For years, I tried to understand what it was that made Columbo such an outstanding success story, yet I failed, until I started to review the various series collections. While the archetypal TV detective has created a film genre all of its own, there is a readily definable attraction to the rumpled, rough-edged, self-effacing, seemingly unaware and law-unto-himself that is Columbo, albeit a character formulated by Peter Falk, who felt so strongly about the integrity of the performances that he even took over the production rights to the series.

In this three-disc set, there are six, full-length episodes in all, comprising ‘Murder: A Self-Portrait’, ‘Columbo Cries Wolf’, ‘Agenda for Murder’, ‘Rest in Peace, Mrs Columbo’, ‘Uneasy Lies The Crown’ and ‘Murder In Malibu’. Each of the episodes is a mini-movie in its own right, occupying no less than 90 minutes of typical Columbo ‘action’. Mind you, much like his well-chosen Basset-hound that appears in the first episode of this set, ‘action’ is not necessarily a term that you would apply to Columbo, as he tends to work in a typically laid-back style, shuffling from one scene to the next, scarcely wasting any energy whatsoever. In fact, that is pretty much what makes him such an intriguing character.

You almost realise from the outset, who is the perpetrator of the crime about to be unleashed on the viewing audience, because Columbo seems to centre on that person straight-away, even though his or her alibi follows a typically faultless route to the conclusion of the programme, when, surprise, surprise, Columbo reveals to all and sundry the most unsuspecting reason for his suspicions, which always unravels the crime.

What is clever is Falk’s seemingly stoical support of his character, complete with that waveringly uncertain accent, which could have come from any one of a number of 1950s American crime movies, complete with a cigar that looks almost as world-weary as the rest of his get-up. He is just so likeable. It is as simple as that.

Each of the programmes is a predictable romp, heralding in a host of perfectly acceptable B-movie and TV-series support stars, whose careers seldom shone as much as Falk’s, and, in an era of ‘cheap TV’, with countless fly-on-the-wall docu-soaps, cookery, travel, property and motoring programmes, most of which are mind-numbingly poor in their execution (with one or two notable exceptions), the warmth and familiarity of Columbo, with the programmes’ inevitably untaxing twists and turns, is actually wholly welcome. The fact that the production values seem to be stuck in a glamorously colourful past of around forty years ago is just not an issue. If anything, it helps to make Columbo all the more palatable.