TRUE BLOOD 4.3 – “If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin’?”

I'll have you know this hoodie was designed by Armani ...

Episode three and things finally get going.  The various stories are starting to pick up some steam, and not a moment too soon.  But you know it’s going to be an episode of some consequence when you see that show-runner Alan Ball has written this one himself.

Okay, let’s get Eric out of the way first.  Eric has forgotten a lot of things … Who he is, who “Snookie” is, where he left his shirt … Not that I imagine his many Eric-olytes will be complaining too bitterly about the latter.  Fortunately, as I hoped, this story is (at least so far) being played for laughs, allowed Skars to flex his comedy muscles as well as all his … other muscles.

That said, he does seem remarkably calm as he explains to Sookie “Everything I was, was taken from me”.  For her part, Sookie also takes in his predicament without a trace of cynicism or fluster.  But then, she has spent four years dealing with the melodramas of vampires.

As we know, Sookie’s a sucker for a vulnerable vamp … That’s how Bill won her over, by being constantly wracked with ethical and existential pain.  All Eric has to do is let his hair and his guard down.  He’s certainly more engaging when he isn’t playing the pretentious alpha vamp!

By contrast to the humour of Alexander Skarsgård’s performance,  Ryan Kwanten’s Jason is, unusually, getting to exercise his dramatic acting chops.  His story has taken a disturbing turn as his jailers – the Hot Shot Clampetts – are afforded a little back story.  They have some childish understanding of their heritage involving The Sky People (faeries maybe?) and Ghost Mama and Ghost Daddy being eaten and then thrown up by a panther – because Nature said so.  Or something.  Anyway, this garbled pseudo-religious nonsense at least begins to explain their deeply-flawed logic.    

Although his panther wounds are surprisingly superficial given how the attack seemed last week, they’re still infected and, as he passes in and out of fever, Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher) tells Jason that they believe he is “being reborn” as their new Ghost Daddy.  Of course, they believe in magic and have no idea about infection.  So his fever is not indicative of him becoming a panther, it’s indicative of him dying – hence the line used as the episode’s title. 

As we leave him, he is suffering a fate which is one part wet dream to about five parts worst nightmare.  If he makes it out of this alive, Mr Libido may well have learned to keep it in his trousers from now on!

Sam Trammell’s story still hasn’t really found a direction yet and he seems to be there merely to give Chris Bauer’s Andy Bellefleur and Marshall Allman’s Tommy Mickens someone to bounce off.  Similarly, there is no sensible reason to reintroduce Alcide Herveaux  (Joe Manganiello) save to have yet another chiselled portable wall for Sookie to be tempted by.  They grow their boys big in the backwoods!

Bill, similarly, is treading water this week.  He signs a True Death warrant, showing he can be decisive and cruel having essentially taken over the role of Magister; then dives into his tradition (now weekly, it seems) shagging scene.

Kristin Bauer looking for her vampire contact lens.

Kristin Bauer’s Pam, by contrast, steps front and centre, making all the decisions now Eric is … indisposed.  She’s always been a vampire with a clearer vision of ‘them’ and ‘us’ so, when she tells LaFayette, Tara and Jesus (Nelsan Ellis, Rutina Wesley and Kevin Alejandro) that, in twenty-four hours, she may well eat them, fuck them and kill them (in that order) you know she means that quite literally!

The weird hippy witch, Marnie (played by Fiona Shaw, who you will most likely remember as Harry Potter’s wicked aunt Petunia) reveals just how unbalanced and potentially dangerous she is with her blood sacrifice and her “make me your servant” incantation.  She gets her wish: A visitor from beyond.  I imagine she may come to rue what she has wished for.

A couple of apparent throwaway moments which will become more significant as the show develops:  Remember Jessica’s creepy doll lying on the floor in her and Hoyt's house?  That’s back.  No idea why yet.  But it is shown in the ‘previously on’ montage and then in the show – so you just know it’s going to build in significance.

