[HN Gopher] 'Columbo' shows the benefits of asking just one more...
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'Columbo' shows the benefits of asking just one more thing
Author : hhs
Score : 121 points
Date : 2022-02-16 17:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My favorite: "How did you know it was me?"
|
| "Well, when I saw the crime scene, there was a match in the
| ashtray, and a lighter on the table. The lighter worked. So I
| knew..."
|
| "You knew a pipe smoker had been in the room. You weren't looking
| for a killer; you were looking for a pipe smoker. And there I
| was."
|
| "And there you were."
| donohoe wrote:
| I'm a big Columbo fan but it is a work of fiction.
|
| You cannot reasonably pull life lessons from a scripted work of
| fiction.
| ska wrote:
| > You cannot reasonably pull life lessons from a scripted work
| of fiction.
|
| I think I know what you are aiming at here, but this statement
| is way, way too strong. It flies in the face of, well, being
| human.
|
| Most of we actually learn, for good or for ill, is from
| stories. Even most of the stuff we don't think of that way.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Every Time Columbo Asked One More Thing | Season 1 | Columbo
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB-jlomZhHU
| amelius wrote:
| So this is where Jobs stole "one more thing" from.
| hdivider wrote:
| Some quotations I took from Columbo, to try to gain some insight
| into his methods:
|
| "I like to get that background information very precise if I
| can."
|
| "You know what it's like; you get hold of half of something, and
| you can't get a hold of the other half."
|
| "Tell me about these movie stars. What do they do? They drink a
| lot?" (great open-ended question)
|
| "Do you think you could just talk about the suture, sort of
| describe it in so many words?"
|
| "It's just one of those things that gets into my head and keeps
| rolling around in there like a marble."
|
| "There is something else sir, but I don't know where all that
| leads to just yet...I'll just wander around sir. Thank you very
| much."
|
| "When people do something for the first time, detectives always
| want to know why."
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| If you like mystery TV shows. I can recommend these two below.
|
| 1. Magnum P.I. (Original) Private investigator on
| Oahu https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2937961753?ref_=vp_rv_1
|
| 2. It's about a monk solving crimes in medieval Europe.
|
| Mystery!: Cadfael https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108717/
| parenthesis wrote:
| To go a bit on a tangent: I love TV shows where it really is
| shot where it is set, and the location is a big part of the
| show.
|
| Examples: Magnum P.I. (Hawaii); Miami Vice (Miami); The
| Equalizer (NYC). Where re(make)(boot)s exist, I'm talking about
| the originals.
|
| On the other hand, it can be a little annoying when, e.g. in
| The Good Wife, NYC is standing in for Chicago.
|
| On a third hand, I love how Murder, She Wrote represents many
| different places with the same backlot sets, throwing in bits
| of stock or second unit establishing shots.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >To go a bit on a tangent: I love TV shows where it really is
| shot where it is set, and the location is a big part of the
| show.
|
| The Inspector Morse series[0] based on Colin Dexter's[1]
| novels is shot in and around Oxford, UK and is pretty darn
| good.
|
| The follow-ons (Lewis[2] and Endeavour[3]) are also pretty
| good too.
|
| The Inspector Lynley Mysteries[4] is also pretty good and is
| shot mostly on location, although the protagonist is
| something of a whiny little bitch. The same can be said for
| DCI Banks[5].
|
| That said, Vera[6] and Y Gwyll[7] (Hinterland) are both good
| too, although the police force in Vera is a fictional
| fictional organization and is shot in various places in the
| north of England.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Morse_(TV_series)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Dexter
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_(TV_series)
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endeavour_(TV_series)
|
| [4]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspector_Lynley_Mysteries
|
| [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCI_Banks
|
| [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_(TV_series)
|
| [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterland_(TV_series)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Derek Jacobi, also amazing in "I, Claudius".
| nwatson wrote:
| That's the best TV show of all time.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| My favorite mystery show of all time is A&E's "A Nero Wolfe
| Mystery", an incredibly faithful and visually perfect
| adaptation of some of the best of Rex Stout's many Nero Wolfe
| mysteries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Wolfe_(2001_TV_series)
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/ANeroWolfeMyst...
|
| One of the best ones is "The Doorbell Rang":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doorbell_Rang
|
| >An hour later we were having a pleasant evening. The three
| guests and I were in the front room, in a tight game of
| pinochle, and Wolfe was in his one and only chair in the
| office, reading a book. The book was The FBI Nobody Knows. He
| was either gloating or doing research, I didn't know which. --
| Archie Goodwin writing in The Doorbell Rang, chapter 12
|
| >Nero Wolfe is hired to force the FBI to stop wiretapping,
| tailing and otherwise harassing a woman who gave away 10,000
| copies of a book that is critical of the Bureau and its
| director, J. Edgar Hoover.
