A spinoff of a spinoff of a spinoff. That was the Wall Street Journal’s description of the new CBS mystery series, Elsbeth. Carrie Preston returns to her memorable, quirky character, Elsbeth Tascioni, in this new CBS series on Thursday nights at 10 P.M.
Elsbeth was featured in 20 episodes of The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Writers of both series, Michelle and Robert King, binged on Columbo during the Pandemic and then came up with an idea: what if they made Elsbeth a female Columbo?
Along with show runner Johnathan Tolins, the Kings developed a format where Elsbeth moves from Chicago to New York City and works in concert with the police: investigating crime scenes and interviewing witnesses. Supposedly hired as an “outside observer” by the NYPD to monitor staff after too many wrongful-arrest lawsuits, Elsbeth uses her powerful analytics to solve baffling crimes.
Supporting characters include Wendell Pierce as a doubting police captain who is slow to appreciate Elsbeth’s skill set. Elsbeth uses patrol officer Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) as a sounding board for her theories of the crime.
Only one episode of Elsbeth has been broadcast so far. Here’s the description: “When a college theater student is mysteriously found dead in her high-rise New York City apartment, Elsbeth immediately suspects foul play and enters a game of wits against the victim’s popular theater director Alex Modarian, who she believes is involved.” Sounds like a Colombo episode, doesn’t it? Are you a fan of Columbo? GRADE: INCOMPLETE, but trending towards a B+
We don’t often watch tv – especially those “modern” series, too much just show and too boring …
But I remember Columbo as one of my favourites in the good old times …
Wolf, COLUMBO was a surprise hit. Peter Falk was the ideal stealth detective.
The early Columbos were great—the first three seasons (although it’s so quaint to see “cutting edge technology”, like a digital watch or an electric typewriter ribbon) being used to unmask the killer. Later seasons, when Falk let his popularity go to his head and Began throwing his weight around script & direction-wise, aren’t nearly as good.
It’s early, and I didn’t proofread. Please forgive all grammatical errors.
Deb, I need a cup of coffee before I attempt any morning typing!
Deb, I’m with you on the first three seasons of COLUMBO. Brilliant episodes. The later episodes weren’t nearly as good, as you point out.
Not a huge fan of Columbo – it got too samey too fast – but I have read the collection(s) of Levinson & Link’s Columbo short stories and enjoyed that. And I am a big fan of Preston’s performance as Elsbeth. It remains to be seen if there will be enough variety in the plots to keep me engaged and watching. I’m guessing that, like COLUMBO, they will have a series of well known guest stars as the murderers each week.
Jeff, you’re right about the guest stars on ELSBETH each week. The “howdunit” formula can get stale–like it did on the later episodes of COLUMBO–so Richard and Michele King will have to figure out ways to keep ELSBETH fresh.
I have a big soft spot for “Columbo” largely because it (and the rest of the NBC Mystery Movie” shows) were always on in our house when I was a kid. I even broke down and picked up the DVD box set although I’m working my way through it pretty slowly. It’s comfort food TV for me as is all mystery fare. I’m in it for the vibe and could not care less about the actual mystery. While the show did dip in quality over time and those movies from the nineties are especially bad the show was uneven from early on. Both Columbo’s dog and Robby the Robot showed up fairly early in its run.
I’m happy that mystery shows are returning to TV and that the medium is re-embracing its hangout roots after flirting with that “elevated” nonsense. I hope people enjoy this for the candy it appears to be but I’ll pass. “The Good Wife” left a bad taste in my mouth no amount of retooling can wash out.
Byron, ELSBETH looks good, but only the pilot has been broadcast so far. The jury is still out. I’m with you on the NBC Mystery Movie shows. I loved watching them. I’ll take that over lame TV comedies any day!
Liked early Columbo. Later on the show became a refuge for over the hill or out of work B listers much like Murder, She Wrote.
Steve, you captured the arc of COLUMBO exactly. It became a refuge for B-list actors.
I’ve enjoyed Carrie Preston’s work in PERSON OF INTEREST (where one of her costars is her life-partner) and THE GOOD WIFE (I have to wonder what bad taste was left…except perhaps, in THE GOOD WIFE, the ego hassle between Margulies and her co-star who won an Emmy before she did).
So, I’m predisposed to enjoy ELSBETH, which character Preston was able to rescue from caricature (something that Falk was less interested in doing in most later episodes of COLUMBO). But I did mostly enjoy COLUMBO, even the goofy ones, when they had some cleverness mixed in with the sloppiness (such as those also featuring Patrick McGoohan).
Meanwhile, tonight I’ll probably watch THE CLEANING LADY (Fox) and record WILL TRENT (ABC) (the latter stumbling a bit already this second season). Gave up on SHOGUN quickly, as I didn’t care for the ’80s adaptation nor Clavell’s bugcrusher.
I was amused, a decade back, when, on Sundays at 9p ET/PT, THE GOOD WIFE on CBS, DOWNTON ABBEY on PBS (to everyone’s surprise), THE WALKING DEAD on AMC (likewise) and NFL on NBC (to no one’s surprise) were basically making things very unpleasant for ABC series, and Fox stuck by its b-team cartoons, glad they had a niche audience.
Todd, good point. But today, streaming services are dominating all the network/cable stations.
Actually, George, not quite. Broadcast still gets more eyes, if a lot fewer than they did in the last century. Particularly if one counts their various “alternate” broadcast formats, which aren’t Netflix-style streaming. And streaming-service price gouging won’t help them in the near future.
Todd, you watch more TV than I do. Carrie Preston is a gem!
A decade ago, it was part of my job.