"Columbo" is born of idiosyncrasy. In fact, the title character's brilliance is testament to how a gifted actor like Peter Falk can take fine scripts and wander through them in his peculiar style. These angles and quirks made the Show but as time went on, his peculiar stops and starts and idiosyncratic attempts at humor began to occasionally overwhelm the scripts and the mystery itself.
In "Last Salute to the Commodore" this is the case and it is so pronounced as to render the Episode plodding, leaden and too self-absorbed to survive Falk's schtick.
Certainly, scripts can be meaty or lean and an Actor of Falk's gifts can dance the audience past the clunkiest of Scores but more and more as Columbo moves towards the end of their 1st. Run in the 70's, even beloved fans like myself can see excess everywhere from Production Values to Improvisation by the Star and the more simple core brilliance of earlier seasons hidden in plain sight.
In "Last Salute to the Commodore" this is the case and it is so pronounced as to render the Episode plodding, leaden and too self-absorbed to survive Falk's schtick.
Certainly, scripts can be meaty or lean and an Actor of Falk's gifts can dance the audience past the clunkiest of Scores but more and more as Columbo moves towards the end of their 1st. Run in the 70's, even beloved fans like myself can see excess everywhere from Production Values to Improvisation by the Star and the more simple core brilliance of earlier seasons hidden in plain sight.