Columbo: The Complete Series

It's so nice to watch all the episode and movies - and without commercials! I can get some on TV, but this is even better. I have access to all the episodes whenever I want. We consider this Crime Light and it always entertains. No real gore, clean fun, even for a younger audience. This is intelligent crime. It's amazing how many stars were guests, even the background players and while it is dated, it's fun to see old cars, no cell phones, no computers, and this annoying little guy always get his man/woman. Always was, and still is, a classic.

Another reviewer mentioned Columbo's "humbleness" and I have to agree. He let jerky people be jerks and he just listened instead of sassing back or showing his hand. He didn't argue with jerks until he had all the information he needed. I've started trying to follow this in my personal life: just smile and listen and don't try to show off or prove you're better (why worry? Columbo knew he was better than the murderer intelligence-wise and morally). Be humble, listen more than you speak and smile, smile, smile. You might find that quite rapidly you're day-to-day life will improve.First, the boring technical stuff as of March 2018:The discs play just fine. I'm a librarian, specifically an audio visual cataloger and I deal with people bringing me DVDs that "don't play" yet look fine. The discs play just fine on our computers and test DVD player. Usually the problem is someone with an old player--worse yet--an old player that's never had its lens cleaned. We pop the same discs into a computer or new/clean player and they work fine. So: there are no authoring problems on the discs I've played so far, although it does happen. Recently I bought the NCIS 1-14 season set and season 6 wouldn't play in any player!These are full frame videos that are probably the old 4:3 aspect ratio? This means there are no black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. There is no pan-and-scan weirdness. Just a nice, full screen video just like it originally looked when it aired on TV.There are only 2 episodes per disc and only 6-8 episodes per season: because the episodes were 1.5 to 2 hours long. So every 3 or 4 hours you have to get up and change the disc. Each season fits in a normal width case. The cases are the clear/frosted clear cases. Let me tell you: as an AV librarian I've had hundreds of broken black DVD cases, but only 4 broken clear cases (they were run over by a delivery truck). These are quality materials, not cheap thin garbage. I catalog around 100 DVDs per month and this set is top quality material-wise. However, DVD sets can be reproduced at one factory in large numbers, then a year or two later sent to a different factory to be reproduce-so you never really know from batch to batch of the quality. As of March 2018 the quality was top notch.Some of the discs (but not all) have advertisements, however a pop-up notice tells you right away to just hit "Menu" to bypass these advertisements if you don't want to watch them. The only thing you cannot bypass is the FBI anti-piracy warning screen.Sort of hidden bonus episodes: I didn't notice at first, but after watching both episodes you go back to the menu screen, however on the last disc of season 3 there was a little thing that said "Bonus Episode". I almost ejected the disc, but clicked on that episode and was treated to an episode of "Mrs. Columbo"! There are 3 of these episodes throughout the set: look at the back of each season's case and they tell you which seasons have these episodes. It's really easy to miss them!Mrs. Columbo was played by an actress (Kate Mulgrew) who was WAY too young to be married to the detective. There was also a very young daughter. If you just imagine her to be the (barely) adult daughter of Columbo it's less un-believable. The actress later played the captain on one of the Star Trek TV shows called Star Trek Voyager. I'm not saying a charming man like Peter Falk couldn't get a beautiful young wife, but it was sort of established in the show that his wife was about his age (middle age+) although maybe the detective just said that to trick a suspect. Donald Pleasence is the bad guy, but in the Mrs. Columbo episode he is really humorous, which is nice because in the Columbo episode he was in, right in that same season, he was sort of mean, weird and sad (as a character).Through most of the first season the killer leaves an important clue behind and the walks out of the scene...only to return and grab the piece of evidence at the last second and then re-exiting the screen. It was a neat trick that they stopped doing before season 2.As the seasons progress Columbo's shoes get worse and worse. By the first episode of season 4 you see his shoes up close a lot in the episode and they barely look like shoes anymore. That episode also marks the first time Columbo angrily accuses a suspect sort of early on in the episode. The next episode though is really, really funny: he drives his terrible car to a junkyard murder scene and they think he's there to dump it off; later he goes to a soup kitchen and they think he's homeless.Columbo's cough: he adds a weird 'fake' cough to his questioning routine...just as his car is getting worse and worse and spitting out more smoke. Maybe he was getting carbon monoxide poisoning from his car?PAPER! PAPER! PAPER! All my life I've loved feeling and writing on crinkled paper. Almost every episode has crinkly paper, scribbling and writing. If you are a graphophile or paperphile you'll love this show. The way he palms his notes on scraps of paper. I met a parent with a child with autism and they LOVED the feel of paper. I found them a stack of different kinds of paper to fold and touch and they loved it! There is a relaxation technique (popular on YouTube) of watching videos of people playing with paper and smoothing lightly crinkled butcher paper, etc. I know it sounds crazy, but it's called "ASMR" and if you love all the paper-handling in the show you'll find great enjoyment on Youtube, just search "Paper ASMR" or "Crinkle ASMR".Oh, uh, just one more thing: a lot of the murderers utilize various phone systems and answering machines to aid in their alibis. That gets sort of annoying, but it's still neat seeing that old technology (not just the old landline phones, but like reel-to-reel answering machines and computer punch card programmed answering machines, etc.).Mike from Detroit

