MRS. COLUMBO (TV)

title: MRS. COLUMBO

year: 1979-1980

cast: Kate Mulgrew

rating: **

Well no wonder Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) would always talk about his wife; she was a pretty twenty-five year old woman, not an Italian gal in her forties like most fans imagined. Casting Kate Mulgrew as Columbo's wife was ludicrous and after a while the title was changed to "Kate The Detective". So I'll review that show, since "Mr. Columbo" was always on a case and never at home anyway (Falk had nothing to do with this show that came out a year after "Columbo" went off the air) while Kate raises a young daughter and solves murders, working as a journalist in one of those free newspapers you see outside supermarkets. Kate doesn't badger her culprits while acting the fool like her hubby; instead she charms and coddles them into submission. The same device of the audience seeing the murder in the first ten minutes is continued but doesn't mean much since there's really no trick to her solving crimes other than being smart, curious, and somewhat creative. Kate Mulgrew's acting is good though, and perhaps if the show began as "Kate The Detective", keeping everything EXCEPT the fact she's supposedly married to a fifty year old man who resembles a dirty sock, it might have had a chance. Then again...