Colombo doesn't feel
like he's part of the episode in a substantive way,
and this is one where I'm just like, this crime
seems beneath Colombo.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It's not even a crime. For the first yeah, quite
a bit of it. It's a missing person's crows. He
shouldn't be involved at all, that's true, Tue Colombo.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But it's Colombo. He knows, he already knows, and That's
why it's again with Columbo, you just have to sit
and think to yourself. With this show, I know that
you know that we know that Colombo is already aware
as to who the killer is. But it's like with wrestling,
you don't have to break kfad and I don't know.
It's really frustrating to me that the show knows that
(23:22):
we know that they reveal who the killer is at
the beginning of the show, because this is the only
reason you're doing what you're doing. It's not to be entertaining,
but it's not to do anything creative. It just seems
more like a shitty slide of hand gag that ends
up not working. The thing that I'm glad about ultimately
is that we have another episode that is Robert Vaughan,
(23:42):
because if this was the only episode with Robert Vaughan,
ooh god. Because I like Robert Vaughn a fair amount,
especially from basketball. That's what I think of when I
think of Robert Vaughan, and he is he was great
in that episode where he was on the boat and
Colombo knew he was the killer immediately, like he was
great in that. However, this episode not the best use
of his skills.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And we've got Wilfred Hyde white back as well, who
sleeps with prostitutes. Okay, that whole weird exchange where he's
talking about being at this CD hotel with a woman
of ill repute and he says, shall we say we
(24:23):
weren't formally introduced. I'm like, okay, yeah, you just fucked
to prostitute. That's fine, sex workers work. But it just
felt so out of place in this episode.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I don't think this episode really knows what it wants
to be in the grand scheme of Colombo, because it
does feel like it wants to be its own thing,
that's setting its own tone that we're not familiar with,
and it's trying to maybe do a little bit more
not more per se, but again trying to be a
little bit more of a creative Colombo in terms of
(24:58):
the expectations of what the audience normally gets with these
kinds of things. And I got I just have a
hard time thinking that when this episode aired, people resonated
with it. I know. I've gone and looked at information
subsequent to this episode coming out, and the episode was
not well received, and it's not well received by the
Colombo fandom. As it were.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
People are posting about it this.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Week, yeah, consistently.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Well, they're like, this is one of the weaker episodes.
I'm like, no, it's not one of the weaker, it's
the weakest one. Yeah, it is horrible. And Peter Falk
is not playing Colombo. He's playing some preity version of Colombo.
Him invading that girl's space which is trying to transcendental
(25:42):
meditation and the thing with the legs, and I'm like,
oh my god, yeah, what are you doing.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I didn't understand what is his problem in this episode.
It's like the person writing the episode has never written
for the show before, which is not the case. Which
is not only not the case, He's written plenty of
times for this show. So I don't understand why were
this far? Like why is the gap between expectation and
(26:12):
reality this wide?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
David Kaning had that great book about unfilmed Colombo, and
you get to hear some of the or read some
of the different ways that things could have gone, and
I think they might have had some who done it
rather than how catch him type stuff, But every single
one of those descriptions of stuff I read was way
(26:36):
better than this. And to your point, yeah, go ahead,
subvert expectations. We're ready for it. We've seen some weird
shit happen. I was one of the people that was
just like, Hey, why don't we have an episode of
Lost that's all from the dog's perspective. Why not let's
try it out. I think there's an episode of Supernatural
(26:57):
that's all from the car's perspective.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
There's an episode of Supernatural where they meet Scooby Doo
and they literally become animated, and the people who watched
the show were one hundred percent on board with it totally.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I watched that episode and I really liked that episode. Episode.
There were some like the I always hate to pick
on this episode because one of my best friend's brother
wrote it, the like teenage werewolf type thing that was
like supposed to be a backdoor pilot for another show.
It was horrible, absolutely horrible, And it's okay. There's an
(27:32):
episode that didn't work that tried to subvert expectations. I
think you could have subverted expectations with Colombo and had
a very successful thing if you didn't choose to do
it this way and make this thing a literal parody
of Colombo.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Well, and that's What I don't understand is why inject
it with this like weird amount of comedy, Like it
doesn't not saying Columbo's not a funny show. There is
comedy in the show. I just don't think that it's
a comedic show the way that the Rider Jackson Gillis
wrote this episode. And I don't understand. I guess for me,
I don't understand what is the point of doing this?
(28:09):
And in your mind, I want your thoughts, what are
your thoughts on doing this way? Does it smack of
obviousness to have this episode end the fifth season?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
We have to talk about the end of the episode
a little bit. This whole him trying to quit smoking
cigars through the whole thing, right, and then him at
the end when it's like he's lighting at the cigar
and Bruce Kirby's I thought you said you quit, Oh
not yet, and then goes off smoking a cigar and
(28:42):
whistling at the same time, which seems like a really
cool skill to have because it's so eighty yard. It's
not even funny of him whistling. This old man getting
in a boat and going out to sea. Okay, I
guess we haven't seen the last of columb Oh yeah,
this could have been the last Columbo episode. Thank god
(29:03):
that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Boy, wouldn't that have been a shame?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
My god? It would have been the end of Lost
all over again. It would do you know what it
would have been. It would have been the fucking end
of the Prisoner. Because that's the guy who I just
blame for this, Peter. Let's do something a little different
with the character this time. What say, maybe when these
two gentlemen from the lagoon come in and we have
(29:31):
Dennis introduce them, and he'll introduce the one person to
each one of you, and then he'll introduce the second
person to each one of you. There'll be a flurry
of handshakes and it will take at least five minutes
for this joke to play out. It will be marvelous.
This is, for me, just the worst Patrick McGowin experiment ever.
(29:53):
This is up there with the end of the Prisoner
for me.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, can we talk about Patrick mcgo in for a second.
What kind of fucking clowns? Sometimes? Right like, he clearly
kake it out of his own way.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
He could be brilliant at times, but he could also
be his worst enemy.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Often I think he's his worst enemy. I think you're
right in your mind, because you've watched this show a lot,
and I really want to know as somebody's a big
fan of this show. There's no episode that comes as
close to being as bad as this episode.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
No, there are some moments. The first thing that pops
in my head is later on during the ABC years. Again,
sometimes it feels like Folk is playing at Colombo parody
rather than Colombo. There's one section speaking of this old
man somehow he plays a tuba, and he plays this
(30:45):
old man on the tuba and there's dancing water going
on at the same time. It's so strange and just
so tonally off from everything else in that episode. But
in the Columbus overall, that is a moment that sticks
out like a sore thumb for me. That's a moment,
(31:05):
that's a scene that's not ninety five ninety minutes of
just absolute ass clownery.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's shocking to me how bad this episode is, because
this feels, again, it feels like it's up there with
some of the worst things I've seen that we've watched together.
This is the length of a goddamn feature film and
one of the things we've talked about so much with
this show is they have all these random paths that
(31:36):
they don't go down, and then they ultimately go down
this one path to solve the crime. Obviously, as if
we've alluded to this episode already is not playing fair
because this episode is not being clear with who they
murderer is. So that's fine in and of itself, but
then on top of everything else, to have the way
the murder is done solved with a watch in Colombo's
(31:58):
hands just smacks of running aground in the last act
and having nowhere to go and just throwing caution to
the wind. It's so disappointing to me that it's just
the watch in his hand. There were so many other
directions to go, and that's the direction that they ultimately chose.
