Tag: Television

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I have to confess I enjoyed the TV series — Reacher. The big man is fun to watch as he fearlessly takes on all comers and, no matter how outnumbered he is, he always comes out on top — usually after killing a shit load of people. He is tough, he is rule breaker, he is smart, he is cool, he disrespects all authority figures, he speaks softly and carries a big stick. He is everything we imagine our macho men should be. So not terribly realistic but, come on, it can be good television.

Since I liked Reacher, I was willing to take a chance on Neagley. Neagley was a member of Reacher’s crew but now works as a private detective in Chicago. I was skeptical whether Neagley was strong enough character for her own series. She was a good second banana to Reacher but her own show, I don’t know. I needed to be convinced.

Surprisingly the best part of the show is the character of Neagley. Maria Sten does an excellent job of making Neagley a believable but damaged character. The show delves into her tough cold exterior and tries to understand how she got the way. A good portion of the the series involves her trying to figure out why she doesn’t like to be touched. The show also connects her investigation of the death of a friend to her own personal trauma.

Neagley gathers a band of renegades to help her investigate the cult her friend was involved in. All seem foolishly willing to risk their lives trying to get to the bottom of her friend’s death and their back stories are interesting enough to keep me watching. Then, inexplicably, the show goes into a killing spree that defies believe.

It isn’t so much that people are killing and getting killed that is to be expected in a detective show. It is the volume of people engaged in both that becomes a cause for disbelief.

Spoiler Alert: Almost every lead character and important supporting character gets to kill someone at some point. And, even those who are new to murder, take to it with relish by the end. Give them a gun, take them to a shoot out and their guns are blazing away without nary a thought. And so many of the murders happen in front of room full of people. One man is shot in a room full of policeman, the cult members stone one of their leaders at a cult meeting of about 30 people, and a billionaire murders his lackey in front of his staff. No one seems to be much bothered by it.

Supporting characters left and right just remove the bodies. The idea that the leaders of the cult would be OK with testing drugs on their fellow cult members and when these drugs turned deadly, which happened quite frequently, they chopped up the dead bodies, put them into bags and disposed of the evidence. Really? No one thought this was a bad idea. I find that difficult to believe.

Then the Swedish businessman who was paying for the dangerous drug to be tested on these poor cult members decides there is too many witnesses to the cult killings. He decides to kill the entire cult to cover up his excesses. Except he has to hire a para-military group to do the massacre. Isn’t he creating even more witnesses? It just is so unbelievable. There is too many conspirators and too many victims to make this believable.

The villains are all caricatures of villains — the crazy cult leader who sleeps with all the women in the cult and then rubs the cuckold’s nose with their wife’s infidelities, the businessman who cares so much about money that he is willing to kill an entire cult if it stands in his way and a business lackey, so lacking in morals and too willing to please his boss, who incorporates murder into his plans in order to get his product developed. Huh?

You might give it a gander but what started out as a fairly serious investigation of trauma and a person trying to overcome it turns into a cartoonish pile of bodies with villains who twirl their mustaches.

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I have a problem with historical dramas. There always come some point in the story when I realize this is speculation on part of the writers. it may be true but it could just as easily be false. There is no way of knowing because the characters are long dead and aren’t able to confirm or deny the speculation.

I also get that the writers have to speculate some as these historical figures didn’t live 24/7/365 in front of the public. Speculation about a conversation between a wife and husband might have to happen in order for the drama to make sense. Most of the time, the writers try to give a best guess based on the historical information they have. It may be difficult to confirm whether the actual conversation happened as told but it makes sense in the context of what happened in history.

Then there is Ryan Murphy, the creator of American Horror Story and the Monster series. His latest story is about Lizzie Borden — a woman who lived in the late 19th century and is suspected of killing her parents. Murphy and his team go well beyond speculation in their portrait of the infamous Lizzy Borden. They wander from speculation into mostly fiction and complete fantasy, leaving the audience with no real idea what happened to Andrew and Abby Borden — other than they were killed.

