#turn your location on I just want to talk on cohost

I'm so so glad that Rian Johnson is making an actual episodic murder mystery show, that it's explicitly riffing on Columbo, and that it doesn't star a cop.
The only flaw is that a true revivification of the classic formula would require more, cheaper episodes and that's apparently unimaginable in 2023.
The tweak to the formula to allow the victim to get more than ten minutes of screen time is brilliant. it raises the minimum number of juicy guest spots per episode to two, and allows for more well-rounded characterization.
On the other hand, I don't love the choice to make the murderers merely greedy, where in Columbo the murderers are universally holders of power. I think this wastes some of the political potential the show got from not being about a cop.
Natasha Lyonne is a treasure and we need to allow more female actors to get famous by being good at acting schlubby.
That said, I think so far Charlie Cale feels more like A Natasha Lyonne Character than a distinct character in her own right, which isn't an awful fate but I hope as time goes on she gets more well-defined.
A throwaway line in episode 3 establishes COVID as canonical in this universe which makes me feel extremely uncomfortable about the fact that absolutely no one is wearing a mask at any point.