It's just like a lot of other episodes of this
(32:20):
show that have happened this way. It just feels very unearned.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
And there's no breaks. There's no breaks in this episode.
I prayed for commercials because I talked about the handshake
thing that takes forever, and then they're on that boat
and they're talking about these jibs and mizzens and all
this stuff. And then at one point Peter Falk just
crouches down and is crawling around on the deck of
(32:45):
this boat, and I'm like, what the hell's going on here?
And then within five minutes of screen time, it's the
whole scene of him yelling up to the guy while
all the machinery is going on, and it's so loud
that they can't hear each other, and Folk is literally
breaking character and laughing at how ridiculous this scene is.
(33:08):
But I think he is having the time of his life,
and it's great. Great, Peter, I'm so glad you're happy.
But it feels to me like this is just some
sort of weird our play to get more fucking money
or something. And if I was NBC at the time,
I would have said, or what's it? Yeah, the Universal
(33:28):
and NBC, I would have said, you know what, if
you're gonna produce episodes like that, I don't need you.
I don't need you around, get the fuck out of here.
That was fucking stupid what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I don't even think stupid is a strong enough word.
I think for me, the best thing you can say
about this episode is that we're lucky it wasn't the
last episode of Colombo. That is the best thing you
can say about this episode, because if this had been
the last episode of Columbo, like my god, talk about
a show that just fucking shits the bed in a
way that like the only shows like The Prisoner really can't.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Like I said, Fred Draper is no star. Robert Vaughan
would have been a good killer. Of course, we've already
seen that, even though they're handing it to us. I
guess that's why he's the red hearring.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, is because we've before queuing to the expectations of
the audience, which has nothing to do with the fun Like,
how is this as meta as it? It's so meta
it hurts in a way, but it's not metada in
a way that matters. And I think that's maybe the
biggest problem is we know that you expect that the
killer is going to out himself immediately in the first
(34:37):
like ten minutes, So we're not gonna do that, and
that's I guess for me, I don't necessarily think when
I sit down to talk about something that I want
to spend more time being subversive than getting to the point.
And that's the problem. There's an episode here that needs
to be entertaining, and if you can't nail that, don't
(34:59):
care about anything else. The fact that he's not Columbo
is also a huge failing of the episode.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I'm thinking of the scene where he's taking a phone
call and he like basically sits on Robert Vaughan's lap
for a moment and then scooches next to him, and
Vaughn's just trying to move away, and Faulk puts his
arm around Vaughn and like as his arm around him
while he's on the phone. Like, that's not the character
that is not Colombo. Colombo is respectful to people, Like
(35:29):
we've already had the fucking clown car thing that you're
talking about, and now he's doing this. Where is the
obsequious little man that we've come to expect. And again,
I'm okay, if you want to subvert those expectations, but
do it in a way that makes fucking sense. Man,
go ahead, turn this into They literally have the drawing
(35:49):
room scene at the end with all of the suspects
there and Colombo laying it out. Okay, great, that's a
little bit of a different way. We've not seen that
very much before. Or Okay, thank you, but now just
doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's again, it's almost like you went and saw all
these other things and we're just trying to paste Agatha
Christie and Poirot and Miss Marple into this character. Which again, look,
I think at the end of the day, for me,
it would be interesting to see Colombo doing those kinds
of things, like it would be interesting to see Colombo
(36:26):
being a character who does the drawing room scene at
the end of the episode, because we've seen it before.
But it doesn't work here because it's just there's so
little motivation for me as an audience member to care
because the story is very lackluster. The villain is very again,
(36:48):
if you take away half of the episode, how am
I supposed to like it? That's the other thing, right,
We spend so much time with the villains in most
of these episodes that they are essentially the main character
of the episode, and Colombo is the one who's showing
up to would have gone away with it if not
for you, shabby detective, And here it's like we don't
get to spend time with the villains. So to your point,
Fred Draper is just a guy who killed someone. Okay, Okay,
(37:12):
that's fine. I just I don't care because you haven't
made me care, and in the lack of making me
care is the problem.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
We love the cat and mouse, but he's playing cat
and mouse with the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah. Intent, and that's the intent of the writer is
we're gonna bait you into thinking it's one thing when
it's another. Again, that's perfectly fine. I just don't think
this episode does a very good job in executing it.
And so because it doesn't do a very good job
in executing it, it just it feels like it digs
itself a much deeper hole than know what have otherwise
if it had just been a normal, middle of the
road episode. It feels like this episode is setting itself
(37:47):
up to be like a punching bag almost. If you
fail like this doing something different, all you deserve is
for people to go You should have just done a
normal episode.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I can't even say that there is a decent mystery
in here, things like the one I don't know nautical
thing being clean, or the stencils that they find the
oh it's sales period. Oh boy, it's like Jesus Christ,
How easy is this for you? Guys? There's a woman
named Lisa that you just had transcendental.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Meditationes sale, sale, Mike, don't you know the only letters
that go together is sale. It couldn't be a word
with three or four of the letters. And then it
gets fuck off. Columbo's not this stupid. I have a
hard time believing Columbo's this stupid. I think is the issue? Like,
and again it goes back to the clown car seat.
(38:41):
This is not something anybody wanted from Columbo, So why
are we injecting it into the character.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I was talking about Dugan with his whole thing of
just having to come up with stuff. Colombo him back
on that Doc and the way that Mac comes up
and is your leg is the shore in this? And
I'm like, oh my god, how long is this gonna
go on? And how stupid is this? And you just
(39:07):
see this man floundering. It's an embarrassment. It's an embarrassment
for me with Bruce Kirby when he's holding that lamp
forever and he's like, oh, Lieutenant, can I put down
the lamp? And I'm like, who thought that was funny?
Who honestly got a guffall out of that?
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Is that a Colombo? Is that a Peter Falk. Choice
is that a Magoon choice? Is that a Jackson Gillis choice?
And what's your read on it?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
It felt to me like Magooin had some sort of
influence over Falk. I'm like, Peter, stick with Cassavetti, stick
with Gazara, Stick with these guys. They're leading you down
the right way. If you want to challenge things that way,
do not challenge them. As in, let's make the least
(39:49):
entertaining episode of this show that we possibly can. It
feels like that was the mission statement.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Let's piss off the audience, Like I.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Said end of the Prisoner, Let's just go ahead and
just say fuck you, roll the die. And yeah, I'm
trying to remember which Mark Mallar comic it is, if
it's kick Ass or if it's Wanted or whatever. But
there's one graphic novel that he ends with the main
character breaking the fourth wall and talking to the reader
(40:18):
about basically what pieces of shit the readers are and
how stupid they are. And I'm like, what are you doing?
Why are you I bought this book, Why are you
insulting me? Your reader? You just wake up on the
wrong side of the bed. This whole episode feels like this,
this episode woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
If the intention is to be subversive, at least be entertaining,
because otherwise it just feels like you're coming out of
left field, like you said, coming out of left field,
and seems like you have what's the term, seems like
you have a fucking bone to pick and it's an agenda. Yeah,
And I'm like, what fucking agenda do we have with Columbo?