If you want to own Columbo on a comically large number of DVDs, here it is. Comes with English subtitles that work well and Spanish subtitles I cannot attest to the quality of. Not much else to say about it. Got what I wanted.

Very good quality

I'll be the first to admit that I am greatly biased toward Columbo. I absolutely adore the late, great Peter Falk and have been a fan of his most famous character since childhood. There really isn't much one can say negative about this series except that with just 69, there were too few episodes/movies!Peter Falk was always brilliant in everything he was in. He was equally as comfortable in a flat-out comedy role as he was drama. He brought all of his characters to life and you cared about them because they had that something special that a truly good character always does.Lt. Frank Columbo was no exception to that.The good Lt. always had an idea from the start who the murderer was. The joy of each episode was watching him expertly lead the killer into giving him/herself away. It didn't matter how carefully they thought they had planned out the crime, once Columbo was on the case, he would exploit their greatest weaknesses and end up letting the bad guy catch himself.Along the way, there was a lot of humor to lighten the atmosphere, but the shows never turned into a comedy. Let's face it, murder isn't exactly a light-hearted thing so it can always be welcome when our hero can bring a smile into an otherwise dark situation. Whether it was always commenting on what he and Mrs. Columbo enjoyed or liked (Mrs. Columbo has to have had some of the most eclectic interests and tastes of any human being as she was a fan of everyone and everything!), Columbo whistling "This Old Man" or even bringing Dog along on the investigation, he could always make you smile. Rarely did he lose his temper and even when he did, you couldn't fault him for it.The "Columbo" series can also boast something that so precious few series of today can: superior writing. A good mystery is nothing if the writing is poor and doesn't have the characters to back it up. The crimes in "Columbo" were unique for their time and kept you on your toes looking for that one thing that told Lt. Columbo that his prime suspect was guilty. The supporting characters were just as well-written as the regular series characters. None of them were there just for the sake of bringing in a big name guest star. They had background and could be pretty complex.And about those guest stars. Some of the biggest and best names in Hollywood were on the receiving end of Lt. Columbo's razor-sharp wit or were the victim he fought so hard to find justice for. Leonard Nemoy, George Hamilton, Patrick McGoohan (he also directed five episodes), Robert Culp, Robert Vaughn, William Shatner, Jeanette Nolan, Ray Milland, Jack Cassidy, Ida Lupino, John Dehner, Leslie Neilson, Dean Stockwell, Dabney Coleman and dozens of others. To say "Columbo" was 'star-studded' would be an understatement. We even get to see Peter Falk's real-life wife, Shera Danese in six episodes.Along with well-known actors and actresses, some of the cream of the Hollywood crop worked behind the scenes. Steven Speilberg, Steven Bochco and Johnathan Demme served in roles of directors and writers. Two of the episodes were based upon two of Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" novels. Even Peter Falk himself served a double role as actor and director for the last episode of the first season. Henry Mancini and Mike Post were two of the many, and very talented, composers who worked on the show. Over the course of its run, Columbo won thirteen Emmys and two each of Edgar Awards and Golden Globes. Well deserved recognition for such a fine show!There is a reason why "Columbo" ran from 1968 to 2003. The quality of the acting and writing was top-notch, The story lines were unique and compelling. It was a pleasure to learn a new Columbo movie was on the network schedule because you knew that the two hours you would spend watching the show meant a great way to spend an evening with good entertainment that challenged your mind.Oh, and just one more thing...you'll really regret it if you don't add this brilliant complete series to your DVD collection. Anyone who is a fan of well-written, brilliantly acted drama would be proud to own this collection!