Here are some of the problems:

  1. Lizzie, at the time of her parent’s murder, was 32 years old and not this post adolescence naif that Ella Beatty plays in the show.
  2. Andrew and Abby Borden were in the early 60’s to late 70’s which I could have lived with except the implication is that this middle aged couple in the television show were engaged in numerous sexual trysts that don’t really make sense for their age. Andrew is chasing and catching every maid and Abby is seducing Andrew’s brother-in-law. There is no evidence that any of these sexual liasons ever occurred.
  3. Andrew impregnated Maggie and he pays her to abort the child.
  4. Lizzie had a lesbian affair with Maggie Sullivan, the Borden’s maid which is speculation and might be a plausible explanation for the killings but this speculation isn’t grounded in any facts.
  5. Lizzie and Maggie are implicated in another murder. There is no evidence that they were involved.
  6. Murphy’s team doesn’t even try to explain one of the more interesting events of the murder — the hour and half between Abby’s death and Andrew’s death. They even go as far as to have Andrew visiting a whore the night before and just arriving home from his tryst to meet his fate. This is complete fantasy.
  7. Lizzie didn’t met Nance O’Neal until well after Lizzie’s trial so could not have coached Lizzie on how to behave at her trial.
  8. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Lizzie and Maggie were prominent in the suffragette movement.
  9. It is a bit disburbing to paint Lizzie as this feminist icon when her big claim to fame, as portrayed by Murphy, is killing her parents for the sin of being mean to her. Yes that is why Lizzie took an axe to her parent. They were mean to her.

There is too much speculation and fantasy to have any relevance to understand what happened to the Borden family which I would think is the whole point of calling it Monster: Lizzie Borden. Yes, maybe there is some speculation but a show that purports to explain what happened should at least come close to the truth.

Murphy has created an account of a Lizzie Borden like character but not Lizzie Borden.

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Sometimes a TV series catches me for the wrong reason and I force myself to watch to the end because this wrong reason captured my attention but I really should know better because I know I am going to be disappointed when I learn the reason. I Will Find You, a Netflex mystery series, is just such an animal.

First a spoiler alert. I will be revealing some of the mysteries in the show so if you intend to watch the series, which I don’t recommend, stop reading now. The good news here is that there are so many plot twists that you aren’t likely to remember them all unless you have a copy of my review available while watching. There are plot twists after plot twists after plot twists after plot twists. Bad cops who turn out to be really good cops who were acting bad for a good reason. This means I started out thinking they were good guys, then I found out they were bad guys, only to later learn that they were actually good. Are you still with me?

The problem starts at the very beginning. David Burroughs (Sam Worthington) is in prison for killing his son with a baseball bat. Awful. Bad David. He sits in prison, not taking any visitors, because he thinks he deserves it for killing his son during a black out. Rachel Mills (Britt Lower), his sister-in-law, visits him in prison despite his requests not to be visited because of how horrible a person he is. She shows him a picture of a photo she received that shows his son who has a very distinctive birth mark is very much alive. Burroughs realizes that maybe he didn’t kill his son and this sets into motion Burrough and Mill’s mission to discover the truth.

The hook that kept me watching now is firmly in place. I really want to know who would killed a small child with a baseball bat, kidnap another child and set up the child’s father for murder. There has to be a good reason for someone to do this, right? I mean killing a child to kidnap someone else’s child, that is a terrible thing to do to a kid and to Burroughs. What is it?

The next 8 episodes are so is a wild run of plot twists, a lot of them red herrings, vitally unnecessary to the actual plot but are thrown in there to keep you guessing. And there is so much to learn and then forget because they are irrelevant to the child’s murder. Things like a mob connection to the murder. The mob has absolutely nothing to do with the murdered child or to the story at all but that doesn’t stop the series from devoting several episodes to this plot line which proves to be both unnecessary and violent. The Mafia Don’s main man is killed, Burroughs is flown into Key West to meet his fate with the Mafia Don, and he learns that his best friend works for the Mafia Don.

So, it turns out, the nasty Mafia Don turns out to be just a good father interested in helping other good fathers, even good fathers who wrongfully sent his own son to prison where he is killed. The Don, who in the past swore revenge on the cops who set his son up, but decides to nothing to the police who screwed over his son even though he has captured and in his Key West home. The Don does nothing and actually is such a good sport about the whole threat thing, even though one of his top guys is killed, that he flies Burroughs back to home so he can further investigate his son’s disappearance. Even though his son still died in prison, his top guy back home is murdered because Burroughs thought the mob was involved and one the good/bad cops pulled a gun on him. Nothing on toward happens to anyone.