Also, the latest shenanigan of the building anti-vampire movement is a YouTube video and a new viral website for the fans to visit: vamps-kill.com.  Off you go, then.  But hurry back!

PETER JACKSON'S SECOND HOBBIT VIDEO

Back in March, I wrote here about how good Peter Jackson is at keeping his fans informed through excellent video blogs.  He gave us unprecedented access to King Kong - too much access, in my opinion - but he seems to have moderated that here.   He has released two videos, some ten weeks apart - one just as production was getting under way and another as the first block of shooting comes to an end.

Of course, as with any endeavour involving the vast sums of money in question, the film had a rocky development.  A few months before the deals were signed, there was a very real chance that the movie wouldn't even be shot in New Zealand ... Which was a horrible prospect because every lover of Lord of the Rings KNOWS that New Zealand is Middle Earth.  Nowhere else would do!  The Prime Minister eventually had to step in to make it happen - but here is a report when the result was still very much in the balance:

Interesting friction between New Zealand and Australia there!  Anyway, we now know it all worked out for the best... And the evidence is available in these making-of videos.

In between the two videos we have had various nuggets of information revealed - for example, there will indeed be dividing the book over two films, not one.  The first will be called: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, due for release on December 14, 2012.  The second will have the original novel's subtitle: The Hobbit: There and Back Again and will be released a year later, on December 13, 2013.

We've also had our first glimpse at some of the characters.

Empire magazine has been given its traditional exclusive first look at Gandalf.  You can read the details here.  

Is it just me, or does the wizard look older?  I understand that McKellen is ten years older ... But the character is getting on for a century younger, isn't he?

The interwebs have also been abuzz this last week with these images of the first (of many) new dwarves:

Firstly we have Moe, Curly and Larry ...

... Followed by Stan and Ollie!

And, of course, there are THOSE all important videos.  Initially, the first video kept being taken down, but it seems fairly stable now, so you can watch it here:

Then instantly fast-forward three months to this fascinating view of the process.  I confess the imagery, the landscapes and Howard Shore's music gets me quite emotional.  I am SO excited about these films ... And, after you've seen this, you will be too:

ADDENDUM:

The drip-drip of information continues - we now have another couple of Dwarves, including the reason Mitchell the vampire won't be in series four of Being Human - Aidan Turner.  Actually ... Thinking about it ... Since The Hobbit crew are on sabbatical for a couple of months, I suppose he could shoot some scenes while he's back home.  Hmm.  Anyway, here they are - Dean O'Gorman as Fili and Aidan Turner as Kili.

Followed by Stephen Hunter as the voluminous Bombur, James Nesbitt as Bofur and William Kircher as Bifur:

Butch and Sundance, maybe?

Definitely Hewey, Dewey and Lewey!

FURTHER ADDENDUM:

The final couple of photos have appeared, completing the Dwarf Fellowship ...

Grandad and Del-Boy

... Including the image that Hobbit-fans have been waiting for: Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Dwarves:

The King of The Dwarves ... is a Klingon!

And while we're on the subject ... Here's the photo of them all gathered for the first time, before shooting began.  Not surprisingly, Aidan Turner already looks miserable.  It's not like this film is going to make him an international movie star and sex symbol, or anything ...

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - EP 1: The New World

Torchwood goes international and … Wow.

When last we saw Torchwood it was … well, no more.  Their headquarters were destroyed, most of the team were dead and Capt. Jack had sacrificed his own grandson to save the rest of The Children of Earth.  Wracked with guilt, he became an interstellar hobo and the pregnant Gwen went off the grid with her fella, Rhys.

But, if you don’t know or don’t remember any of that, it’s okay, because this is a new beginning for Torchwood.  Relocating production to America gives creator Russell T. Davies the chance to start work on a whole new, much bigger, canvas!  Most of what you need to know will be told you as we go along.