(41:01):
Like I don't want to reveal who the villain is
in the first twenty minutes. Jackson Gillis probably said, I
hate that we have to reveal who the villain is
at the beginning of the episode, And so in me
hating it, I'm going to do something completely different. And
because I have been trusted enough by the creators of
the show previously to write for this character, they are
(41:22):
going to give me free reign to write for this
character again. Literally, that should not have been the case,
because this is not a good episode. And Jackson Gillis's
other episodes have been fun, they have not been affronts
to good sensibility like this episode. But not everything that
anyone writes is going to be the best foot forward.
(41:43):
This just seems like we've already alluded to it. It
seems like there was an intention here that I don't
I don't think is necessary with the show like Columbus.
You want to do something like that, there are shows
that are on TV at the time where you can
go and just do a very stereotypical murder mystery who
on it? Like? You don't have to go and make
a show fit into a very narrow box that you
(42:06):
want it to be part of. What a shame, What
a weird way to end the fifth season. What a
bad taste to leave in our mouths.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
If you want some entertainment, I would recommend going over
to the Columbo file and reading that review of it.
It's as acerbic as ours was, if not more. He
put a lot of words into this very well written stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
This is an episode that gets what it deserves. It
is asking to be like again, it's painting a target
on its forehead, willingly like, punch me in the fucking
face please again? Like you want to subvert expectations. Cool,
don't be surprised if people don't like the episodes. Yeah,
and I wish there were more folkisms only because maybe
that would redeem the episode a little bit. But I
(42:49):
think in the grand scheme of things, I'm glad that
this episode is only an hour and a half because
just give us, what if it was a two hour
episode one top everything else? Fuck off? You are doing that. No,
I'm good, Please don't subject me to that. So there
are some benefits here that the way they subverted expectations
weren't completely off the rails. But I'm sorry that we
(43:12):
had to watch this together. But you've been dreading this
day since the moment we started this show.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Like you said, I've made no bones about it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Now, literally since we started this fucking season, like five
six months ago, whatever the fucking was at this point.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
The next episode of Colombo that we get to is
it's going to redeem this one because it's so good.
Oh good, at least in my mind, it's that good.
It's the first of two appearances of William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Oh no, you're in the rocket Man himself.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
He's here in the NBC years. He also comes back
for one in the ABC years as well. But before
we do that, there's a couple of things that we
should probably watch because around this time, Peter Falk was
in a TV movie. Now, I've never seen this in
the This is very unusual for me as far as
like these two titles. So first we're going to talk
about the TV movie he made called Griffin and Phoenix,
(44:05):
and then after that we're gonna look at Elaine May's
Mikey and Nicky. So it's actually going to be paired
with Cassavetti's in a movie directed by Elaine May. And
just having these two amper sayan joined titles is strange,
but hey, let's do it. Let's dive into those and
take a look at that stuff. So, yeah, take a
(44:26):
little bit of a break, definitely try to wash the
taste out of our mouth with this Commodore episode. Holy
fucking shit, we're the worst.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Thing we've watched on this show. And I think that
would surprise people because we have watched something that I
think most people would gladly drag, which is Kirky Romano,
which looks like a fucking masterpiece compared to this piece
of shit.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
It's chef's kiss to this.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yho. This is this really is an affront to the
good will that this show is built up.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Really, Yeah, oh my gosh, So I'm glad we made
it through this. I'm glad you didn't lose your fucking mind,
because I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind
the other day when I was.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Watching this, I watched it three times. Holy fuck yeah,
and one of those times with my girlfriend and she
was just like, what's wrong with this episode? And I
was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
It feels like it showed up from a mirror universe.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Right in the universe where someone doesn't know how to
write this show.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
In the multiverse, there's a version of Colombo that was
written and directed by really stupid people, and this is
the result.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Not only that, but also again, we know that at
some point somebody looked at Peter Fake and said, are
you okay with this? And he was just like Robiley, like,
I don't know if Peter Fall could have even fought
hard enough to stop this vote from running ashore on
the banks. But you know what, fine, oh man, Mike,
I'm so ready to never have to talk about this again.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
We'll bring it up everyone.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Remember its fucking shared trauma.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Now the low Water Mine I'm bonded by.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
How aw fucking full this episode is. My God, It's
a link of a movie Mike, it's an hour and
a half.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
To At least they didn't try to release this in
it or something. At least there's not some sort of
Italian poster for this, Thank god. Luta Mossaluta a la camadora.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
With international superstar Dennis Duke, It Playboy, the.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Eighties, The Love Dennis du Again.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
They can't get enough of the Big D, the Double D,
the Double D. Dennis dug canna have everybody?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Uh, Chris, when you're not pretending to be drunk and
embarrassing yourself in a cocktail lounge, what are you up
to these?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Oh? My god, boy? If I weren't doing that right now,
what could I be doing otherwise with my time?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You can find me over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where
all the shows that I work on can be found,
including this one and the Culture Cast and I shall
but the projection ruths him to tie, and I'm on
midnight viewing from time to time. I guess technically we're
co hosts run that show. So I prattled on long enough.
Those are the places you can find me. What about you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, I have to admit I laughed pretty hard when
it came to the victim in this episode. Oh, we
just saw him in Airplane too, That's right, and it
was much better in that episode.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think everybody's been better in everything I've ever seen
them in other than this.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Under percent as far as me, yep, same thing. Weirdowomedia
dot com. Definitely come on over check out some of
the other shows that we work on at it. There's
The Feminine Critique, Twisted and Court. There's eighties TV Ladies,
all kinds of good stuff out there for your entertainment.
It doesn't just have to be about Chris and I,
but it can be. You could live your whole life
just listening to me and Chris just pratt a lot
(47:44):
about different things. We've got a lot of opinions, and
we are not afraid to show up.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Burn this.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
This must never be seen.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
By anyone.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Technicality inw
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Columbo podcast. I'm
your host, Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister Christashue.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Boy, you, my friend. You did not bury the lead
far enough. Mike, this is just.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Whoof I thought you were just going to say, isn't
it isn't?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, paint tis more like you.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
On this episode, we are wrapping up season five of
Colombo with the sixth episode of that fifth season came
out May second, nineteen seventy six and ninety one minute
episode written by Jackson gillis directed by our old friend
Patrick McGowin. Welcome to the most bizarre episode of Colombo
(01:11):
that ever aired. Last salute to the commodore. This is it.
No matter what, Chris, no matter how bad the ABC
years get, and there's going to be some bad moments,
it's never going to get as bad as this. Again,
this is the nature of Colombo.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That's good to know. This is, without a doubt, the
worst episode of the show that we have seen so far.
And if it is the worst episode of the show overall,
I believe it. It is a unusually framed episode of
Colombo that the framework of the episode makes no sense
(01:55):
in terms of the way that these stories are always told.
It feels like somebody is I'm going to do something different, yes,
and how did that work out for you? They don't
know how to write the character of Colombo at all,
and in not knowing how to write the character of Colombo,
they effectively rob the episode of any goodwill that it
would have had otherwise, because in not having Colombo act
(02:18):
like Colombo, you have this weird fake Colombo facsimile, Colombo,
pseudo Colombo who stumbles around the episode just being mean
to everybody. And I cannot abide this episode. Man. I
know we're gonna have to talk about it. I know
it's an hour and a half long. It's as long
as a goddamn movie. It's as long as the early
(02:39):
Marvel films are. And yes, that should be insane, because
this does not justify an hour and a half running
time at all.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've seen this episode many times, more times than I
wish to remember. I think I finally figured it out
last time I was watching it. I said to myself,
this is a bad Colombo parody. This is somebody saying,
let's make a complete fool out of Colombo for the
(03:12):
entire episode. It might as well have been Bert Young
playing Colombo in this episode. It has that tonality to it.