|
| >The Doorbell Rang generated controversy when it was published,
| due largely to its unflattering portrayal of the FBI, its
| director and agents. It was published at a time when the
| public's attitude toward the FBI was turning critical, not long
| after Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover clashed and the
| Bureau was coming under fire for its investigations of Martin
| Luther King Jr. Some dismissed the book: National Observer
| described it as "little more than an anti-FBI diatribe," and
| Nero Wolfe fan John Wayne wrote Rex Stout a terse note of
| goodbye after reading the condensed magazine version.: 461 But
| Clifton Fadiman, quoted in a Viking Press advertisement for The
| Doorbell Rang, thought it was "... the best of all Nero Wolfe
| stories."
|
| [...]
|
| >The FBI and The Doorbell Rang
|
| >Researching his book Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret
| War Against America's Greatest Authors (1988), journalist
| Herbert Mitgang discovered that Stout had been under FBI
| surveillance since the beginning of his writing career. Most of
| the heavily censored pages he was allowed to obtain from
| Stout's FBI dossier concerned The Doorbell Rang:
|
| >About one hundred pages in Stout's file are devoted to the
| novel, the FBI's panicky response to it and the attempt to
| retaliate against the author for writing it. The FBI's internal
| memorandum for its special agents told them that "the bureau
| desires to contribute in no manner to the sales of this book by
| helping to make it the topic of publicity." Orders came from
| headquarters in Washington that any questions concerning the
| book should be forwarded to the Crime Records Division, thereby
| putting book and author in a criminal category.
|
| >An internal memorandum by Special Agent M.A. Jones (name
| surprisingly not censored) summarized the novel and went on to
| write a critique for the FBI's top command -- a rare "literary"
| honor accorded to few books in its files ... Following the
| review came a series of recommendations -- first, Stout was
| designated as a person "not to be contacted" without prior
| approval by FBI headquarters in Washington ...
|
| >In April 1976, the Church Committee found that The Doorbell
| Rang is a reason Rex Stout's name was placed on the FBI's "not
| to contact list", which it cited as evidence of the FBI's
| political abuse of intelligence information.
| mc32 wrote:
| Tangential but someone mentioned that S Jobs got his "one more
| thing..." from that show.
| Sebguer wrote:
| This New Yorker comic is a really good read on the magic of
| Columbo: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-
| shouts/rediscovering-c...
|
| and this thread is a great follow-on:
| https://twitter.com/garius/status/1325743272493510656b
| mwexler wrote:
| Columbo also was unlike many other crime shows of the time in
| that it showed the viewer the crime in opening minutes. Through
| the show, you knew who the murderer was, even if you didn't know
| all the whys or twists. Watching with that knowledge changes the
| story, as you see how the detective weaves together threads to
| get to where you know he needs to be by the end of the (somewhat
| overly drawn out) episodes.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It would have been nice for the article to tie this in with
| business a little more.
|
| At first I thought they might be tying this in to "And what
| else?" of _The Coaching Habit_.
| failedengineer wrote:
| As an equally valid counterpoint, I submit data from the classic
| film "Dude, where's my car?" where the simple question "and
| then?" so greatly exacerbates the customer that there's a strong
| chance they will never return.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if you'll recall from that movie they evidently liked it so
| much they recommended the place to a couple of out of town
| acquaintances.
|
| on edit: so what I'm saying, is like, word of mouth?
| jasondigitized wrote:
| and then?
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| There is one Columbo episode "Forgotten Lady" that is somewhat
| unique in that his questioning technique doesn't exactly work out
| as usual, and even when he figures out the truth, it doesn't lead
| to justice. And he even wears a tuxedo! It is considered one of
| the better episodes of the original series, at least according to
| reviews at IMDB, and my own recent serendipitous viewing.
| concinds wrote:
| One thing might interest this community - the amusing amount of
| common actors between the Columbo and Star Trek series (and
| Quantum Leap, if you want to extend this).
|
| Obviously Shatner and Nimoy, but also the lovable John Fiedler
| (of 12 Angry Men fame, as the possessed Mr. Hengist in TOS's
| "Wolf in the Fold" and a cardiologist in Columbo) and the
| fantastic Theodore Bikel (as the murderer in Columbo's "Bye-Bye
| Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", and as Worf's adoptive dad in TNG's
| "Family"). Ed Begley Jr, whose father was in 12 Angry Men, is in
| ST:VOY as Henry Starling, and in Columbo's "How to Dial a Murder"
| as Officer Stein. Laurence Luckinbill is Sybok (STrek V) and the
| victim in Columbo's "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Michael Strong:
| Columbo's "are you a witness to what he just did?" scene, and
| TOS's Dr Korby.
|
| There are _metric tons_ of links with minor characters, for
| example James Greene in the Columbo classic "Columbo Goes to the
| Guillotine" is also in TNG and DS9.