And so we begin - with a celebrity.  Bill Pullman (who you probably last saw as the fighter-plane flying President in Independence Day) is, here, Oswald Deans, a convicted paedophile and murderer spending what are intended to be his last few moments on this Earth before receiving the death sentence.  Things do not go according to plan and this – 6am Kentucky time – is our introduction to Miracle Day, a day when nobody dies.

Pullman is creepy and twitchy and quite compelling as he argues he should be free because his sentence has been committed and he was executed.  It isn’t his fault nobody can die.  This is obviously a plot thread which will become increasingly central as Miracle Day’s ten episodes unfurl.

Bill Pullman auditioning for the remake of Birdy?  No, getting ready to be nasty in Torchwood!

Russell T. is very good at taking conventions and turning them on their heads and here he has hatched a brilliant variation on the old fable – what if something everybody wishes for actually came to pass.  The terms and conditions on such deals, of course, always read: “Be careful what you wish for!”

You know those films – like Firefox, The Hunted and Shooter - that begin with a grizzled, battle-weary veteran living the quiet life in the wilds, before a call to adventures comes a-knocking?  Here, the grizzled, battle-weary veteran is Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) living in a lovely little cottage with Rhys and their daughter, Anwen, in the arse-end of “God’s own” Wales.

Meanwhile, a curious CIA agent – Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) - is worrying about ‘Torchwood’, inspired by an email which mysteriously appears out of nowhere.  When she begins to dig she is surprised to find there is no reference to ‘Torchwood’ anywhere.  Apart from this blog post, obviously.

Mekhi Phifer is Rex Matheson, another CIA agent, who was in an accident, should have died but, thanks to ‘The Miracle’, didn’t; giving doctors time to repair him.  Not unreasonably, he worries what will happen when ‘The Miracle’ ends and is determined to learn how it all ties in with the mysterious Torchwood.  

Mekhi Phifer, mistaking rural Wales for urban New Jersey.

But what of Captain Jack (John Barrowman)?  No Captain Jack, no Torchwood.  As always, he and his trusty greatcoat reappear with nary a glance backward at the misery he has left in his wake.  He has been drawn back to Earth by that mysterious email.

Of course, one of his USPs is that he is immortal.  On one occasion, I seem to recall, he spent a couple of thousand years buried in a hole; on another he was buried in liquid concrete. He’s one tough hombre.  Now everyone else is “undying” and he, curiously, isn’t as hard-wearing as he used to be.

This suggests that there is some connection between him and Miracle Day, and the email was his invitation back home.  By whom and why will, no doubt, become clearer as we proceed.

Say hello Captain Jack.  There's no talking in the library ... But shooting, that's fine.

It’s a shame we didn’t get to see him travelling the stars, but then, Torchwood has never been about the sexy, space-travelly bits of science fiction adventuring, it’s always been about the more grounded, grimy consequences.  Rhys is, in many ways, the most Torchwoodian character, because he’s the one who has both feet in the real world.  When Gwen decides she wants to break cover and help, his is the voice of common sense and reason, pointing out that people not dying is really not a problem.

If only that were true.  There are almost off-hand revelations that 300,000 people usually people die a day and another 500,000 are born and, if the not dying continues, it’ll be four months before the Earth is overwhelmed.  Can’t help but feel that’s going to become increasingly a problem!

I’m glad to confirm that Davies’ two years off have not blunted his pen.  There is some excellent writing here.  He can still turn out a deceptively simple but incredibly powerful line, such as one doctor’s assertion that “Miracles got easy”.

He is also good at creating memorable set-pieces.  There’s a really icky scene involving a burned victim which zombie movie fans will be talking about that for some time to come, I imagine!

The last ten minutes of the episode are the fulfilment of what every Torchwood and Doctor Who fan has been hoping for – the same old action/adventure but with a bigger budget and a more glamorous American twist.  Yet Davies still approaches his material with his tongue in his cheek – there being a lovely visual gag involving ear-muffs amidst the gunfire.