It's the strangest, most perplexing, wrongheaded thing I've ever experienced.
I felt like I was having a mental breakdown when
I was watching this again the other day, because this
(03:32):
is the first time I really sat down and paid
attention to it. Like, that's the thing with this show
that I've really come to appreciate. And I really like
watching Colombo with you. I really like hearing your thoughts
about Colombo, and I really like watching these episode with
new eyes thinking about how you might be experiencing them.
But also for me, I grew up on this stuff,
(03:55):
so now finally sitting down, I'm sure it was very
much like with the Kolchak, where it's, oh, yeah, you
grew up on that stuff. I had seen Kolchak before,
but not nearly to the extent that you had, so
you're familiar with it. I was coming to it as
a nube definitely, as we're watching the Sopranos, that's the
exact same feeling. So this is giving me a new
(04:16):
found appreciation of Columba, which makes this episode even more
painful when I see just how weird this shit is.
We've talked about double murderers before, but we've never been
led down this path to think that somebody is a murder,
to think that somebody else is a murderer, and then
(04:38):
to finally come up with the real murderer. And I
will tell you, and I know we're jumping ahead a
little bit, but I will tell you as far as
the oh, Robert Vaughan is covering up for Diane Baker,
that never entered into my head whatsoever. Like I was
never anywhere near that. I was just like, yep, it's
Robert Vaughan. And then when it wasn't, Robert Vaughan killed
(05:00):
off screen, just disappears from the fucking episode. Then I'm like,
you know what, I have no idea who killed him.
Diane Baker never went through my head because she's fucking
drunk through the entire fucking episode. I think there's like,
what two scenes where she's not drunk. Maybe well, I
think she's hungover when they give the news that the
(05:21):
Commodore is dead.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okay, fair god, I was wondering that the entire episode.
I was like, man, Mike must really love this episode
on top of everything else, because we all know how
much you love people pretending to be drunk, and not
only that, but like the most like on the nose
kind of drunk possible, like the belligerent, like forgetful drunk,
and it's like, who fucking care? I guess I had
(05:42):
a hard time figuring out who fucking cares in this episode.
This episode did a very poor job of getting me
to understand why I should care. And also I really
hate that this episode does not play fair at all.
I find that to be absurd because it's like I
inherently trust this show, and the show is just squandering
(06:06):
all the trust that I have in it because we
want to do something different for one episode. It's like
the formula of the show's not good enough, Like it's
not good enough for you. Like I just I have
a hard time understanding what would motivate you to write
an episode so atypical for a show whose formula works
so well and is so fine tuned that there's no
(06:26):
need to like really upend the apple cart that much.
And Jackson Gillis.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He's a regular writer on this show. I don't know
why he did it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, he's written plenty of episodes for this show. Yeah,
makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
And I don't know how much is Jackson Gillison. I
don't know how much is Patrick McGowin. I feel like
a lot of this lance at the feet of McGowan
just based upon that Identity Crisis episode that we watched,
and to see how falk was playing Colombo differently in
that one. Thinking about like the revelation of Colombo when
(07:02):
he's walking down the beach and there's the smoke and
all that stuff, and just the weirdness when he was
flipping over the body and all that stuff. That's this
for ninety fucking minutes is just why did you make
this decision? Why are you doing this? They are keystone
copping it up. Every single time you see Dennis Stugan
(07:27):
and Bruce Kirby on screen, they might as well be
playing like Yakay Sacks or something. It is bizarre. The
whole thing in the car, Oh my god, when they're
just like, oh, excuse me, car bullshit, the clown car yes,
and the zooming around the parking lot, I'm like, what
(07:47):
are we doing here? What are we doing people?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Tonally, it is one of the weirdest episodes of this
show because it makes no sense. And then on top
of everything else because the tone doesn't make any sense,
because we have Dennis Dugan in this episode, because we
have Bruce Kirby in this episode. We have all of
these moving parts exterior to Colombo that go nowhere and
ultimately make Columbo seem like a moron on top of
everything else, because it's like, why are you even having
(08:13):
these people around if they're so in neept, Just get
rid of them, like you don't need anybody, Like Bob
Dishy in the last episode was great and all, but
Colombo works alone. He works alone, that's his thing. He
doesn't need anybody to help him. And when people do
help him sometimes they just get in the way.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Literally, would you be surprised if I told you that
Dennis Dugan was a late add to this show and
had no dialogue written for him. It's all improv. What
they're doing is fucking improv when they are having those conversations,
the embarrassing conversations, and this whole thing about his character
(08:54):
Mac having a Polish name and not being Scottish or
Irish at all, and Colombo just can't accept that. For
whatever reason, all of that horseshit totally made up on
the spot. That's why Duken is constantly repeating what people say.
He doesn't know where to go. Dennis dukean' is a
(09:14):
talented actor, but he was given this shiit sandwich and
then we're expected to eat it.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
D This is uh Ensen, O'Connor, Tenna Columbo, Sergean Kramer, O'Connor,
Stargust and sixteen Charles play and this is Bold and
Mate Murray, Sorry, Lieutenant Columbo both in Mace Murray. This
(09:44):
is Sergeant Kramer, argue. This is a to Clay. Charles
says Boden mart to gentleman, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Board, Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. We talked about
this at the end of the last episode. Dennis Dugan
had his own pilot for his own show that would
cut or not even a pilot. I guess it was
a full show. It ran for one season where he's
essentially playing a detective.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And I don't know if that game I need to
talk to. I've got a couple of friends that I think,
even Richard Adam is a huge fan of The Rockford Files.
I need to find out if Ricky Brockleman was before
Rockford and then just showed up on The Rockford Files.
It was to.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Watch the character.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Okay, that makes a lot more sense because in one
of the books that I read, I was just like,
am I reading this right? This doesn't seem right? So
I must have been incorrect about that.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And what's actually fucking wild to me is this came
before that. Somebody saw this and was like, this is
the guy we want to give a show too. He
has no charisma whatsoever. Dennis Dugan is just I can't
wait to see him in Haviy Gilmour too. What is
one say about a guy who's clearly more adept at
(11:02):
being a director than he is an actor. And even
you're directing Sandler movies, not to diminish what you do,
but Adam Sandler movies, I feel like Adam Sandler knows
what he's doing. And that's probably the benefit of working
with Adam Sandler, as he knows what he wants and
knows how to get there. So I mean he directed
some of Adam Sandler's better movies. I would say Happy
(11:25):
Gilmore Big Daddy. I know people like Big Daddy a lot.
I'm not a huge fan of Big Daddy. Jack and Jill.
I think Honestly, it's just such a fucking weird ass movie.
And that thing at the end without Pacino is truly
you know what I'm talking You know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Talking about du from Jack and Jill.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That is the singular thing from that movie that is redeeming.
