The genius of "Columbo"

The best way to get through some overdue housework on a Saturday afternoon may well be to break it up with snatches of an old "Columbo" episode on television. I tried this last week and it worked a treat. The episode in question was "Lady in Waiting" from 1971. It's a slightly unhinged tale of a rich but repressed young spinster who kills off her controlling older brother in order to get a life, and who gets a life with knobs on within a week of the inquest ruling the death an accident (as she'd planned it). She acquires a Ferrari, a groovy new hairstyle, lots of even groovier clothes, she unilaterally annouces her engagement to her by-now thoroughly perplexed love interest and, sweetest of all, she assumes control of the family firm, vigorously wielding a figurative new broom (which fitted in with the housework theme). The young spinster is now rolling in money and an unstoppable force of nature - or is she? For of course Lt. Columbo, LAPD, has come onto the scene after the murder and, as we know, Columbo never fails to uncover the truth. His polite, respectful manner might make him seem like a pushover, his shabby appearance might suggest someone who is of no consequence, but we know better, and it's always fun to watch the cuplprit trying to fight off the steely reality of what he or she is up against. This particular episode had the usual technical delights of the series: long takes, solid camera work, not much background music, and the fresh, newly-hatched look of 70s colour technology. Like most of the others it also featured a swanky L.A. location and a muderer played by someone with excellent elocution. By focusing on wrong-doers from the upper strata of society, on people who've had every wordly advantage, "Columbo" strikes a quiet blow for the 'nurture' school of thought (that crimes arises from deprivation). The genius of the show is that it unobtrusively shines a light on the fallen state of our common nature. Or, as the prophet Jeremiah put it, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (17:9) Who indeed? In the world of light entertainment, however, it's reassuring that Columbo knows. Long may he continue to do so in afternoon reruns, preferably on a Saturday. Oh, and 'Just one more thing': the meek shall inherit the earth. "Columbo" knows that too.