Is it because he's always nailing smug weirdo rich fuckbags? Is it the peter falk hard carry? Is it because despite being canonically a cop he does anything but act like a cop?
Is everything downstream of columbo an attempt to erase his legacy as the hound of wealthy sociopaths?
Is Columbo a demigod?
i feel like a lot of the "detective" shows that appear in columbo's wake, including some that columbo's own stable of early writers/directors worked on, were extremely regressive revisions of what columbo was.
it didn't even take until the show was cancelled for its legacy to be a bunch of reactionary dreck