But Dennis Dugan primarily just works with Adam Sandler from
like the nineties on. So I don't like him as
an actor because every time I've seen him in anything,
I'm like, Okay, you've very just generic white guy. But
to see him in like the Sefan Dei's and they're
like trying to get him to be a thing, it's
(12:04):
like Dennis Dugan's with hindsights, so not a thing.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I remember liking him on Hill Street Blues and Mash,
but that's about it. He earns some goodwill from me
for those I haven't gone back and watched those episodes.
He also lost a lot of goodwill from my perspective,
because I want to say he played the astronaut in Moonlighting,
(12:30):
and it was during that horrible last season of Moonlighting
that just had like barely any episodes. It just felt
so thrown together. That whole will they won't they thing
that has ruined so many shows that for me, like
the ground zero is Moonlighting and just how they just
had no fucking idea how to handle the will they
(12:53):
won't they with Bruce Willis and Sybil Shepherd and then
they stuck Dennis Dugan in there like Dennis do and
compete with rhyme Bruce Willis.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
No, no, not even remotely, man, that will they won't.
They became so oh it'd infected some of the best
shows of the nineties, like The X Files ends up
having a lot of that. Like, I'm so glad TV
shows really have walked away from some of those conventions
because that was just the worst, the drizzling shits, because man,
(13:26):
once you give up the ghost, what do you do then?
But you're so sucks. That's what happens with most of
these shows.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I was surprised they actually seemed to handle it okay
for Bones, But that's one of the few shows that
I can point at and say, oh, they fucked. They
stayed together, they had a relationship, they had kids, they
got married, not in that order, and the show kept
going and it was actually decent. But then yeah, even
(13:53):
like some of the side characters that got together I
was like, no, we don't need that. Keep that out
of here. We don't need everybody to get married. We
don't need everybody to ruin the will they won't they
Just let's keep some sexual tension on the show.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Play Supernatural is the ultimate sexual tension show.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Sam and Dean definitely got them kinkiest gay sex imaginable.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
My God, glad that Colombo doesn't have that, And to
be fair, if it did, it would not be with
Dennis Dugan, because Dennis Dugan is again a two by
four with googly eyes, and that's being kind. Bruce Kirby,
on the other hand, him and Colombo might have They
have a good time two kind of gruff guys together.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I want to talk about some of just the strange
things in this episode eight minutes in the Commodore is dead.
First off, when they show the title Last Salute to
the Commodore, it's not John Dyer on screen, it's Fred Draper.
It's interesting too that their names sound a little similar,
because there's this whole thing of them being mistaken for
(14:58):
each other, which is also weird because I think the
last time we saw Fred Draper, he was the twin
brother of the Blind guy, and we've seen Fred Draper
a lot. Fred Draper is not quite val Avery level
as far as appearances on here, but he's definitely there.
Like we've seen him four times maybe, and then I
know we saw him in Woman on the Verge of
(15:18):
a nervous breakdown. Woman on the Verge. Sorry, keep getting
mixed up with the al Madovar film, so we've seen
him spoilers by the way, he is not the caliber
of an actor. Sorry, Fred to be the Killer, he's not.
He's just he's a big player suddenly elevated in this episode.
(15:40):
To be at the Killer, we.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Had to subvert the expectations of the audience. Mike, It's
like the most exhausting shit, so unrecking, believably exhausting. Like
the thing that made this episode so exhausting is, see,
I'm clever, and it's no, you're not. Everybody knows somebody
like this. It thinks they're clever or smart or they're
(16:02):
gonna ha gotcha. I don't know how to tell you this,
but you fucked up the formula of Glumbo royally and
you wasted our time, the audience's time, which is an
affront in and of itself. It almost feels like you
wasted everybody else's time too, because to your point with
Dennis Dugan and Bruce Kirby, like they're painted as morons.
(16:22):
They're spinning their wheels all episode, like even the people
that are meant to be the villains, it's that's not
even believable. It's just you're doing this because you're trying
to trick the audience, Like what tell a good story.
Don't worry about tricking the audience. It'll come if it comes,
and there will be some people that are just smarter
than you anyways and will know exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So we have someone dead. Eight minutes into this episode.
We get that weird shot of these curtains and Robert
Vaughan looking out the curtains and him cleaning this boat
part whatever, and then so we don't see the murder,
which is unusual. Sometimes the deaths take place off screen
(17:07):
or they're toned down, but this one we don't even
see John Danner's face. He's in the outfit, maybe he
was watching before, barely on screen. No real reason to
kill this guy either, Like a lot of times when
we're watching these, it's just like, oh wow, there's a
big reason why we want this person dead. You think
of Ida Lupino or somebody, and it's just, oh my god,
(17:29):
Like Johnny Cash wants to fuck these groupies. He's got
this horrible Holy Roller wife. Let's get rid of her.
If it's not sex, it's money. We talked last time
as far as like the whole thing of Okay, what's
the motivation, Like, we don't know what the motivation is.
We don't know that Jack Cassidy or Colombo didn't know
(17:49):
that Jack Cassidy was a Nazi for the whole thing,
and he's struggling to find out that motive. I don't
think we really have a motive here at all. That
the thing is. I don't know who Fred Draper's character
is so much of this episode because I'm like, wait,
is he like a cousin, a nephew, a hanger on?
(18:10):
Like it just seems so obscure as far as who
he is and how he plays into this because he's
just kept over to the side through ninety percent of
this episode. It's almost like they bring him out to
be like and it's this guy who you might remember
from earlier.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
To your point again, all of this is serving a
different kind of purpose than I would say is normally
being served. And I think is the correct way of
making this show, which is serve the fucking narrative. Don't
serve these plot twists like your M proto M night Shamala.
I'm like, you've taken something that Again, there had to
be a show bible. We're five seasons in. You're taking
(18:48):
the show and what I would perceive to be the
show bible and just throwing it out the window. And
I don't and like, you can do it. I'm not
saying you can't anymore than you are. It's just it's
like offensive comedy. There's all these assholes that complain that
offensive comedy is gone. He can't be offensive anymore. No,
you can. If you're not funny, you're not funny and
people aren't gonna laugh and people will find it offensive.
(19:10):
If you're funny, people don't give a shit that you're offensive.
And if this episode had been atypical Colombo had been
shirking all the conventions of the show but had nailed it,
we would have nothing but praise. But because this episode
is such a fucking dud, because the reveal at the
end is he knew that the watch was broken. The
most circumstantial motherfucking evidence I've ever seen, Colombo.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Saying that the watch wasn't broken. Is your confession to
the crime, and you basically just said I did it?
Who gives a shit? Even there's not even any.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Way, there's no way to even prove it at this point,
like this guy actually gets away with a crime like
he could. He actually does, even though he says, no,
isn't the watch, Like, I don't think that would stand
up in a court of law. We talked about this before,
like not to be that guy, but I will be
that guy this time. This is one of those times
(20:10):
where I feel like Fred Raper just walks out of
the room and is like, can't fucking prove it? Can't
fucking prove it, can't That wasn't me, Cisco's himself, you know,
wasn't me? Like all right, just because he knew the
watch wasn't broken, what.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Are you gonna You're gonna hold a watch up to
somebody's ear and say this is the Commodore's watch. Could
be any watch, we don't know. Yeah, you get out
of this. It's not even a Trump deny, deny, deny
until the papers finally fall in line, or you just
move on to the next thing. It's just no, you
(20:42):
have no legal standing yet I know it's so bad.