|
| Dozens more are discussed here:
| http://pub10.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=8065...
|
| There are other amusing non-Star Trek but sci-fi-related
| coincidences too, like Robert Culp (IMO the best Columbo villain,
| a first-rate actor) voicing Dr. Breen in Half-Life 2.
|
| Obviously you could do this with absolutely any TV show, since
| there aren't _that_ many actors in America, but this is a fun
| exercise and fans of both shows have a lot to be happy about. And
| if you 're a fan of one, and start watching the other (I started
| with Columbo, possibly unlike most people here), try spotting
| common actors as a fun exercise.
| jandrese wrote:
| Mystery shows are a great place for guest actors since outside
| of the detective and his sidekick most of the cast is new for
| each episode. Plus it is fun to see semi-famous actors playing
| soon-to-be-dead people on shows, or clever murderers.
|
| My wife is a big fan of the British mystery shows like Midsomar
| Murders and has made comments about how the same actors keep
| showing up across the different shows.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| It's almost always the 'biggest B-list actor' who did the
| murder (on Midsomer and others). And over the years I've
| learned to recognize these people across shows. Had to argue
| with my wife that the murder victim in a Jonathan Creek
| episode we saw the other night was Frank from Vicar Of
| Dibley. I won :)
| mbg721 wrote:
| There might have existed a moment where every broadcast
| television signal on Earth was showing John Fiedler (Mr.
| Peterson on the Bob Newhart Show, Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh, a
| thousand other credits). He was everywhere in the same way
| people make fun of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
|
| For Columbo side-roles, Vito Scotti is a fun one to spot. I
| think he was in four or five episodes.
| dcminter wrote:
| I was once home sick from work and watching daytime TV between
| naps on the sofa. After I'd been watching an episode of Columbo
| for about three hours I realised it was actually an episode of
| Columbo, Diagnosis Murder, and Murder She Wrote (I think)
| consecutively with a few common bit-part actors and I'd nodded
| off between them :)
|
| Edit: I remember it as being Dick van Dyck in all of them, but
| it was a long time ago and that seems unlikely!
| rfreiberger wrote:
| Negative Reaction is a great episode!
| imgabe wrote:
| Ricardo Montalban was also on Columbo before being KHAAAAAAANN
|
| And Leslie Nielsen was in 2 Columbo episodes
|
| I watched Columbo only recently and it seems like every famous
| person in the 70s guest starred at one point or another.
| olvy0 wrote:
| I too watched Columbo, together with my mom, when I was younger,
| and later watched some older episodes on my own. At some point at
| my job I found myself "debugging" people's requests for
| help/support using his "one last thing" technique.
|
| Especially if they are the type of enthusiastic, semi-
| sophisticated users, who try to second-guess how the application
| is written or why it crashed, without actually knowing anything
| about the code, and often make silly guesses and make suggestions
| which have little to do with reality.
|
| Before I started doing that, I would often be quite rude to
| people and cut them off, saying things like "no, that's not how
| the code works, I know that for a fact because I wrote it, the
| bug is somewhere else entirely".
|
| Then when I started using it instead, I would stare at them and
| say something like "oh, well, that's a very interesting option!
| Why didn't I think of that!" Then shut up for a few seconds like
| I'm deep in thought, then say "Oh, wait, I just thought of
| something. Do you mind showing me what you did on that screen
| again? I apologize but I have just this awful short term memory,
| can't remember what you wrote on that bug ticket ". Then they
| would indulge me, and I would say "Oh, wait, stop right there,
| that gave me a great idea what could have gone wrong, thank you".
|
| And then explain them in some details what caused the bug and how
| to work around it.
|
| Or I would say "thank you", get up and go after they showed me,
| and then pause at the door and say "oh, wait, there's this one
| thing I just thought about, do you mind if we try just one more
| thing? Sorry for taking your time" and then try the workaround,
| show them that it works, and explain it.
|
| All this when I actually understood what was the problem a few
| seconds after they showed me the problem.
|
| So I wasted a few more minutes being nice to this person and
| pretending I'm kind of dumb, but I know now they will won't be
| afraid to report future bugs to me or to suggest features,
| without fearing they will look dumb themselves.
|
| Unfortunately I have to be in the right frame of mind to do this,
| and lately I've found myself slipping more and more often back to
| the "that's not how the code works" retorts.
|
| It's good that this came up on NH today, it's a good reminder to
| try and go back to being a little more Columbo and a little less
| rude to people who try to be useful to me.
| alar44 wrote:
| That's ridiculous. I can't imagine tip toeing around people
| like that. There's a big difference between being rude and
| being to the point. What you're describing is manipulative,
| patronizing, and weird.
| jsight wrote:
| In a support setting, sometimes subtle manipulation is
| practically the only way. See also the stories of tech
| support people suggesting that cables might be plugged in the
| "wrong way around". Lots of support tricks work, even when
| they shouldn't.