Are you still with me? Don’t worry, none of the Mafia Don plot twists have much to do with the actual story so you can forget them right here.

Finally there is the end. Oh boy what a fucking mess. I will just jump to the mess and won’t give you too many details because there are just too many of them and it would only serve to confuse you. To summarize — it involves troubled pregnancies, false names at fertility clinic, and the discovery that the guy who has been helping Burroughs throughout the show is actually a friendly psychopath. The psychopath, who I feel it is important to remind you, killed a small child with a baseball bat, thinks that Burrough’s son is actually his son and so with the assistance of his rich mother and her security man, they cover up his misbehavior because all the psychopath wants is to be a good father.

Yes, you heard that right. The psychopath kills one child in order to kidnap someone else’s child who the psychopath mistakenly believes is his and so he can raise this kidnapped child as his own There are many things I believe a mother might cover up for her son but I think that if my son had killed an innocent child in order to realize his parental goals, I might be a little concerned about his behavior and, dear God, why would I give him access to another small child. I shudder to think of the psychopath’s views on corporal punishment and so should the psychopath’s mother. Wouldn’t it just be easier to hire a woman to have his child? I am sure it wouldn’t be difficult to find a woman willing to bear his child for a cool million and, let’s face it, a lot less messy than covering up a murder.

To say nothing of the mother’s security man. There are plenty of other rich people who don’t have bat shit crazy sons that need security men, why fuck around with a psychopath who, I feel compelled to remind you, yet again, killed a child with a baseball bat and set up another man to take the fall for his client’s murder?

Some other minor points. Sam Worthington is an Australian and he was playing an American. His American accent was perfect but his acting was painfully stiff. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the primary male characters looked an awful lot alike — so that you spend a lot of the early episodes trying to figure out who is the grieving father, the psychopath, the wife’s new husband, and the grieving father’s best friend. I don’t ask this often but do all white men look alike? They do in this program.

The thing is what hooked me was the murder of a small child. The whole series I thought there better be a good reason for such a terrible act, only to discover that the innocent was sacrificed to fulfill a man’s ambition to be a good father. Good grief.

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I usually don’t write TV reviews because I mostly like what I see and I have run out of ways to say nice job, great production, outstanding acting. I am trying to learn how because I think it is important to be able to write about anything but good TV, I am afraid, leaves my writing stilted. On the other hand if it is problematic or bad TV, I can write. Fasten your seat belts I have found a show that really irritated me and believe me there will be spoiler alerts so, if this bothers you, stop reading now.

Any way, there I was enjoying Lazarus, a 6 part English series. I get to the final episode enjoying this problematic but somewhat entertaining show and then the god damn thing goes completely off the rails. There was a new plot twists with each scene. He is the murderer, no she is murderer, no murdered some of the victims but not all of the victims. It felt very much like someone who was an uppity up at the studio, after viewing 15 minutes of one of the episodes decided there weren’t nearly enough plot twists. So as you near the end of the episode, you sort of know who committed some of the murders but kind of don’t know about others and it is the fucking last show so this is it. If you don’t know for sure now, you have lost the plot.

An example might help you understand my plight here. There is a serial murder loose and we assume he has been killing for a long time. You go into episode 6 thinking it was the crazy neighbor who killed everyone. But we find out really fast that no the police detective in charge of every last investigation might have done it. But wait, then we find out, through Lazarus’ communication with the dead, more on that later, that it is really Lazarus’ father.

Now this would be a good opportunity to wrap up the show letting the audience know all the whats and wherefores. Sometimes a nice bow tying up all the plot devices is needed. It would certainly be helpful here. Instead they throw in yet another plot twist that has nothing to do with any of the previous murders and looks like an incredibly lazy set up for another season. Lazarus discovers that his son, which for the record he didn’t know about until the middle of the season, has inherited his grandfather’s predilection for murder. Shades of the Bad Seed. WTF and why?

Then there is the unfortunate character of Lazarus (Sam Claflin) who sees dead people which allows him to discover clues that reveal murder victims and suspects. Since he is getting his clues from ghosts, Lazarus has a difficult time explaining to the police how he is getting this information. This means for much of the show he is hysterical because he is fucking seeing and talking with ghosts which he finds disturbing and he can’t very well explain this to the police who will think that he is crazy if he is seeing ghosts. So instead he just acts crazy without the mitigating factor of him explaining why. So, in trying not to appear crazy, he is acting crazy to hide that fact that he is talking with dead people. The police, quite rightly, question his sanity and suspect his motives.