Introducing the new, improved Torchwood team.  I think they should ALL be wearing greatcoats!

But what of the tone?  Well, it’s certainly lighter than Children of Earth, but then so is your average Lars Von Trier film.  There was also a Biblical subtext to that series (pillars of fire, voices from the Heavens demanding we sacrifice our children) and I expect there to be a developing subtext here dealing with death and our troubling relationship to it. 

There is no mention (yet) of Jack’s rapacious and polymorphous sexuality.  I was wondering if that might be eliminated from the Americanised version but, since it’s co-produced with Starz and they make the absolutely-anything-goes Spartacus, I don’t think we need fear.

This episode is gently easing you in to Davies’ world and getting all the chess-pieces in place.  Next week is when, all being well, the game will begin in earnest.

Torchwood airs on Friday on Stars in the US and the following Thursday on BBC1.  But don't take my word for it, here's the Radio Times, for goodness sake:

So, what are you more excited about, Torchwood or Rich Stein's Taste of Spain.  Hm ... It's a close one ...

TRUE BLOOD 4.2: You Smell Like Dinner

Episode one was all about introductions and getting us used to the new, upgraded True Blood 4.0 … There was fun to be had with the way they had shaken up their world, but now they have to get going and tell some stories.  There’s witches and faeries out there and they mean nothing good for little ole Bon Temps.  The various threads of what, I trust, will eventually resolve into one story have been divided up between small groups of characters and, since it’s early days yet, we can’t really see where many of them are going.

King of Louisiana, Bill, is enjoying issuing orders to his sheriff, Eric, and is starting to hatch his own plots.   He has also reverted to his old habit of having what – and, pointedly, who – he wants.  But it’s all a front, he still drops everything (and everyone) when Sookie calls and when she tells him she doesn’t want to know his secrets any more, that clearly stings him.

But it also throws him into deep introspection and allows us to know this particular secret through a handy dandy little flashback.  Playing to the crowd, we get a scene that will particularly please the Goths watching (I believe there may be a few) as we travel back to a seedy London nightclub on punk night in 1982. 

Enter Bill, all spiky hair, black eye-liner and greasy biker jacket.  This sequence is particularly delightful because it affords Stephen Moyer the chance (however briefly) to use his actual Gor Blimey Guv’nor accent.  No, he isn’t channelling Dick Van Dyke, that’s his real voice!

We also get to see the culmination of his battle with the Queen from the end of series three, and, more importantly, learn the reason behind it: A reason that stretches all the way back to that night in 1982.

Sookie’s main dilemma – which, given what she’s been through hitherto, seems like nothing more than a thorn in her side – is that Eric has bought her house and now claims to “own” her.  Not because he actually wants her, you understand, but simply so Bill can’t have her.  Doesn’t matter how many centuries these vampires walk the Earth, they seemingly never grow up!

In the post-Russell Edgington world, campaigns against vamps have taken a huge leap in popularity – meaning the inevitable divisions between the two schools of thought within Bon Temps are going to become galvanised.  Since there’s a crowd outside Fang-Tasia chanting Steve Newlin’s name, it seems inevitable that he’ll be back, just as smarmy and sanctimonious as before.

I suppose, when you have such a crowded cast of characters, all pursuing their own, distinct (if overlapping) stories, you are going to burn through a lot of storylines.  There are, reputedly, only seven distinct story-lines (Man versus Man, Man versus Nature, Man versus Himself … etc) so it’s only reasonable to expect, in the fourth year of a series that goes through stories like a vampire through breath-fresheners, that you’re going to get a certain amount of repetition.

Therefore, there is the whiff of familiarity as Jessica and Hoyt settle into domesticity, with all of the misunderstandings, arguments and disappointments idealistic young lovers will encounter.  As Jessica becomes more and more predatory, their off-and-on relationship is headed once more into familiar soap-opera territory.

As for Arlene and Terry’s baby, well isn’t he just the cutest little reincarnated serial killer ever?