| alar44 wrote:
| I work in tech support as well. I just give them a one
| sentence answer why that's not the problem and move on.
| Granted, I'm a director so I can be frank if I need to, but
| my support team wont take any bullshit. If people want to
| whine, send them my way and I'll ask whether they want to
| save my team the time and troubleshoot themselves, or let
| the people trained on our systems handle it.
| olvy0 wrote:
| Yeah, it does look like as me being patronizing and creepy, I
| suppose. My inept social skills showing.
|
| But I have no idea how else to deal with those people who
| genuinely want to help me help them, but keep making
| suggestions and developing weird theories that aren't
| connected to reality and which aren't helpful. Everything
| else I tried just seems to insult them more.
|
| In normal day-to-day conversations with most other people
| (including the same people when we're not in a professional
| setting) I'm not like that. At least I hope not.
| alar44 wrote:
| Just stop worrying about it. At the end of the day, they
| just want their shit fixed. I just explain why their idea
| isn't the solution. "We could monitor calls before we
| switched to Bluetooth headsets, I think that might be the
| problem." Me "Nope, the audio is going through and
| monitoring is handled on the back end, it's something
| else." You don't need to explain exactly why, just give em
| a reasonable answer. It helps them learn (maybe) at the
| same time. If you're not being a jerk, and their feelings
| are hurt for some reason, that's on them.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Sometimes people just want to be heard. Even if they are
| wrong. Sometimes you will find they are even right and your
| assumptions are wrong. Stop and listen first then speak. It
| lets people get the wrong impression of you. Think I got that
| from Men in Black.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the
| assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you don't
| know why. Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just
| one more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one
| more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer
|
| Yep, for example "Fade in to Murder," an episode with William
| Shatner. Also "Murder by the Book," "A Friend in Deed," etc.
| The writers played lots of little tricks on the audience with
| the show. But also sometimes the Lt. simply asked procedural
| questions to somebody who wasn't involved.
| mbg721 wrote:
| (Again, no blockbuster spoilers that I know of, but be aware)
|
| I guess in Murder By The Book he sits down and asks the
| victim's wife if she can come up with anything. Fade Into
| Murder had the whole blackmail thing going on in the
| background. Where did Columbo hound someone who wasn't Robert
| Culp in A Friend In Deed? He was a little squirrely getting
| the private-spy's info at the water fountain (and the whole
| ice-cream/swing encounter) but that's all I can think of.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Good q, I might be remembering a different episode which is
| always possible with actors like Culp. Will look into this
| issue, your ticket ID is @ny01dp0r7
|
| Ticket update: He uses "just one more thing" on Mrs.
| Halperin, but she was not the murderer.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Ooh a cop show deconstruction where the protagonist has to
| confront the fact that 75% of his successes were incorrect
| would be great
| simplicio wrote:
| From what I remember, "Elementary" follows the opposite
| formula from Colombo. The protagonists almost always spend
| the first half of an episode pursing a red herring.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I've entertained the idea of a series of farcical detective
| stories featuring a small-minded, bigoted detective who
| pursues wild, ungrounded-in-fact, grounded-in-stereotype
| leads only to stumble, by the books end and by a series of
| happy accidents, into actually solving the case.
| RAWDOGWARGOD wrote:
| apocalypstyx wrote:
| So Inspector Clouseau, Barney Fife, etc etc.
|
| As the quote from Charles Babbage goes:
|
| > On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage,
| if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
| answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the
| kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
| question.
|
| Yes, sometimes that's exactly what happens.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > So Inspector Clouseau, Barney Fife
|
| Stupid, I agree, but not nearly as politically incorrect
| as our "hero".
|
| The humor is more of the cringe-variety (if you like that
| sort of thing) when our detective makes the big reveal
| only to walk right into it.
|
| David Brent (The Office) is more like our detective.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I doubt that "Oh gee, it turns out the murderer _was_
| actually the black pedestrian in the suburban neighborhood
| this time " will get you published, though.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| But that wasn't the idea. (Come on!)
|
| Yours might be the _starting point_ for the "case" for
| our bigoted detective, but these leads invariably run
| cold but inadvertently reveal a piece of information or
| suspect that had not yet come to light (solved -- maybe
| even simply by the process of elimination for our sad
| detective).
| mbg721 wrote:
| I saw an anecdote where someone asked the actor who played
| Perry Mason, "Haven't you ever lost a case?" and his answer
| was "I don't try the hard ones on Saturday night."
| not2b wrote:
| "Law and Order" often had the police going after the wrong
| suspect or even arresting the wrong person and having them
| figure it out later, sometimes not until after the wrong
| person was put on trial.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't know if it is still on but I'm the US there was a
| show where they followed actual detectives.