The behavior of the ghosts is odd. Most of the ghosts believe they are talking to Lazarus’ father as they are patients or employees of his father. They really don’t explicitly give him information. They relive their encounters with his father. Lazarus acts like his father for the dead people while the ghosts show him what happened to them in the past. They supposedly are trying to point out who the murderer is even thought they actually know, at least in some cases, that the murderer is Lazarus’ father and they could just relive the moment when they were murdered. This would save everyone a lot of time but no the ghosts are coy and would rather just drop hints. Hints that are absolutely no help to Lazarus in finding the real murderer and would wrap up the show a little too quickly. Like in the first episode. The answer to keep the show going is plot twists, there needs to be more plot twists.

Lazarus’ father, unlike all of the other ghosts, actually talks to Lazarus. Why he can actually communicate with Lazarus while the other ghosts can only show what happened to them in the past is never explained. Since the whole purpose of the ghosts is to determine who the murderer is and the Lazarus’ dead father seems to be the head ghost trying to reveal this mystery, it begs the question why doesn’t he just tell Lazarus who killed who. This would be too easy, so, the father just lets him make a lot of wrong assumptions and endanger himself and others for no apparent reason other than it keeps the series going for another episode. The father isn’t shy about confessing to his murders at the end so why not just get it over with when he first appears to Lazarus. Plot twists baby, there has to be plot twists.

And finally, I can’t help myself, it is a small complaint but nonetheless irritating, so I have to mention it, the policewoman who Lazarus suspects of being the killer (she is only a killer) outruns the much younger Lazarus through the empty lunch time streets of London. Yes, empty streets at lunchtime in London. Not a moving car in sight. The woman, who has to be, at least, in her late 40’s and probably older, runs like an Olympian, gliding effortlessly from deserted street to deserted street until she hits a main avenue where, of course, a bus hits her. What do you expect when you are running down the middle of the street in broad daylight in a major metropolitan area like London. I was surprised she wasn’t mowed down when she stepped off the side walk. So was I shocked by her fate? Can’t say that I was. I have seen this trope so many times that any time a character, particularly a villain, finds them self stopping in the middle of the street, I know that the jig is up and a vehicle is heading their way with deadly consequences.

It is just too much and too unbelievable but I have wasted my time on worse. It is totally up to you but you might keep searching for another show and, if you still can’t find anything to your taste after 15 minutes or so and you find yourself back at Lazarus, you can give it a go knowing my concerns. It might help you to cut loose more quickly than I did.

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There is a debate going on right now on how fictional characters might have voted in the 2024 elections. Some people have speculated that Ron Swanson, a character on the television show Parks and Recreation, would have voted for Trump. Nick Offerman, the actor who played Ron Swanson, disagrees. A debate is now raging.

My only thought on the matter is who cares? Why are people getting so worked up over how a fictional character might have voted? They aren’t real people so they couldn’t have voted in the first place. More importantly, and I can’t stress this enough, is why are news organizations reporting on this incredibly irrelevant matter.

The media is jumping on this ginned up controversy because that is what makes the news business money — ginned up controversies. People want to see action and emotion. Controversies are the bread and butter of television. On the other hand, People don’t watch television to see reasonable people talking calmly about their opinions and then working towards a solution. This means that television executives exploit any controversy that might get people’s hackles rising.

Though, debating about Ron Swanson’s voting decision seems to be near the bottom of the ginned up controversies barrel. There is nothing there. Absolutely nothing. The person doesn’t exist. He can’t really have an opinion on the matter because of that. Still, despite this very important fact, people are getting worked up about this and actually to and froing about it like it matters. Such is the state of the American free press.

For the record, in case you are wondering, which I am sure you are because everybody in the civilized world is, I don’t care who Ron Swanson voted for.

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I am trying to like the Wheel of Time. People obviously have put a lot of work into it. The problem is that it is just too much work for me to keep track of what is going on from episode to episode.

First it is too dark — and I don’t mean plot, I mean visually. Any time there is a night scene I am plunged into pitch darkness where I am incapable of understanding who is there and what is going on. Can’t they throw in a few more torches to make the scene easier to understand? It is television after all. I get that it is dark when the character is carrying a torch or a candle once the mood is set I need to see what is going on. Realism, in this case, is hardly helpful for the viewer wanting to understand the show.

