English: Peter Falk as “Columbo”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I got one of those emails from Amazon telling me about the great deals they’re doing on TV box sets.

Now I have to admit, I watch a lot of box sets, well, box sets and films.  That’s because I don’t watch programmed TV.  In fact, the TV isn’t connected to an aerial at all.  So if I watch a programme it’s on box set, and I’ve bought that box set on a trusted recommendation.

Anyway, the Amazon email was about retro crime series, and the first on the list was the full box set of Columbo (played by Peter Falk).

Wow, that took me back.  I used to love watching Columbo re-runs when I was a kid.  It was out-dated even then, but there was something about the seemingly bumbling, but oh-so-sharp detective that always had me hooked.

With his unassuming manner, he was rather like a less smug version of Poirot.  And his characteristic, ‘one last thing,’ style has inspired many a more recent character.  To name one, I personally think there are quite a few similarities between Columbo and Patrick Jane in The Mentalist.

And, of course, Columbo was a pioneer of the Detective-in-a-Mac look – a personal favourite of mine!

So maybe I might just order that box set.

Have you been inspired to write by any TV characters?

Related articles

• Columbo – “A Stitch in Crime” (howsweetitwas.wordpress.com)
• Columbo – one of my role models (medrants.com)
• Columbo in the Clue Mansion (scribblesinnotebooks.wordpress.com)
• Peter Falk Double Bill: Murder By Death (1976) & The Cheap Detective (1978)… (videokrypt.wordpress.com)