|
| The bad guy gets away because they don't have enough
| evidence.
|
| People confess when there is hardly any evidence (a lot).
|
| The detectives realize they were wrong.
|
| Lots of things happen.
|
| Detectives being wrong isn't a very dramatic like you might
| think. Many operate like scientist, gathering data, testing
| their theory along the way and adjusting.
|
| One of the most interesting episodes was when they
| investigated a murder of a local girl in a park. Whole
| department assigned to work it because her ex and the main
| suspect was a guy who was a local criminal who had done time
| for murder before and was suspected in other cases.
|
| Lots of misc evidence pointed at bad guy, but not enough to
| prosecute him, just lots of elements that pointed to him. Bad
| guy was smart enough not to talk to the police when they
| brought him in.
|
| Near the end they got back some cell phone location info ...
| in the park that night wasn't the bad guy... but her current
| boyfriend (the local good college boy) phone was there. He
| claimed he was elsewhere / hadn't seen her that night...
|
| Good boy confessed when they confronted him.
|
| That episode was wild.
| watwut wrote:
| > protagonist has to confront the fact that 75% of his
| successes were incorrect would be great
|
| I would assume that "successes" here are people in prison
| who turned out were innocent.
| duxup wrote:
| Tough to do a show on that considering the time span
| involved but it would be interesting if they ever covered
| an episode where that happened.
|
| Of course the show is not a broad coverage of the
| detectives process. The detectives featured almost always
| are the most senior detectives and of course they cover
| situations on camera where ... maybe somethings won't
| happen.
|
| The cases featured in the show they almost never actually
| end up prosecuting anyone without quite a bit of
| evidence. They're not really the kind of cases you hear
| about where someone is just prosecuted on hearsay and one
| bit of evidence and so on, that i'm sure is by design
| (for the tv show). Detectives show a lot of skepticism
| about what people too, that was interesting. They follow
| those leads but those featured seem highly flexible.
|
| I wonder how much of the bad prosecutions / situations
| are about the prosecutor rather than detectives.
| notriddle wrote:
| > Tough to do a show on that considering the time span
| involved but it would be interesting if they ever covered
| an episode where that happened.
|
| Plenty of cold case shows that start the episode 5 years
| after the original investigation, when new evidence comes
| in to clear the convict.
| watwut wrote:
| I am not sure now which series you have in mind here. But
| in many shows, actual evidence is super flimsy, if you
| think about it. Obvious issue is that such analysis tend
| to kill the fun, so we don't do it. This is supposed to
| be entertainment.
|
| The prime example is Sherlock Holmes who points at murder
| based on bit of dust caught of hat or some such. Any show
| where capture is based on subtle clues or manipulative
| trics would likely lead to a lot of false convictions. Or
| the ones where detectives mistreat suspects until they
| admit guilt - false guilt of admission from mistreated
| prisoner is actually a thing (especially when they are
| also sleep deprived or mentally challenged).
| acc_vector wrote:
| You are probably thinking of the show First 48. I was
| thinking of this exact show when reading the comments here
| about how Columbo plots rely too heavily on the murderer
| trying to help out Columbo with his investigation in order
| to seem innocent. It may seem unrealistic or stupid of them
| to do so, but if you watch shows like First 48 which follow
| homicide detectives around and show these interrogations,
| it happens A TON. More than I expected to be sure. I don't
| think Columbo is unrealistic in that respect.
| duxup wrote:
| I think that was the show.
|
| VERY surprising how many people talk to the cops and give
| them all sorts of information that the cops then
| disprove, stories that make no sense, or even hand them
| info / leads that leas right back to them so on.
|
| I want to say maybe the folks in a Columbo episode wold
| be more likely to talk to a lawyer first / not talk but
| ... Martha Stewart talked herself into jail...
| lazide wrote:
| I had it happen to me directly - I get accused, have no
| idea what is going on, accuser get's in court, makes more
| accusations that don't make sense. We follow up to get
| enough details to try to figure out specifically what is
| being accused (date and times, for one) - and lo and
| behold, the evidence (911 call log) when provided +
| security video on my side (that they knew I had!!!)
| showed that not only was it completely impossible that it
| happened, but that the accuser was perjuring themselves
| and had committed the additional crime of filing a false
| police report.
|
| I had zero idea of the 911 call before this.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| /Perry Mason/ always struck me as a rather subversive
| inversion of the usual police procedural for this reason.
| Since the protagonist is a defense lawyer, _every episode_
| that I know about is one where the cops and DA accuse a
| totally innocent person of a capital crime. They are then
| exposed and humiliated when Perry gets the real guilty party
| to confess in open court, usually under oath on the witness
| stand.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well, in the case of Columbo, you (the viewer) have the benefit
| of knowing the culprit, because the murder is shown at the
| beginning of the episode. That's why Columbo is less a
| "whodunnit" and more a "howcatchem". But yeah, this infallible
| instinct that leads him straight to the perpetrator is pretty
| unrealistic...