And we spend so much time with Vaughan covering up
this crime because he thinks that his wife murdered her father.
And like I said, I did not get that impression
at all. Even after Robert Vaughan just mysteriously disappears from
(21:05):
this show, I never for one time thought, oh, what
must have been Diane Baker and her drunken thing, even
when they go, well, we found lipstick and we found
this brooch, or that he handed the brooch over to her.
I didn't even get that, Chris. I didn't get when
he handed her the brooch that was left at the
(21:25):
scene of the crime, and that was implicating her. That's how.
And I'm a smart person. I will sometimes I downplay
it and I go, I could have missed that.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Sometimes you gonna play it up for the plot.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
And sometimes yeah, I mean we get into midnight viewing
and a lot of times I'm honestly baffled by some
of these plots of The Night Gallery or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Shit. Though, Like there are some episodes of that show
that are beyond understanding, Frank.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
This is storytelling, one oh one. This is the basics
here that I should have no, oh, maybe she was
the one that did this. No, that never crossed my
mind one time. Oh my god. And then it just
continues to go on from there. We have one of
the earliest appearances of Colombo. And even then it is
(22:17):
the strangest thing of the finger on the lips and
the turn, and then Diane Baker finally comes to the door,
like he's standing there with his finger over his lips
for it feels like thirty solid seconds, and I'm like,
what is happening?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I was wondering the same. I'm wondering what the fuck
is going on through most of this episode because Colombo
just we've seen these episodes before where Colombo doesn't feel
like he's part of the episode in a substantive way,
and this is one where I'm just like, this crime
seems beneath Colombo.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It's not even a crime. For the first yeah, quite
a bit of it. It's a missing person's crows. He
shouldn't be involved at all, that's true, Tue Colombo.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But it's Colombo. He knows, he already knows, and That's
why it's again with Columbo, you just have to sit
and think to yourself. With this show, I know that
you know that we know that Colombo is already aware
as to who the killer is. But it's like with wrestling,
you don't have to break kfad and I don't know.
It's really frustrating to me that the show knows that
(23:22):
we know that they reveal who the killer is at
the beginning of the show, because this is the only
reason you're doing what you're doing. It's not to be entertaining,
but it's not to do anything creative. It just seems
more like a shitty slide of hand gag that ends
up not working. The thing that I'm glad about ultimately
is that we have another episode that is Robert Vaughan,
(23:42):
because if this was the only episode with Robert Vaughan,
ooh god. Because I like Robert Vaughn a fair amount,
especially from basketball. That's what I think of when I
think of Robert Vaughan, and he is he was great
in that episode where he was on the boat and
Colombo knew he was the killer immediately, like he was
great in that. However, this episode not the best use
of his skills.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And we've got Wilfred Hyde white back as well, who
sleeps with prostitutes. Okay, that whole weird exchange where he's
talking about being at this CD hotel with a woman
of ill repute and he says, shall we say we
(24:23):
weren't formally introduced. I'm like, okay, yeah, you just fucked
to prostitute. That's fine, sex workers work. But it just
felt so out of place in this episode.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I don't think this episode really knows what it wants
to be in the grand scheme of Colombo, because it
does feel like it wants to be its own thing,
that's setting its own tone that we're not familiar with,
and it's trying to maybe do a little bit more
not more per se, but again trying to be a
little bit more of a creative Colombo in terms of
(24:58):
the expectations of what the audience normally gets with these
kinds of things. And I got I just have a
hard time thinking that when this episode aired, people resonated
with it. I know. I've gone and looked at information
subsequent to this episode coming out, and the episode was
not well received, and it's not well received by the
Colombo fandom. As it were.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
People are posting about it this.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Week, yeah, consistently.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Well, they're like, this is one of the weaker episodes.
I'm like, no, it's not one of the weaker, it's
the weakest one. Yeah, it is horrible. And Peter Falk
is not playing Colombo. He's playing some preity version of Colombo.
Him invading that girl's space which is trying to transcendental
(25:42):
meditation and the thing with the legs, and I'm like,
oh my god, yeah, what are you doing.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I didn't understand what is his problem in this episode.
It's like the person writing the episode has never written
for the show before, which is not the case. Which
is not only not the case, He's written plenty of
times for this show. So I don't understand why were
this far? Like why is the gap between expectation and
(26:12):
reality this wide?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
David Kaning had that great book about unfilmed Colombo, and
you get to hear some of the or read some
of the different ways that things could have gone, and
I think they might have had some who done it
rather than how catch him type stuff, But every single
one of those descriptions of stuff I read was way
(26:36):
better than this. And to your point, yeah, go ahead,
subvert expectations. We're ready for it. We've seen some weird
shit happen. I was one of the people that was
just like, Hey, why don't we have an episode of
Lost that's all from the dog's perspective. Why not let's
try it out. I think there's an episode of Supernatural
(26:57):
that's all from the car's perspective.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
There's an episode of Supernatural where they meet Scooby Doo
and they literally become animated, and the people who watched
the show were one hundred percent on board with it totally.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I watched that episode and I really liked that episode. Episode.
There were some like the I always hate to pick
on this episode because one of my best friend's brother
wrote it, the like teenage werewolf type thing that was
like supposed to be a backdoor pilot for another show.
It was horrible, absolutely horrible, And it's okay. There's an
(27:32):
episode that didn't work that tried to subvert expectations. I
think you could have subverted expectations with Colombo and had
a very successful thing if you didn't choose to do
it this way and make this thing a literal parody
of Colombo.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Well, and that's What I don't understand is why inject
it with this like weird amount of comedy, Like it
doesn't not saying Columbo's not a funny show. There is
comedy in the show. I just don't think that it's
a comedic show the way that the Rider Jackson Gillis
wrote this episode. And I don't understand. I guess for me,
I don't understand what is the point of doing this?
(28:09):
And in your mind, I want your thoughts, what are
your thoughts on doing this way? Does it smack of
obviousness to have this episode end the fifth season?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
We have to talk about the end of the episode
a little bit. This whole him trying to quit smoking
cigars through the whole thing, right, and then him at
the end when it's like he's lighting at the cigar
and Bruce Kirby's I thought you said you quit, Oh
not yet, and then goes off smoking a cigar and
(28:42):
whistling at the same time, which seems like a really
cool skill to have because it's so eighty yard. It's
not even funny of him whistling. This old man getting
in a boat and going out to sea. Okay, I
guess we haven't seen the last of columb Oh yeah,
this could have been the last Columbo episode. Thank god
(29:03):
that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Boy, wouldn't that have been a shame?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
My god? It would have been the end of Lost
all over again. It would do you know what it
would have been. It would have been the fucking end
of the Prisoner. Because that's the guy who I just
blame for this, Peter. Let's do something a little different
with the character this time. What say, maybe when these
two gentlemen from the lagoon come in and we have
(29:31):
Dennis introduce them, and he'll introduce the one person to
each one of you, and then he'll introduce the second
person to each one of you. There'll be a flurry
of handshakes and it will take at least five minutes
for this joke to play out. It will be marvelous.
This is, for me, just the worst Patrick McGowin experiment ever.
(29:53):
This is up there with the end of the Prisoner
for me.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, can we talk about Patrick mcgo in for a second.