I was a little worried that at this cheap price there would be a catch, not great quality video or audio, incomplete set, etc., but no, everything is great! Highly recommend.

Una muy completa edición para quien desee tener todo sobre este personaje tomando en cuenta la región y el idioma

Totalmente completa. Una edición que viene en un simpático estuche que imita una caja de puros. Más completa que la edición española. Lamentablemente sólo la segunda temporada viene con audio en castellano y muchas de las temporadas ni siquiera tienen subtítulos.

There are already many good reviews on this Box Set so I won’t go too much into what the series is like or about. My review is more about the actual product as a whole.Columbo was a TV detective series that was produced and transmitted during the 1970s. Each story was movie length. Each episode showed us a murderer commit a murder and cover their tracks or create an alibi so as to make the perfect murder and evade detection. Then detective Columbo unpicks alibi’s and works out who the murderer is and how the murder was commited.For me, Columbo is the greatest TV detective series of all time. The writing, production, acting and style are outstanding. Peter Falk who played Columbo created a brilliant character,The first movie was in 1968 and then turned into a series every year until 1978. The series was brought back for new episodes in 1989 to 1990 and 2003.The box set is well designed as a cigar box. Inside there are slim line DVD cases containing two discs each. The set covers all episodes for season one to nine. Then all the episodes that were produced at various times after series nine form Series 10. If you look at other DVD releases before this you will find those episodes after series nine as forming series 10, 11, and 12. But I believe that this box set has got it right to bring all those episodes recorded and released at odd times and across years into one set and making it season 10.I got my box set via Amazon and a third party seller that stated it was Like New but booklet missing.As long as all the discs were there I wasn’t bothered and was glad to get a box set for nearly half the price of the ones on Amazon direct.When I got the item it was as described. Like New. And there is a space in the box. But having looked on line I am not sure that there was actually supposed to be a book. I can find no mention of a booklet on product description on the internet. So I cannot comment on the book, if there is supposed to be one.The episodes all have Subtitles for the hard of hearing. This is a good selling point for many people. I can tell you that if you need subtitles this is the best set to get. The Blu Ray editions of season one and two have NO SUBTITLES.The picture quality is better on the Blu Ray version of season one, but this DVD set is still good enough and the complete package is a great way to collect Columbo.Also there a couple of episodes from the short lived spin off series Mrs Columbo that are added as bonus episodes about half way through the set. If you ever wanted that series I believe it is only available in Region 1 DVD so to get a few episodes here on this Region 2 set makes a nice addition.

Arrived in good time with no damage to the packaging. I would have happily spent more to buy the local Australian release that was released LESS than a year ago, but apparently Madman hates money and therefore produced such a limited run that it's impossible to find and already out of print. After less than a year? Not sure how they made their money back on that endeavour, but anyway...Fortunately, this US release from 2018 is also remastered and has EXCELLENT picture quality - two episodes to a disc is very generous and the picture is extremely sharp and detailed. This is one occasion where a Blu Ray player's upscaling feature is very welcome.It will take a while to wade through the almost 100 hours of content, but the twenty four TV movies that I am yet to see will be worth the price alone.

Grazioso cofanetto (di cartone) dalla forma vagamente somigliante ad una scatola di sigari. All'interno, opportunamente classificati e impacchettati, 35 DVD con (quasi) tutte le puntate del famoso tenente Columbo, con la U. Godevole anche il piccolo leaflet interno con un po' di informazioni utili a comprendere il personaggio, la sua storia, le sue celebri boutade, il cane, la moglie, la macchina, ...Naturalmente questa è l'edizione UK, quindi non c'è audio in italiano né sottotitoli per tutte le puntate. Ma il motivo per cui l'ho comprato è che volevo proprio esattamente questo: gustarmi le avventure del tenente in lingua originale. Quindi AVVERTENZA: se hai intenzione di acquistare questo articolo ma non parli/comprendi la lingua inglese ASTIENITI, non fa per te.ERRATA CORRIGE: il cofanetto contiene ANCHE i due «pilot», l'episodio "Prescription: Murder" del 20 feb 1968 e l'episodio "Ransom for a Dead Man" del 1 mar 1971 trasmessi dalla NBC in cui, in pratica, il personaggio di Colombo viene presentato. Fantastico. E' realmente completo!Lo consiglierei? Sì. MA solo per anglofoni o intenditori.