I previously posted lists I’ve made picking one game and one film per year since 1990. 1990 acted as a good arbitrary stopping point as it’s a nice round number, it’s the year I was born and the number of games I’ve played at all from before then is pretty small, and it would be be fairly difficult to pick out shows for each year before then for me too. I’ve made a dedicated page on the site for these picks, made a few substitutions, added a pick for each for 2025 and added one series of television per year as well. All put into one table with the ability to toggle off which media you want to see selections for as well as some dynamic rearrangement based on screenspace, all done with (a horrendous mess of) Cascading Style Sheets and no Javascript.

These are not necessarily my favourite from each year. I have tried to be deliberate to give a spread of different styles and series I like as well including some weirder picks. Especially with games I spent a lot of time weighing choices for particular years based on what series I wanted to include and some years are just packed with formative games for me. 2001 has Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, Commandos 2 and Halo (and Grand Theft Auto 3 and Advance Wars and Worms World Party…). I eventually gave the year to Metal Gear Solid 2 after weighing up that I could have Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories covering some bases for Silent Hill 2, Shadow Tactics was spiritually taking up a place for the Commandos series and there’s already plenty of shooters there to justify dropping Halo.

Similarly Prey is spiritually covering for System Shock so that I can have a childhood favourite Soleil for 1994 and Half-Life would probably beat out Resident Evil 2 in a head-to-head but there’s already two Half-Life games on there and I wanted it to carry the survival horror water for both the aforementioned Silent Hill 2 and for the R.E.make that got booted out from the previous iteration to make room for Robot Alchemic Drive. And yes after going on about carefully spreading out my choices I did give three picks to Sonic games, one to another Sonic Team-developed game and two more to Sonic-inspired indie games (and four different series of Doctor Who for the T.V. list). I will not be taking feedback on this.

Again the page is here and the lists are also on my Letterboxd, Serializd and Backloggd accounts as well as a second Letterboxd list covering the years 1970-1989.

It’s not bad but the show really doubled down on its worst parts. When the show focuses on the supporting or recurring characters it is just the same unfunny comedy every time. Imaizumi has been completely Flanderised and is almost unbearable to watch and none of the rest of the recurring cast or running jokes really add anything. The one exception is the two-part finale, a real highlight of the series, especially the first part, where the extra time gives the show a lot of room to breath and Imaizumi and Saionji actually get to do things. It is still quite good when Furuhata is actually the focus and the one recurring joke that I do enjoy is Furuhata trying to impress people by saying he’s the guy who arrested SMAP.

Sorrowful Perfect Crime/The Housewife Murder also stands out as a mean episode. I think that the writers did not intend to the murderer to be as sympathetic as I found her. They write a very striking abusive relationship where a woman’s self-esteem is constantly undermined by her husband who is trying to control every aspect of her life, and then Furuhata spends the rest of the episode proving him right and then seems to end with suggesting that she was completely delusional about her job, talents and dreams.

A bit strange to have the extended “Furuhata is back!” section when the SMAP special came out a few months before this one. Perhaps some production issue messed with the ordering? Everyone wanking him off for being so cool also goes on far too long.

But it’s a very fun case! Clever and logical (which is to say, I figured out where it was going in advance and was able to happily pat myself on the back for doing so) and plays with the format in a cute ways.

There are two different moments when they stop playing with a different genre and start the “normal” Furuhata episode: First when he agrees to take the case and they drop the self-serious pretending that Furuhata is some kind of thriller protagonist that they are recruiting from a prison cell and the second time when the first actual murder happens and he goes from having to put together clues like a normal detective and gets to step into his Columbo shoes and circle his prey.

Surprisingly lack of a central gimmick or draw for a special. Maybe the guest star was very famous? Still a nice extra-long episode.

I can’t believe that Furuhata Ninzaburō solved Fermat’s last theorem.

Having a cross-promotional episode and just making the boy band the murderers in inspired.

Great episodes in this but I think I consistently enjoyed the first series more.

Columbo is a bloodhound, he catches a whiff of something wrong and doggedly pursues the murderer teasing out every detail, taking his time, until he finally corners them. Furuhata is a sly fox and more concerned with being clever. This show is much more interested in the big reveal of how Furuhata catches people, it even devotes a soliloquy every episode into teasing it, which means that whether an episode lands or not depends a lot on if that is satisfying or just comes across as contrived.

I also think they are leaning far too heavily into Imaizumi as a very weak source of comic relief. I just don’t find the degree of cruelty towards him funny or how ridiculous he himself gets. The last episode, despite otherwise being pretty good (I enjoy them having the big we’re going to America! episode for the finale and then have it being possibly the cheapest one of the whole show, mostly just being two people talking on a bus) was marred by its dreadful Imaizumi-focused B-plot.

Fun take on the Columbo formula without just being a copycat. I enjoy how much of a smug prick Furuhata is in comparison. Cases can be a bit inconsistent, relying on some real logical leaps or assuming absurdly specific behaviour from people. It’s a good thing the killers always confesses at the ends of these types of shows because it would be difficult to build a case otherwise. I enjoy the stagier touches: Furuhata’s address to the audience as the lights go down before the final act and the credits running over a shot from a fixed, wide vantage as the murderers are taken away.