What kind of fucking clowns? Sometimes? Right like, he clearly
kake it out of his own way.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
He could be brilliant at times, but he could also
be his worst enemy.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Often I think he's his worst enemy. I think you're
right in your mind, because you've watched this show a lot,
and I really want to know as somebody's a big
fan of this show. There's no episode that comes as
close to being as bad as this episode.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
No, there are some moments. The first thing that pops
in my head is later on during the ABC years. Again,
sometimes it feels like Folk is playing at Colombo parody
rather than Colombo. There's one section speaking of this old
man somehow he plays a tuba, and he plays this
(30:45):
old man on the tuba and there's dancing water going
on at the same time. It's so strange and just
so tonally off from everything else in that episode. But
in the Columbus overall, that is a moment that sticks
out like a sore thumb for me. That's a moment,
(31:05):
that's a scene that's not ninety five ninety minutes of
just absolute ass clownery.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's shocking to me how bad this episode is, because
this feels, again, it feels like it's up there with
some of the worst things I've seen that we've watched together.
This is the length of a goddamn feature film and
one of the things we've talked about so much with
this show is they have all these random paths that
(31:36):
they don't go down, and then they ultimately go down
this one path to solve the crime. Obviously, as if
we've alluded to this episode already is not playing fair
because this episode is not being clear with who they
murderer is. So that's fine in and of itself, but
then on top of everything else, to have the way
the murder is done solved with a watch in Colombo's
(31:58):
hands just smacks of running aground in the last act
and having nowhere to go and just throwing caution to
the wind. It's so disappointing to me that it's just
the watch in his hand. There were so many other
directions to go, and that's the direction that they ultimately chose.
It's just like a lot of other episodes of this
(32:20):
show that have happened this way. It just feels very unearned.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
And there's no breaks. There's no breaks in this episode.
I prayed for commercials because I talked about the handshake
thing that takes forever, and then they're on that boat
and they're talking about these jibs and mizzens and all
this stuff. And then at one point Peter Falk just
crouches down and is crawling around on the deck of
(32:45):
this boat, and I'm like, what the hell's going on here?
And then within five minutes of screen time, it's the
whole scene of him yelling up to the guy while
all the machinery is going on, and it's so loud
that they can't hear each other, and Folk is literally
breaking character and laughing at how ridiculous this scene is.
(33:08):
But I think he is having the time of his life,
and it's great. Great, Peter, I'm so glad you're happy.
But it feels to me like this is just some
sort of weird our play to get more fucking money
or something. And if I was NBC at the time,
I would have said, or what's it? Yeah, the Universal
(33:28):
and NBC, I would have said, you know what, if
you're gonna produce episodes like that, I don't need you.
I don't need you around, get the fuck out of here.
That was fucking stupid what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I don't even think stupid is a strong enough word.
I think for me, the best thing you can say
about this episode is that we're lucky it wasn't the
last episode of Colombo. That is the best thing you
can say about this episode, because if this had been
the last episode of Columbo, like my god, talk about
a show that just fucking shits the bed in a
way that like the only shows like The Prisoner really can't.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Like I said, Fred Draper is no star. Robert Vaughan
would have been a good killer. Of course, we've already
seen that, even though they're handing it to us. I
guess that's why he's the red hearring.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, is because we've before queuing to the expectations of
the audience, which has nothing to do with the fun Like,
how is this as meta as it? It's so meta
it hurts in a way, but it's not metada in
a way that matters. And I think that's maybe the
biggest problem is we know that you expect that the
killer is going to out himself immediately in the first
(34:37):
like ten minutes, So we're not gonna do that, and
that's I guess for me, I don't necessarily think when
I sit down to talk about something that I want
to spend more time being subversive than getting to the point.
And that's the problem. There's an episode here that needs
to be entertaining, and if you can't nail that, don't
(34:59):
care about anything else. The fact that he's not Columbo
is also a huge failing of the episode.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I'm thinking of the scene where he's taking a phone
call and he like basically sits on Robert Vaughan's lap
for a moment and then scooches next to him, and
Vaughn's just trying to move away, and Faulk puts his
arm around Vaughn and like as his arm around him
while he's on the phone. Like, that's not the character
that is not Colombo. Colombo is respectful to people, Like
(35:29):
we've already had the fucking clown car thing that you're
talking about, and now he's doing this. Where is the
obsequious little man that we've come to expect. And again,
I'm okay, if you want to subvert those expectations, but
do it in a way that makes fucking sense. Man,
go ahead, turn this into They literally have the drawing
(35:49):
room scene at the end with all of the suspects
there and Colombo laying it out. Okay, great, that's a
little bit of a different way. We've not seen that
very much before. Or Okay, thank you, but now just
doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's again, it's almost like you went and saw all
these other things and we're just trying to paste Agatha
Christie and Poirot and Miss Marple into this character. Which again, look,
I think at the end of the day, for me,
it would be interesting to see Colombo doing those kinds
of things, like it would be interesting to see Colombo
(36:26):
being a character who does the drawing room scene at
the end of the episode, because we've seen it before.
But it doesn't work here because it's just there's so
little motivation for me as an audience member to care
because the story is very lackluster. The villain is very again,
(36:48):
if you take away half of the episode, how am
I supposed to like it? That's the other thing, right,
We spend so much time with the villains in most
of these episodes that they are essentially the main character
of the episode, and Colombo is the one who's showing
up to would have gone away with it if not
for you, shabby detective, And here it's like we don't
get to spend time with the villains. So to your point,
Fred Draper is just a guy who killed someone. Okay, Okay,
(37:12):
that's fine. I just I don't care because you haven't
made me care, and in the lack of making me
care is the problem.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
We love the cat and mouse, but he's playing cat
and mouse with the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah. Intent, and that's the intent of the writer is
we're gonna bait you into thinking it's one thing when
it's another. Again, that's perfectly fine. I just don't think
this episode does a very good job in executing it.
And so because it doesn't do a very good job
in executing it, it just it feels like it digs
itself a much deeper hole than know what have otherwise
if it had just been a normal, middle of the
road episode. It feels like this episode is setting itself
(37:47):
up to be like a punching bag almost. If you
fail like this doing something different, all you deserve is
for people to go You should have just done a
normal episode.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I can't even say that there is a decent mystery
in here, things like the one I don't know nautical
thing being clean, or the stencils that they find the
oh it's sales period. Oh boy, it's like Jesus Christ,
How easy is this for you? Guys? There's a woman
named Lisa that you just had transcendental.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Meditationes sale, sale, Mike, don't you know the only letters
that go together is sale. It couldn't be a word
with three or four of the letters. And then it
gets fuck off. Columbo's not this stupid. I have a
hard time believing Columbo's this stupid. I think is the issue? Like,
and again it goes back to the clown car seat.
(38:41):
This is not something anybody wanted from Columbo, So why
are we injecting it into the character.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I was talking about Dugan with his whole thing of
just having to come up with stuff. Colombo him back
on that Doc and the way that Mac comes up
and is your leg is the shore in this? And
I'm like, oh my god, how long is this gonna
go on? And how stupid is this? And you just
(39:07):
see this man floundering. It's an embarrassment. It's an embarrassment
for me with Bruce Kirby when he's holding that lamp
forever and he's like, oh, Lieutenant, can I put down
the lamp? And I'm like, who thought that was funny?