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I think the episode 'now you see him' shows off what he does
| best. He basically breaks down each part of the murder and
| runs all of the permutations. In one segment he shows how the
| victim must have known the murderer because of the position
| of the body using that method. Only some make sense. Then
| finds the only suspects in the area that fit the profile of
| being able to do it. Motive, means, and opportunity. In that
| one he even had means and opportunity before motive.
| scrollaway wrote:
| That's why I really like Psych. The guesses are fairly often
| incorrect even if they eventually catch the perp.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Yes, I should have been more specific; I meant "you, the
| detective" and not "you, the viewer". I'm speaking as a huge
| Columbo fan, btw; I've seen most of the episodes multiple
| times, and last year I watched the entire box-set in order.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| I too am a Columbo fan- since I was little and watched them
| on TV-- its been a few years since I last watched the box
| set... but I'm pretty certain there are a several episodes
| where Columbo does not know for sure who the murderer is
| right off. I also seem to recall one where he is unable to
| catch the murderer?
| mbg721 wrote:
| You might be thinking of Columbo Cries Wolf, or It's All
| In The Game. He does resolve both cases, but they're
| unconventional (and both from the 80s/90s revival of the
| series).
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I seem to recall one episode where Columbo kept bouncing
| between three equally motivated suspects. I wasn't a big fan
| of the show then, but it struck me as an interesting device.
|
| I might be wrong and it is an exception that tests the rule.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the
| assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you
| don't know why.
|
| The shows don't show everything, but what they do imply is that
| Columbo starts by pulling on _all_ the strings and then
| doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends. Also, in a
| lot of cases there could only be a handful of suspects. The
| main thing they actually is the interplay between Colombo and
| the culprit, and the rest is (almost always) offscreen.
|
| IMHO, the main weakness of the show are how over-eager the
| culprits sometimes are act like they're helping Columbo. Not
| just answer his questions, but play detective with him.
|
| > Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one
| more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer?
|
| I haven't watched the whole series and don't recall a specific
| episode, but I'm pretty sure he's done that episodes where the
| murderer is trying to frame someone. There was also a not-great
| episode where the owner of a boat-builder was murdered and
| there were like 5 suspects (this one:
| https://columbophile.com/2019/08/11/trying-to-salvage-
| last-s...).
| imglorp wrote:
| > Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then
| doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends.
|
| Interesting quirk of English idioms here. Maybe regional?
| * Pulling strings often means to control, as a marionette
| * Pulling threads often means to inspect closely and follow a
| pattern
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then
| doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends.
|
| > Interesting quirk of English idioms here. Maybe regional?
|
| > * Pulling strings often means to control, as a marionette
|
| > * Pulling threads often means to inspect closely and
| follow a pattern
|
| That's way too clever for me to have done intentionally. I
| just had my idioms scrambled.
| reificator wrote:
| Native English speaker, would give the same rough
| definitions for each phrase if asked[0], but for whatever
| reason I read the GP and didn't think it was out of place
| at all. Immediately got the intended meaning. Even after
| having it pointed out it seems fine to me, in fact I can't
| really see the "control" meaning even though I know it
| should be there.
|
| [0]: Though I'd use "pulling _the_ strings " and "pulling
| _at_ threads ".
| leephillips wrote:
| "Pulling on the strings" has a different meaning from
| "pulling strings". That may not seem reasonable, but it's
| an expression that is phrasal-verb adjacent, and a single
| preposition can alter the meaning.
| mbg721 wrote:
| (I don't think there are any _major_ spoilers below that
| would ruin the show, but I do reveal some Columbo plot.)
|
| Okay, fine, Last Salute to the Commodore is an exceptional
| case; it's widely regarded, along with the two later Ed
| McBain ones, as way out-of-character for the show.
|
| Usually when he confronts a character who has something to
| hide but isn't the murderer, he's over-the-top friendly and
| apologetic, like with the affair in Columbo Goes to College
| or the victim's bride in Double Shock. There are probably
| some better examples.
|
| Yeah, the usual formula is that the culprit tries to
| demonstrate innocence by helping with the investigation until
| Columbo gets too close, and then abruptly shuts up. I think
| that mostly speaks to Columbo's style, though; it's realistic
| that a murderer would do one or the other given how they're
| being questioned.
|
| I'd still maintain that the biggest weakness of the show is
| that Columbo almost never has the wrong suspect, and
| sometimes he has the correct suspect far too early (why does
| he read the palm in Death Lends A Hand?).
| concinds wrote:
| > IMHO, the main weakness of the show are how over-eager the
| culprits sometimes are act like they're helping Columbo. Not
| just answer his questions, but play detective with him.
