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DVDfever.co.uk – Press release: Columbo Season 9 on DVD
Universal Playback
Posted: February 20th, 2009.
Shabbily-dressed and seemingly slow-witted, homicide detective Columbos (Peter Falk) fumbling and overly polite manner made him an unlikely choice to solve any crime in the Los Angeles Police Department, let alone complex murders. Often underestimated by his fellow officers, and by the murderer du jour, his demeanour is revealed to be a complex act. Hidden beneath this unlikely exterior lies a brilliant detective with an eye for minute details and the ability to piece together seemingly unrelated incidences and information to solve crimes.
The audience witnesses a murder at the beginning of each episode and Columbo most often confirms a criminal’s guilt by lulling them into a false sense of security and then setting up circumstances which encourage them, in their newfound hubris, to incriminate themselves. Columbo’s signature interrogation technique is to conduct a seemingly innocuous interview, politely conclude it, and exit the scene, only to stop in the doorway and ask, “Just one more thing…”. This always leads to a jarring question regarding an inconsistency in either the crime scene or the suspect’s alibi. In some episodes, murderers who believed they had committed the “perfect crime” congratulate Columbo before being arrested.
The programme is noted by TV critics for the way it reversed the cliché of the standard whodunit mystery, occasionally referring to it as a “howcatchem”, though it is more properly known as an inverted detective story, a subgenre created by British writer Richard Austin Freeman.
The DVD is out on March 30th, it runs for 547 mins and retails for £29.99 on DVD,but is currently on Amazon at the link above for £17.98.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.