Then there are too many main characters, too many secondary characters, too many places to keep track of everyone, and too many magical formulas and rules. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where I saw this character before, where are they in this grand imaginary world and why they might be important to the story.

Then many of the names are so unique that you would only hear them when watching Wheel of Time. Names like Nynaeve al’Meara and Egwene Al’Vere just don’t roll off my tongue easily. Yes I get that this is a made up fantasy world and that giving alternate unique names to this story helps with this fiction but, for me, it is impossible to remember who is who. So when anybody new appears in a scene and I try to remember the name of the character it comes out in my mind something like mumble mumble mumble which is no help at all. After three seasons, I can only remember two of the 5 main characters names with any confidence and that is because the names, Rand and Mat, are familiar to me. Would it have destroyed the other world ambiance to name a few of the characters Sally or Sue.

Because there are so many people and places and rules almost all dialogue is explanation. The Ai Sedai can’t tell a lie which is frequently pointed out because whenever she speaks, you are reminded that she, if no one else, is telling the truth. Women can have a certain power while men who have the same power are driven insane. There are red, white, blue groups of priestesses who have a speciality and you would think this would give you a quick guide to who is good and who is bad (like black hats and white hats in westerns) but no, sometimes a red priestess can be good and sometimes a red priestess can be bad. It is all too confusing and it drains a lot of the emotional power from any dialogue because the actor is more concerned about conveying information, least the audience get lost, rather than emotion.

The big problem here is a little too much fealty to the book. What someone can grasp while reading a book is much more than in a fast-moving television show. This is one of those times when less is better and certainly easier to follow. So while there is much to like about the Wheel of Time it requires a lot of work to keep up with it. I am not sure it is worth it.

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Ryan Murphy, television’s master of horror, has a new series about the Menendez Brothers who famously killed their rich parents and tried to get away with it. Then when cornered pivoted to blame their parent’s deaths on the child and sexual abuse their father meted out. Sounds like a great pot boiler to me and just up Murphy’s street.

There is, however, one big problem with Murphy’s slant of the story. Murphy speculates that the two brothers had an incestuous affair. Murphy’s shows have always been free in throwing in gratuitous sex, especially gratuitous gay sex, so this should come as no surprise. But, then, this is also a “true” story. The Menendez brothers, in fact, killed Jose and Kitty Menendez. The brothers are still alive and are claiming it is a lie.

Murphy admits it is speculation, so where does this leave the story? Well as bullshit, pure unadulterated bullshit. If this were some little detail that was needed for dramatic continuity, maybe Murphy could be forgiven. But this is a bombshell. There may have been whispers in the past about an incestuous relationship between the brothers but never any confirmation. Murphy is saying it happened

Murphy could have fictionalized the story which would have given him a lot more leeway in how the story went. There would be no need to worry about strict adherence to the facts. But that isn’t what he did. He follows the historical information regarding the case to tell his story which would lead most viewers that this is a factual depiction.

There is even a case to be made for Murphy hinting at a relationship without actually coming out and saying it happened. The audience could then do their own speculation based on the facts. The facts are still largely followed but a certain mystery is added without actually stating it is truth. It would become part of the mystery of the story.

To veer off into speculation in the middle of a historical show, particularly speculation regarding the brothers sexual practices, is highly unethical. This is a bombshell. A bombshell that there is little proof to support and which the participants deny happened. The good news, at least for Murphy and his colleagues, is the Menendez Brothers are known liars and convicted murderers. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Trying to give their side of the story becomes a bit more problematic. Who are you going to believe — blood thirsty killers or a reputable member of the Hollywood entertainment community?

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Mr Bates vs the Post Office documents the ongoing scandal between the British Post Office and their subpostmasters. First the title is far from sexy. I am not sure how the makers of this television series could have spiced up the title because this part 4 part series is far more absorbing than the title suggest. Perhaps this is deliberate given that this is about real people involved in real work using the tools common to the modern business workplace. The horror is real because the problem is so familiar — who hasn’t become frustrated with malfunctioning computer software and helplines that give no help.