|
| I've watched most Columbos multiple times and I think that's
| by design. Columbo plays dumb, and tries to make the suspect
| think that Columbo can easily be misdirected or manipulated;
| so suspects volunteer to "help" Columbo in order to protect
| themselves. This overconfidence on the part of suspects' is
| deliberately engineered by Columbo.
|
| It also plays in the consistent "Columbo vs. the highly
| educated upper-class" motif, where the "dumb" cop who earns
| $11k a year asks for help from millionaires who are "much
| smarter and more worldly" than him.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| well yeah. the premise of the show is not to discover the perp
| or their method. i dare say, you've missed the point.
|
| in real life, we know that crimes are often "solved" not by
| evidence at hand but by confession of accomplices. i mean
| that's why "snitches get stitches" is a thing. columbo takes
| that to the next level, extracting the suspects own admission
| through his apparent bumbling. in every single episode, if the
| perp had only just kept their mouth shut ...
| nelblu wrote:
| The closest that I can think of is "Columbo Cries Wolf", in
| that episode he keeps accusing someone (Sean) of murder when he
| hasn't really committed one (yet). Another huge columbo fan
| here :-).
|
| Edit: Another one I can think of is "Murder in Malibu", it is
| really hard to tell who is the murderer in this one. And even
| Columbo seems unsure for a while.
| incomplete wrote:
| https://archive.is/8N3Ln
| lolive wrote:
| The Columbo TV show is, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece in
| disguise. The basic scheme of each episode is well known. But the
| beauty is in the details. The few minutes in each episode where
| the character is not in representation and you can grasp a few
| moments of his mental process.
|
| That's where you discover that:
|
| - he takes NOTHING as assumed
|
| - he works A LOT (usually not shown on screen, but sometimes
| mentionned by him, and you can infer that a given piece of
| information took a lot of time to discover)
|
| - he always starts from the ground up, asks (what seem to be)
| stupid questions
|
| - All of his actions are here to close the options. Conversations
| are done with no malice, but with that clear objective in mind.
|
| I do a lot of the Columbo way at work, and it works surprisingly
| well.
| anon_123g987 wrote:
| This is only one half of the story, the deductive
| investigation. The other half is the psychological thriller: we
| can observe the murderers, who just committed an (almost)
| perfect crime, and who are strong and confident in the
| beginning, to slowly crack under the pressure put on them by
| Columbo, to make mistakes that finally lead to their arrest.
| This is not just great drama to watch, but also instrumental in
| Columbo's success, and you can't replicate that when you work
| on software (or anything other than humans). The points you
| listed are still useful, of course.
| rfreiberger wrote:
| I rediscovered Columbo a number of years back and playing the
| original series is my way of having background noise while
| working. But every time I watch the same episode, I deepen my
| understanding of asking questions and how they lead to the
| next. Much of this is how I moved my thoughts into work
| postmortems, not just asking how this broke, but why did it
| break, how was it possible.
|
| For added thoughts on Columbo, here's a short breakdown if the
| tactics used to find the guilty party was legal in court.
|
| https://columbophile.com/2017/05/17/what-happens-when-columb...
| technothrasher wrote:
| > The Columbo TV show is, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece
| in disguise.
|
| Why in disguise? It's just simply a masterpiece, not just as a
| detective show but also as a vehicle for the actors to enjoy
| themselves. It made it so much better watching the stars of the
| time do something they clearly liked. Everyone is in on the
| gag, the writers, the star, the guests, and the audience. It
| was more of the next verse in a familiar song than it was a
| show every episode.
|
| > Conversations are done with no malice, but with that clear
| objective in mind.
|
| At first, but by the middle of most episodes, he knows all he
| needs to already and is just playing cat and mouse with the
| villain, and the audience.
| bgroat wrote:
| I watched Columbo for the first time in the past year and I
| *don't* think the format is well known (I was born in the 90s,
| so it may be a generational thing).
|
| I want to expand on it because it's really unique and amazing.
|
| For those who _don 't_ know, each episode opens with us seeing
| the crime being committed and covered up. We always know who it
| is, immediately.
|
| Then in the 2nd act we're introduced to Columbo, and we observe
| him trying to figure out what we already know.
|
| For all of the reasons stated in the parent article, Columbo is
| one of the most perfect representations of a "real smart
| person" in media. Another favourite of mine is Jonathan Creek
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Just started rewatching the JC catalog last week. The tech
| seems a bit dated (big cellphones, cars, etc) but the stories
| generally hold up well (so far, and FWIR). I do wish there
| was some effort to remaster/restore/polish up the video. What
| we have (and what I've seen rebroadcast) just looks a bit...
| washed out.
|
| Also, I watch with headphones on, and it's amazing to me how
| much food people eat, and how loud they are, in many TV
| shows. Just went through Blue Murder (also with Caroline
| Quentin in it) and every episode there's one or two
| roundtable shots of the group eating... loudly.