Sam Trammell has, I suspect, been working out a lot this year, since his character, Sam Merlotte, seems to spend a lot of time naked!   And why shouldn’t he: He is genuinely happy with Lola his shape-changing girly-girl but, of course, in the melodrama that is serial television, this clearly isn’t going where he thinks it’s going.  But quite what traps the writers will lay in his path in the next few weeks is still enjoyably unclear.

Meanwhile, Jason also finds himself in bed – but not in a good way – as he’s chained up with a gun pointed at his head.  He begins to feel that his infatuation with Crystal may have been a dumb idea and, let’s be honest, Jason’s Dumbest Idea is a pretty crowded category.  Never-the-less, the one genuine shock in this episode is delivered by this story right at the very end.  I really want to know what’s gonna happen to poor Jason next.

Bill’s main concern is the coven of Necromancers in the back room of the local Wicca shop, into which Lafayette and Jesus have wandered.  Bringing dead things back to life has interesting consequences for vampires.

Acting-wise, I still think Moyer demonstrates a far greater range than Alexander Skarsgård.  The big Swede continues to be great at wearing vests and has now at least lifted his head up so he’s not looking through his eyebrows all the time, but his performance is such it’s still difficult for me to be scared of him.  He doesn’t seem to take seriously what he’s saying, which makes it hard for me to.  I imagine he’ll be a fine comic actor if he ever gets the chance - and the predicament he finds himself in by the end of this episode may well, deliberately or otherwise, be the opportunity he was looking for.

Now Jason has learned to stand up for himself he doesn’t get to pull that fetching confused-bunny-in-the-headlights face that sustained him through series 1 and 2 but, by the end of this episode, it’s back … Only this time it’s being worn by Eric when he looks blankly at Sookie and asks who she is.

Amnesia?  Really?  Isn’t that one of those story-lines that TV shows use when they’ve run out of better ideas?  Didn’t they do it to Captain Kirk in the reviled third series of Star Trek?  Oh dear …  Beam me up, Sookie.

T20 - TERMINATOR 2

By all that's holey ... Is it really twenty years since I sat on the balcony of the Odeon Coventry for the midnight preview of T2?  There was me and about 499 'close friends', all clad in the de rigueur leather jackets (Coventry was a biker town and a student town ... which lead to a lot of leather being worn in the early 90s).  There wasn't a drop of oestrogen in the building.

Now, ordinarily I'm an anti-social bastard and hate watching films in crowded cinemas ... But this was different.  this was a film that demanded an audience!  To see the film without the electricity of the group response, was to see it with a major ingredient missing.

It was, at the time, the most hype and most anticipated film I'd ever seen.  This was in a time before the internet and the 24/7 Rumour Mill ... But it was also a time when earth-shattering block-busters appeared once or twice a year, not once or twice a month as now.

As I write this, on Friday, everyone is either ranting or raving about Transformers 3 but, in two weeks, the final Harry Potter film is unleashed and the talking cartoon robots will be forgotten.  In truth, they'll be largely forgotten about by Monday.

T'wasn't so twenty years ago.  Back then, a film lived in your mind for months.  But, even by that measure, Terminator 2 was something special.  It still lives in people's minds.   My youngest was five years not-yet born when it came out and yet, even today, he says "Hasta la vista, baby" to his mum when going out to kick a ball around with his mates.

Not many films get burnt that deeply into the psyche of generations of audiences.

And what kicked-off this bout of introspection?  Finding a video.  It's made by a Swedish duo, a musician and an animator, who call themselves Rymdreglage or, for those who can't get their tongues round Swedish ... Ninja Moped.

They have a real vision, eccentric, dedicated and individual.   Their videos show that you don't need masses of money, just inspiration and patience.  In that sense they are the binary opposite of James Cameron's films which, of course, celebrate astonishing expense.  But that binary opposition is, I think, perfect.

