I've been watching the new Criterion Collection Blu-Ray release of IMO Peter Falk's greatest non-Columbo work, "The In-Laws". There's a new supplement featuring reminiscences of the supporting cast, including Nancy Dussault who played Alan Arkin's wife (and who co-starred in the 80s sitcom "Too Close For Comfort") She talks about how she enjoyed working with Peter and how she knew him from "Columbo" and then makes an aside about how she was up for the role of Mrs. Columbo in the failed series but "another actress got it."

While Nancy doesn't fit the image of the "never exactly thin" Mrs. Columbo picking her would have been less ridiculous than Kate Mulgrew turned out to be. Wouldn't have changed the fact that the series was a bad idea but at least she would have been more believable.

Alan Arkin has some great stories about working with Peter in a new interview for the release, so this is well-worth picking up.

Thanks, Eric! Looks like I have a Christmas gift suggestion for my wife (that's Mrs Kerin) to pick out for me.

Indeed. Kate Mulgrew was way-miscast for the role. I mean, we all developed a certain conception of Columbo's wife over the years, and that's why I could never make sense of why she was chosen (aside from an eye-candy factor).

The housewife-sleuth idea was rather silly anyway. I actually like a couple of the episodes, but it's implied connection to the Columbo series was incongruous to say the least.

Peter Falk was great in The In-Laws. That initial family meeting dinner scene was priceless. One minute he's joking, then overly emotional and crying, then the son makes a joke and Peter blows his stack and then immediately calms down. Four completely different crazy emotions in such a short time. It's great stuff!

I think it's in Murder By Death where Peter yells out: "Can everybody stop for a second? I gotta go to the can...I don't wanna miss nothing". He's great in that one too.

This is partly off-topic, but I just happened to see a MRS. COLUMBO episode. I finally got Season 5, and it included the one called "Caviar With Everything." What's funny is that the ending repeats the ending of THE BYE BYE SKY HIGH I.Q. MURDER CASE. Nothing else, I think (I haven't seen that one in a long while), just the ending. Only it reverses the genders - it has a wealthy woman played by Claudette Nevins and her kept man played by Sam Groom (and the victim is played by Trisha Noble of PLAYBACK). The last scene has the Kate Columbo character confronting Nevins with the evidence, then it has Groom calling Nevins to make a date at her apartment, and her giving him a brush-off. Since it waits till the ENDING, it couldn't be considered much of a rip-off of the COLUMBO episode, so it managed to be a surprise (at least to me).

Hey Grant, "Caviar" is one of the episodes I liked, but I never made that connection. In all honesty, I do enjoy the "Mrs. Columbo" bonus eps included with the Columbo prints, but I would never buy the series. In fact, the last time I purchased any DVD was "Ellery Queen" and that was back in 2010.

The trick of course is to not even think of it as a spin-off.

I just saw THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN again yesterday, and Kate Mulgrew definitely knows how to be funny. Of course, her character in that film was meant to be a funny "vapid" character, and the Kate character on that show wasn't.