|
| But yeah, JC is good, and I'll be watching another one
| tonight :)
| bgroat wrote:
| JC did something really cool in doing specials years after
| the original broadcasts that kind of jump back in with
| Jonathan and where he is in his life now.
|
| The tech in those is a bit more modern (I think the most
| recent is in something like 2015)
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Early Jonathan Creek is a masterpiece. In particular, the
| "Black Canary" special is possibly the finest two hours of
| television ever constructed. I often think if they had
| released it as a movie it would have been a hit.
|
| I agree with you about the picture quality. Black Canary
| from the DVD is really very noisy and grainy - to the point
| where I actually made my own "remastered" version by doing
| some basic color correction and digital noise reduction. It
| looks a lot better.
|
| Some modern televisions have pretty good built-in modes for
| doing noise reduction and improving the color, try
| experimenting with those. (Just don't leave it on all the
| time.)
| kleiba wrote:
| I watched the DVD set on my CRT television, it looked
| absolutely fine to me. One advantage of being a "late
| adopter".
| hawski wrote:
| A little nit pick from my side: there was a few episodes
| where this format was changed a bit in various ways.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Columbo is often described as a "how catchem" instead of a
| "who dunnit".
| parenthesis wrote:
| Also, he will mention how something he can't work out keeps on
| bothering him until he has worked it out.
| MR4D wrote:
| I once heard this described as "pruning the tree of
| possibilities".
|
| It is a learned skill that is enormously effective. The great
| thing is you can practice a little at a time.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > - he works A LOT (usually not shown on screen, but sometimes
| mentionned by him, and you can infer that a given piece of
| information took a lot of time to discover)
|
| One episode where they actually showed some of that is the one
| where the murderer was the architect of a high-rise building.
| He needed the plans or some time with the building authority to
| have something explained to him, and he was shown waiting in
| line for a whole day with all the people applying for building
| permits, getting pushed from office to office, etc.
| ummonk wrote:
| I could be mixing it up with another episode but I _think_
| that was the one where he needed to get a permit to excavate
| a concrete foundation under the pretense of looking for a
| body (to bait the murderer into subsequently depositing the
| body there after it had already been excavated and searched).
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| Could you elaborate on what this means please:
| the character is not in representation
| bediger4000 wrote:
| The use of a fictional character deprives this of value. Of
| course Columbo gets a lot of benefit from his "Oh, just one more
| thing..." schtick. Columbo is the hero of a detective mystery
| series. If Columbo didn't solve the mystery in an hour (less
| commercials!), or if Columbo used the same methods as other
| contemporary TV detectives, the show wouldn't have been
| successful.
|
| The question is, can _you_ , an ordinary human, in ordinary
| circumstances where almost everything is beyond your control,
| gain benefit from this technique?
|
| There's a similar problem with "$N business lessons of
| ${HISTORICAL_FIGURE}" - you're not going to invade Russia, or lay
| siege to Vienna, or conquer the Gauls. Your situation is entirely
| different. What Napoleon or Saladin or Boudicca are reputed to
| have done is almost certainly beyond you, and instead is being
| used to puff up an article containing entirely mundane and well-
| worn advice.
| gowld wrote:
| Huh? It's just an article about a TV show the author liked, not
| business advice.
|
| Also:
|
| > This article appeared in the Culture section of the print
| edition under the headline "Avenger in a raincoat"
|
| The online article headline is just clickbait.
| joegahona wrote:
| Publications often change the headline for clickbait reasons,
| but they also try to make it clearer to searchers what the
| article is about. "Avenger in a Raincoat" works fine for a
| print magazine -- the end user is someone sitting captive on
| a flight or on their couch. In the crowded world of search
| results or social-media posts, you need to be clearer about
| what the article contains. I haven't read this article (for
| it is paywalled), so I can't tell where this falls on the
| clickbait scale. (I think of "clickbait" as a pejorative.)
| lupire wrote:
| It's half paywalled -- try incognito or something if you
| want to read it.
| olvy0 wrote:
| Or archive.is.
| literalsunbear wrote:
| i am begging you to please shut up and relax
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Most of Plato's dialogues are essentially a masterclass in this
| technique, and if you let it, it can absolutely change how you
| engage with ideas in a very powerful way.
|
| The very real benefit that you, the ordinary human, can gain
| from these techniques is an awareness of many of the
| assumptions you have been making, and how little there actually
| is to justify them. It's been said that a fish will be the last
| to discover water. This will show you the proverbial ocean
| you've been oblivious to swimming in all your life.
|
| It may not be for everyone, but few authors have changed the
| way I think quite as drastically as reading Plato has.
| arrow7000 wrote:
| So you mean "Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs" isn't actually a
| good book to buy?
| flobosg wrote:
| They're _printouts_.
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