This film is both a post-modern celebration of Terminator 2, but also a document about the art of animation.   Which, in itself, is only right since T2 was the first film which wove animation so seamlessly into its live action that no special effects movie from then on could afford not to be, in part, an animation.

This is, I feel, quite wonderful and that is why I wanted to share it with you.

If you want to see more of their delightfully dotty videos, go no further than here.

TRUE BLOOD Season 4 – Episode 1: She’s Not There.

Previously on True Blood …

I’ll assume you did actually watch series 3 but, like me, you’ve probably forgotten a lot of it.  As final episodes go, ‘Evil is Going On’ was fairly short on spectacular dénouement but very heavy on loose ends to tie-up this year.

So, in no particular order:

Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) was pretty much in a holding pattern all last season, developing a relationship with Jesús (Kevin Alejandro) who, finally, confesses he is “a witch” which quite delights Lafayette.

Sam (Sam Trammell)’s back story has risen up and bitten him, meaning he has family matters to deal with that culminate with him shooting his brother, Tommy (Marshall Allman).

Jason (Ryan Kwanten)’s infatuation with Crystal the were-panther has resulted in him being left in charge of a clan of inbred hillbilly shape-shifters.

Tara (Rutina Wesley) has cut her hair, made peace with Sam and seems determined to stop being a victim.  She wants to be “a completely new person”

Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) – Bill’s ‘progeny’ - has finally come to terms with being a vampire, and with the fact that Hoyt (Jim Parrack) loves her no-matter what.  They have moved in together.

Bill (Stephen Moyer) has had a spectacular falling-out with Sookie - again - and has now been replaced in her light-switch affections by Eric.  This has changed him:  Having attempted to ‘kill’ Eric, he was last seen flying and fighting with Queen Sophie-Anne because he has, he claims, nothing left to lose.

Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) buries a barbecued Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare) in cement (but he isn’t actually dead, so don’t be surprised if, like Being Human’s Herrick, he doesn’t reappear) then sticks the stake in Bill and Sookie’s relationship before returning home.  He also now has hallucinations of his progenitor, Godric (Allan Hyde), glowing all Obi-Wan like.

And Sookie (Anna Paquin)?  Well, she’s discovered that she’s part Faerie and that her blood is “vampire crack”.  That should ensure that her motto continues to be: “When am I not in trouble?”

Also rattling around in the mix we have the sexy werewolf Alcide (Joe Manganiello), the Wiccan waitress Holly (Lauren Bowles) and human/vampire relations advocate Nan Flanagan (Jessica Tuck).

So, without further ado:

I haven’t read the fourth Southern Vampire Mystery: Dead To The World, that this series will be loosely based upon, so I’m coming at it cold.  Cold blooded, you might say.

‘Bon Temps’ roughly translates as ‘good times’ and, if the first act of this opening episode is any guide, they are having a good time with Time this year. 

When the episode begins you would be forgiven for thinking you had fallen through a hole in Time and were watching Star Trek: Next Generation.  We open with beautiful people in classical gowns wandering round an obvious studio set, plucking glowing fruit off trees and generally acting all Olympian.

Then Sookie arrives and, inevitably, Heaven promptly goes to Hell.

She soon finds herself running through terrain that is not dissimilar to The Vasquez Rocks, being pursued by Mab, The Faerie Queen.  More from her later, no doubt.

We also get a brief cameo from Gary Cole who seems to have his own relationship with Time, since the fella clearly hasn’t aged a day since appearing in American Gothic some fifteen years ago.

But all this is by way of a starter, just to get the juices flowing – then we get to the main course: Sookie’s homecoming.

Although she has only been gone eight or nine minutes, a curiously precise twelve-and-a-half months have passed in Bon Temps and a few things have changed, but not Bill and Eric’s petty point-scoring “He gave up on you, I didn’t” type stuff.

Otherwise, show-runner Alan Ball has taken the chance to re-set the clock on the show, possibly as a result of the fan dissatisfaction over the end of season three.

Bill’s fight with The Queen obviously ended well as he’s still out and about and now has some political clout.  His charm offensive with the humans is cleverly intercut with Eric smarming into a camera and reassuring television viewers that not all vampires who appear on TV are going to tear out your spine.  Yeah, this is definitely the show to demonstrate that!

Elsewhere, Arlene’s had her baby which is remarkably well developed for its, what, nine months or so?

Tara.  Boy has Tara changed.  She’s spent her year productively and she’s hopefully going to be a much more dynamic character this year.

Now we have an established culture of witches as well a whole dimension full of Faeries to add to the mix and I can’t help but find myself noting how similar to the Whedoniverse everything is becoming, with a new supernatural species lurking around every corner.  I’m waiting for a green-skinned crooner to show up.

Of course, the sheer size of the cast and the number of plot-lines are reminiscent of Lost or Fringe – both of which have had fun playing with time and parallel dimensions.  So, it’s a shame that, with this first episode at least, the show has lost its unique voice.  But at least the buffet of plots available ensures that there will be something to everyone’s taste.

So, this is essentially the pilot of a whole new show, taken-up with introducing a whole new cast of characters.  They look like and sound like the characters we know, but they don’t necessarily behave like them.

There is fun to be had, seeing how they have shaken things up and discovering how the characters have changed, but it’s a once-only buzz.  Now they have to get on with the very serious business of telling a lot of stories quickly and well.

Fortunately, during the show’s last five minutes, all the introductions done, things start to move.  The world of True Blood is getting bigger, more complicated and, yes, more dangerous.  One wonders how much longer all of this activity will continue to gravitate around the little town of Bon Temps.  Only Time will tell.

You'll also find this article published by Obsessed With Film, here.

PETER FALK: IN THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND …

Back in the seventies, my grandad used to love watching ‘Columbo’.  He loved the way he missed nothing and always managed to get the suspect to tie themselves in knots.  “He’s a clever one, that Columbo”, he told me.  Of course, my grandad had never heard of Peter Falk.  Columbo was real to him and, in a way, he was right to think so.

Typecasting is a common fear among TV actors – although, of course, it’s something they all secretly pray for – but there are few who have deserved it and embraced it as much as Falk.  William Link and Richard Levinson may have created Columbo, but Falk owned him.

It was not inevitably so.  Falk wasn’t even the first person to play him.   The character first appeared in the person of one Bert Freed as part of a 1960 TV show called The Chevy Mystery Show, in a one-off episode called ‘Enough Rope’.

This episode was then adapted into the stage play ‘Prescription: Murder’ (where the role was played by Thomas Mitchell – Uncle Billy from It’s A Wonderful Life).  This, in-turn, was adapted back into a TV movie and that’s when Falk got to don the rumpled overcoat.  But only ’cos Bing Crosby turned it down.

In the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder, Columbo is quite a different character; persistent, yes, but crueller in his pursuit of his prey’s female accomplice.  He also lies in order to extract confession – something which, in later stories, he would always skilfully avoid.

It would be three years before Falk would get to wear the overcoat again, by which time his acting skills had leapt to a new level thanks to his working with John Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara on the very grown-up and largely-improvised Husbands.  Cassavetes practiced (and taught) The Method, whereby an actor effectively loses himself in his role.  This is something which Falk would increasingly come to do with Columbo.

Falk with his friend and occasional sparring-partner Cassavetes

Both the first Columbo movie and its follow-up Ransom for a Dead Man were directed by Richard Irving (who would go on to direct the pilot for The Six Million Dollar Man) and he succeeded in making them popular enough to warrant developing into a regular series.  The first episode of which was directed by a twenty-five year-old Steven Spielberg.  Wonder what happened to him? 

This story:  Murder by the Book tells of a catastrophic falling-out between two murder mystery writers.  I wonder if one can read anything into the fact that this wasn’t written by Levinson and Link but by Steven Bochco who would go on to be show-runner of a little thing called Hill Street Blues?

