![]() Columbo took a more sly and, dare I say, wiser approach. Quincy yelled and screamed and railed against authority (and I think we all know, like Chevy Chase in Foul Play, what Quincy was doing to get the smell of formaldehide out his nose once he retired to his houseboat). Underneath the allure of the houseboat and the ladies and the jazzy casual slacks, that is Quincy–that despised voice of sanity so rare and pure that those around him judge him insane.Ĭolumbo’s path, as we all know, was different. The old hippie who lives in a bus in the woods because he didn’t want to pay taxes that would go to napalm Vietnam. There’s that one guy holding a picket sign in front of the drugstore because they screw their employees and he got fired like five years ago and no one cares. There’s that crazy old woman who sits on the corner and protests the war. Despite the formulaic plots and the melodrama there was a purity to Quincy’s mission, a knight-in-shining-armor quality, a sense of a men with an impossible mission who, knowing the impossibility, went on nonetheless because this mission was the right thing to do. No one had the nerve to speak the truth except Quincy. He could not put the truth before being right. But that Leiutenant/Father/Priest/Authority-Most-High just can’t se it! The Emporor with a new set of clothes, the King corrupted by power–what the fuck is this Lieutenant’s problem? Quincy is always right! Eight years and 148 episodes and the Lieutenant could not overcome his ego, his desire to cling to his version of the “truth,” like Hitler in his bunker, even as all evidence of that “truth” crumbled around him. People outside of his immediate circle (and, in fairness, those closest to him at the coroner’s office) understand that this is a wise man more than capable of solving the mystery at hand. In Quincy”s case he is thwarted, as we all know, by the internal authority figures of the LAPD and the Coroner’s Office. Interestingly, though, these hexed states led to different trajectories–and, as all of us have a little Cassandra in them, interesting takes on how this archtypical human condition of knowing-but-ignored might play out. Cassandra, of course, was a figure from greek mythology: Apollo granted her the gift of prophecy, but cursed her so no one would believe her (in another version of the myth snakes licked her ears clean so she could hear the truth)–just as, apparantly, Quincy and Columbo were cursed. ![]() What Quincy and Columbo have in common is this: they always know the solution to the mystery, and no one ever believes them. Oh, Quincy, the Cassandra of TV! And Columbo, his darker twin, sans houseboat. And while all police work is interesting, we are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of police work– the world of forensic medicine. So I’m going to focus on just a few here today. ![]() The world of TV detectives is too huge and wonderful to cover in a blog post or two, or even a lifetime. The Mystery Bookstore (Los Angeles, CA).Seattle Mystery Bookstore (Seattle, WA). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |