‘Columbo’: 20 best episodes ever, ranked

Happy Birthday, Peter Falk! 20 best 'Columbo' episodes, ranked [PHOTOS]
Universal

Saturday marks 96 years since the great Peter Falk was born (9-16-27), which strikes us as a great reason to revisit a detective drama as timeless as it is entertaining. In the whole of television history, few actors have been as identified with a single character than was Falk with Lieutenant Columbo, the eccentric, rumpled, cigar-chomping, trench coat-clad, implausibly wily Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective who always got his man (or, very occasionally, woman). In the process, Falk and the producers revolutionized what a cop show could be.

It’s been more than a half-century since Falk began portraying the world’s favorite lieutenant as part of the rotating “NBC Mystery Movie” franchise on September 15, 1971. It would grow to become a global phenomenon originally across eight seasons (1971-78), then again sporadically from 1989 to 2003. The series itself would win 13 Emmys. (Falk himself won four Emmys for the role, in 1972, ’75, ’76 and ’90, along with Golden Globes in ’72 and ’73.).

From the first official installment of “Columbo” – entitled “Murder by the Book” and featuring Jack Cassidy as the perpetrator/villain/killer – it changed the very nature of how audiences viewed television drama. Firstly, it was a murder mystery where the murder was no mystery. We see the murderer do his or her thing early on in the episode, and there is no question of how the dirty deed or deeds went down. The rest of the show was therefore not a “whodunnit” but a “howcatchem,” with the unobtrusive Columbo often apologizing for continuously bothering his prey while quietly ripping apart their perfect alibi, clue by clue. He’d would always approach to ask “just one more thing.”

The fun was in watching the lieutenant tear down the killer’s carefully-built facade, leading near the end to the climactic “Gotcha!” moment (which Falk himself referred to as the “pop”). This is one reason why there were few more enjoyable pursuits during the pandemic than sitting down to a self-made “Columbo” marathon. It certainly got me through some of the toughest days. Watch all the episodes on Peacock (and other streaming services).

The show would also serve as a showcase for Hollywood stars looking to make their mark on a one-off performance, from Dick Van Dyke to Leonard Nimoy to William Shatner to Ruth Gordon to Janet Leigh to Eddie Albert and countless others – including country superstar Johnny Cash. The series also proved to be a valuable training ground for a few legendary Hollywood talents. No less than Steven Spielberg, all of 24 years old, directed the first episode. The writer of that same episode, Steven Bochco, would go on to a brilliant career writing and producing for TV, creating such seminal series as “Hill Street Blues,” “NYPD Blue,” “L.A. Law” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.” Bochco earned Emmy nominations for both that first episode (“Murder by the Book”) and “Etude in Black” in 1972 and ’73. He also won 10 Emmys altogether. Bochco would also write six editions of “Columbo.” Co-creators Richard Levinson and William Link had a great career that also included “Mannix” and “Murder, She Wrote,” leading them to induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

While “Columbo” has aged extremely well creatively, it’s still a show whose roots go back more than 50 years. As such, it was also a drama of its time when it came to diversity. For instance, the show never had a Black villain in all its time on the air. It also featured considerably more men than women in its roster of villains, demonstrating nothing even close to gender parity.

Tour our photo gallery below for the 20 greatest “Columbo” episodes. We did not include the two TV movies guest starring Gene Barry and Lee Grant that launched the character on NBC. Our rankings only include episodes from the 1970s.