Indeed, Link and Levinson could afford to take an increasingly hands-off approach to their creation, overseeing the show more as producers than writers, because they knew the Lieutenant was in good hands.

Falk took it upon himself to maintain the quality control of the show – constantly arguing with writers and directors over details which he felt were not right for the character.  Of course, this was partly because he didn’t want the show’s focus taken away from him.  If they’d introduced side-kicks and car-chases it would have made the show more like everything else out there, and less of a study in character development.  It would be less about him.

Falk’s Columbo performances are text books in hogging the limelight.  Some of American TV’s best actors pitted their wits against him – and it is a real case of the actor trying to win scenes off Falk, in exactly the way that their character is trying to beat the Lieutenant.

Actors who came back for more include William Shatner, Robert Vaughan, Ray Milland and Patrick McGoohan (who turned up four times, directed a couple of later episodes and even wrote one).  Falk also wrote one of the latter episodes.

Yes, that's Captain Kirk wearing some kind of ill-fitting top-lip wig.

What is the appeal of a detective who is never wrong?  What could possibly hold our attention through sixty-nine virtually identical episodes over thirty-five years?  It’s Falk.  It’s his eccentricity, his patience and his intelligence (often well-disguised); it’s his humour, his modesty and his politeness.  One of the most delightful things about the show is just how gentlemanly it is. 

Like Agatha Christie’s greatest creations he is always very polite to his victims who, in turn, are gracious in admiring the tenacity of their captor.  But Christie’s stories were always set in a fantasy version of the 1920s.  Not Columbo … He was contemporary.  Indeed, in his very last outing – Columbo Likes The Nightlife, he found himself investigating 21^st century nightclub culture.

There is a cosiness to the killings in a Columbo story, which is why they invariably crop-up on afternoon TV in a generally uncut form.  They’re harmless homicides.  Safe for the whole family. 

Whenever I watch Columbo, I think of my grandad, perched on the edge of his Windsor chair, rooting for the little rumpled detective.  He and I would watch the shows together and, despite the sixty-year age difference, we’d enjoy them equally.  We’d celebrate together when he hesitated, turned in the doorway, uttered the immortal line: “Just one more thing” and casually delivered the knock-out blow that would break down the killer’s defences.

You know that moment is coming, you may have even seen the episode so often you know exactly what is going to happen, but that doesn’t diminish your delight in watching the fly enter the trap one more time.

Given that I associate Falk with my grandad, imagine my delight when, now an adult myself, I saw him turn up in The Princess Bride as the unnamed grandfather of Fred Savage.  Their bickering over whether or not it is “a kissing book” is so beautifully observed it lifts what could, otherwise be an (albeit superior) piece of pastiche into a film of real depth and genuine affection.

But, for me, none of this is Falk’s lasting legacy.  No, for me that is his starting, unprecedented ‘special appearance’ in Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Wings of Desire.   Here he is told “You look like somebody’s grand-father”   Me.  He looks like my grand-father.   Well, maybe not look … But he certainly feels like him! 

Falk plays himself, mulling over life and legacy and Wenders has said he cast him because he “radiated gentleness and generosity”.  Falk said he took the role because Wenders hadn’t written him into the script and so he could, as with his Cassavetes work and, to an extent, Columbo, make the role up as he went along.  After all, he’d been playing Peter Falk all his life!

"I can't see you, but I know you're there!"  Makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck every time!

Towards the end of this film about angels, we learn that Falk is himself an angel; or rather, was once, but voluntarily gave up immortality – after millennia of watching and caring for humans - to experience real life.  He chose the impermanence of mortality.  He clearly has no regrets.

If there is any actor whose calm, warm wisdom suggests an understanding of those existential questions which haunt our unguarded moments, and reassures us that there is nothing to fear, it is Falk. 

He is back up there now, among the angels.  With my grandad.

Thanks to the good people at Obsessed With Film - you'll also find this piece, formated slightly differently, here.