Who honestly got a guffall out of that?
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Is that a Colombo? Is that a Peter Falk. Choice
is that a Magoon choice? Is that a Jackson Gillis choice?
And what's your read on it?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
It felt to me like Magooin had some sort of
influence over Falk. I'm like, Peter, stick with Cassavetti, stick
with Gazara, Stick with these guys. They're leading you down
the right way. If you want to challenge things that way,
do not challenge them. As in, let's make the least
(39:49):
entertaining episode of this show that we possibly can. It
feels like that was the mission statement.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Let's piss off the audience, Like I.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Said end of the Prisoner, Let's just go ahead and
just say fuck you, roll the die. And yeah, I'm
trying to remember which Mark Mallar comic it is, if
it's kick Ass or if it's Wanted or whatever. But
there's one graphic novel that he ends with the main
character breaking the fourth wall and talking to the reader
(40:18):
about basically what pieces of shit the readers are and
how stupid they are. And I'm like, what are you doing?
Why are you I bought this book, Why are you
insulting me? Your reader? You just wake up on the
wrong side of the bed. This whole episode feels like this,
this episode woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
If the intention is to be subversive, at least be entertaining,
because otherwise it just feels like you're coming out of
left field, like you said, coming out of left field,
and seems like you have what's the term, seems like
you have a fucking bone to pick and it's an agenda. Yeah,
And I'm like, what fucking agenda do we have with Columbo?
(41:01):
Like I don't want to reveal who the villain is
in the first twenty minutes. Jackson Gillis probably said, I
hate that we have to reveal who the villain is
at the beginning of the episode, And so in me
hating it, I'm going to do something completely different. And
because I have been trusted enough by the creators of
the show previously to write for this character, they are
(41:22):
going to give me free reign to write for this
character again. Literally, that should not have been the case,
because this is not a good episode. And Jackson Gillis's
other episodes have been fun, they have not been affronts
to good sensibility like this episode. But not everything that
anyone writes is going to be the best foot forward.
(41:43):
This just seems like we've already alluded to it. It
seems like there was an intention here that I don't
I don't think is necessary with the show like Columbus.
You want to do something like that, there are shows
that are on TV at the time where you can
go and just do a very stereotypical murder mystery who
on it? Like? You don't have to go and make
a show fit into a very narrow box that you
(42:06):
want it to be part of. What a shame, What
a weird way to end the fifth season. What a
bad taste to leave in our mouths.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
If you want some entertainment, I would recommend going over
to the Columbo file and reading that review of it.
It's as acerbic as ours was, if not more. He
put a lot of words into this very well written stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
This is an episode that gets what it deserves. It
is asking to be like again, it's painting a target
on its forehead, willingly like, punch me in the fucking
face please again? Like you want to subvert expectations. Cool,
don't be surprised if people don't like the episodes. Yeah,
and I wish there were more folkisms only because maybe
that would redeem the episode a little bit. But I
(42:49):
think in the grand scheme of things, I'm glad that
this episode is only an hour and a half because
just give us, what if it was a two hour
episode one top everything else? Fuck off? You are doing that. No,
I'm good, Please don't subject me to that. So there
are some benefits here that the way they subverted expectations
weren't completely off the rails. But I'm sorry that we
(43:12):
had to watch this together. But you've been dreading this
day since the moment we started this show.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Like you said, I've made no bones about it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Now, literally since we started this fucking season, like five
six months ago, whatever the fucking was at this point.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
The next episode of Colombo that we get to is
it's going to redeem this one because it's so good.
Oh good, at least in my mind, it's that good.
It's the first of two appearances of William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Oh no, you're in the rocket Man himself.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
He's here in the NBC years. He also comes back
for one in the ABC years as well. But before
we do that, there's a couple of things that we
should probably watch because around this time, Peter Falk was
in a TV movie. Now, I've never seen this in
the This is very unusual for me as far as
like these two titles. So first we're going to talk
about the TV movie he made called Griffin and Phoenix,
(44:05):
and then after that we're gonna look at Elaine May's
Mikey and Nicky. So it's actually going to be paired
with Cassavetti's in a movie directed by Elaine May. And
just having these two amper sayan joined titles is strange,
but hey, let's do it. Let's dive into those and
take a look at that stuff. So, yeah, take a
(44:26):
little bit of a break, definitely try to wash the
taste out of our mouth with this Commodore episode. Holy
fucking shit, we're the worst.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Thing we've watched on this show. And I think that
would surprise people because we have watched something that I
think most people would gladly drag, which is Kirky Romano,
which looks like a fucking masterpiece compared to this piece
of shit.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
It's chef's kiss to this.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yho. This is this really is an affront to the
good will that this show is built up.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Really, Yeah, oh my gosh, So I'm glad we made
it through this. I'm glad you didn't lose your fucking mind,
because I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind
the other day when I was.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Watching this, I watched it three times. Holy fuck yeah,
and one of those times with my girlfriend and she
was just like, what's wrong with this episode? And I
was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
It feels like it showed up from a mirror universe.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Right in the universe where someone doesn't know how to
write this show.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
In the multiverse, there's a version of Colombo that was
written and directed by really stupid people, and this is
the result.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Not only that, but also again, we know that at
some point somebody looked at Peter Fake and said, are
you okay with this? And he was just like Robiley, like,
I don't know if Peter Fall could have even fought
hard enough to stop this vote from running ashore on
the banks. But you know what, fine, oh man, Mike,
I'm so ready to never have to talk about this again.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
We'll bring it up everyone.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Remember its fucking shared trauma.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Now the low Water Mine I'm bonded by.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
How aw fucking full this episode is. My God, It's
a link of a movie Mike, it's an hour and
a half.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
To At least they didn't try to release this in
it or something. At least there's not some sort of
Italian poster for this, Thank god. Luta Mossaluta a la camadora.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
With international superstar Dennis Duke, It Playboy, the.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Eighties, The Love Dennis du Again.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
They can't get enough of the Big D, the Double D,
the Double D. Dennis dug canna have everybody?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Uh, Chris, when you're not pretending to be drunk and
embarrassing yourself in a cocktail lounge, what are you up
to these?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Oh? My god, boy? If I weren't doing that right now,
what could I be doing otherwise with my time?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You can find me over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where
all the shows that I work on can be found,
including this one and the Culture Cast and I shall
but the projection ruths him to tie, and I'm on
midnight viewing from time to time. I guess technically we're
co hosts run that show. So I prattled on long enough.
Those are the places you can find me. What about you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, I have to admit I laughed pretty hard when
it came to the victim in this episode. Oh, we
just saw him in Airplane too, That's right, and it
was much better in that episode.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think everybody's been better in everything I've ever seen
them in other than this.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Under percent as far as me, yep, same thing. Weirdowomedia
dot com. Definitely come on over check out some of
the other shows that we work on at it. There's
The Feminine Critique, Twisted and Court. There's eighties TV Ladies,
all kinds of good stuff out there for your entertainment.
It doesn't just have to be about Chris and I,
but it can be. You could live your whole life
just listening to me and Chris just pratt a lot
(47:44):
about different things. We've got a lot of opinions, and
we are not afraid to show up.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Burn this.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
This must never be seen.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
By anyone.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Technicality inw
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