you can stand here with me if you want, but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat

Jack Cassidy in an episode of Columbo

        The first episode of the Columbo series has the title, "Prescription:  Murder."  It was a TV movie in 1968.

        Compared to other episodes, the style of Columbo's personality is a little different.  He is more harsh and aggressive.

        The "People Who Decide And Advise" must have watched and said, "Soften his character.  Make him more gentle, more subtle, more circumspect."

        Some of the dialogue in Episode 1 sounds like the old movies that were based on the "hard-boiled" detective novels by Dashiell Hammett, or Raymond Chandler.  That's different from other episodes, where the way the people talk is more typical, common, perfunctory Early-1970s style.

The old-movie-type of dialogue is more stylized - like Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell Of Success ("I'd hate to take a bite out of you - you're a cookie full of arsenic") or Kathleen Turner in Body Heat ("You're not too smart, are you? - I like that in a man").

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