Bates (Toby Jones) is a subpostmaster in Wales who runs into trouble when he is unable to balance his books with the Post Office’s computer’s software. Instead of signing off on the incorrect data, Bates refuses to sign off and refuses to make up the difference as his Post Office contract requires. The Post Office ends his contract letting him think that the is the only one to be having this trouble. It is only later that he finds out that he is one of many subpostmaster’s having a similar problem.

Once he learns that other subpostmasters are having the same problem, he tries to right this wrong. Initially believing that all the Post Office needed was data to prove his case but after hearing numerous stories of the Post Office management bringing to trial his fellow subpostmasters does he realized that something more nefarious is going on — the deliberate destruction of Post Office workers in order to protect the reputation and the profits of the Post office. Thus begins his twenty year (and it is still ongoing) struggle for justice.

It is hard to believe that a story about malfunctioning software, indifferent and arrogant business managers could be so engrossing but it is. I binged watched 3 of 4 episodes in one night and I would have watched the 4th on that same night if it had been possible instead I had to wait a week for the last episode. It is a highly relatable series. The horrors are horrors of the every day man and woman. Loosing everything to fight a huge corporation who have the resources to grind a person down until they will admit to anything to make the whole thing go away.

The Post Office management are the perfect bureaucratic villains. Sighting rules and contracts as reasons for their ruthless handling of the subpostmasters and spouting technobabble when people question their computer systems. Whenever any one of them says “our system is robust,” you know that they haven’t a clue about the problems with their system. They are reading from a script from their legal department. They surrendered their humanity for bonuses and prestige and cling mechanically to a confidence in Fujitsu’s Horizon software long after the problems with the system are evident. It would be almost tragic if they had not been so arrogant.

Which brings us to the Fujitsu’s Horizon computer system. Like HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, every time the camera hones in on the Horizon hardware I got a sense of doom. It seems innocent enough but the blinking lights, the menacing cold machine is trouble but I can’t quite explain why. But it can’t be wrong, right? It is a machine. A machine that mindlessly pours out incorrect data that makes no sense to the human beings looking at it and offering no explanation on how it got it but requiring that the users have complete obedience to the information it created. Because Horizon is a robust system. How can anyone argue with that?

This is an odd television story where the story trumps everything else. Everything is done well (Acting, Production) but if there was an actor reading the script in front of an empty canvass, I would have found the story compelling because it is highlighting a problem we see on a much smaller scale in our own lives. How human beings get caught in a tangle of false confidence in infallible technology and unthinking bureaucracy. The show is horrible because you can imagine yourself getting caught up in such a tangle and believable because we see these problems every day. This is must see television.

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By the time I finish writing this blog, I might have changed my mind but right now I have to say Peter Falk as Columbo is my favorite television character. The show dates from the 1970’s and has aged surprisingly well. Unlike most detective shows where the trick is to figure out who the murderer is, the audience knows who the murderer is but how Columbo figures out who the murderer is.

The murderer is almost always some rich and powerful person who thinks they are smarter than the bumbling appearing Columbo who stumbles into their lives . Because they think they are smarter than Columbo, they fall into his trap of giving too much information that they inadvertently give away important details, seemingly innocuous information, that seals their fate later in the show.

Falk and the writers gives Columbo an array of distinctive quirks. His rumbled rain coat that he is always wearing and he can’t bring himself to rid himself of even after his wife buys him a snazzy new one, his ever present cigar, his scratching head when confused, his car — a barely functional vintage Peugeot convertible, his sad sack and barely functional pet dog, his never on screen wife who he calls Mrs. Columbo and who is full of good advice, and his saying “just one more thing” as he his leaving the suspect which tricks a usually exasperated person into giving some seemingly unimportant detail that really is at the heart of what Columbo is looking for.

You can’t help but root for Columbo as he manages to manipulate these arrogant assholes into prison. He plays into their egos, letting them think he is a bumbler while finding out everything he needs to know. Part of Falk’s charm is he manages to ingratiate his suspects into helping him and working with him to help him catch the killer while actually setting a trap for the unsuspecting guilty party. It is particularly fun when the suspect catches on to Columbo’s game but have gone too far to save themselves from falling into one of his traps. Their disdain for him throughout the show and their disbelief that this idiot outwitted them is the best revenge.

So if you are looking for a good detective show and you have exhausted everything you know, you might revisit Columbo as I think you will find it a rewarding experience.