Columbo and Goren

This ties into my previous post, "Among other things, Goren" or alternatively titled "A love letter of sorts about Goren and mechanical pencils". 

When I was looking at the website about the current selection on Netflix and what's coming and going, I noticed that Saving Private Ryan was going at the end of the year which is in mere days. So that's why I had to watch it this morning because I wouldn't be able to for much longer. I think I also saw something that mentioned the series Columbo, which is a 70s crime/mystery show in the vein of Law and Order CI, or rather, perhaps Law and Order is in the vein of Columbo because Law and Order only came around in 2001. I remember reading in the past that my favorite character of Goren was at least somewhat based on the eponymous (Lieutenant) Columbo, among other things. I also see bits of Sherlock (one of my first impressions was doctor House, but nicer - House was also based on Sherlock). In any case, I can see how Goren is similar (but in my opinion, superior) to Columbo. In the first episode (which was I believe about an hour and a half, so longer than your typical current day drama at ~45 minutes) the character is established and he is perceptive and picks up on little things like Goren does and even sniffs a clue (literally - with his nose) of a champagne cork. I'm not sure if the smell test is what let him know it was a champagne cork or if he recognized it by sight and just wanted to make sure. In one Law and Order episode, Goren is unable to decipher what a smell is and Eames says "A smell even you can't identify" somewhat incredulously. In another, he carefully examines ink stains "to see which ones are fresh" and she says "They must love you in the produce section." This is one of the things that Columbo lacks - a partner. He works alone, which I find to be a detriment to the feel of the show probably just because I'm used to the Law and Order shows style where the detectives always have partners and they work closely together. Another contrast is that Columbo seems to be a man of no more than average height, in a strong contrast to Vincent D'Onofrio's Goren who frequently towered over other people at 6'4" including his petite partner (who most always was wearing heeled boots probably in an effort to slightly reduce the height difference). I was quite used to seeing a more vertically imposing figure - Elliot of SVU is over 6 feet tall as well although not quite as tall as Goren. Another thing was the voice - Columbo's voice is very different than Goren's. It's deeper and less soft like Goren's voice is. I don't mean soft as in quiet, but just... soft. Not rough. I wish Vincent would read an audiobook or something. So everything Columbo says very noticeably sounds different than what I'm used to hearing from a similar character. In addition to just the sound of the voice, the delivery of the lines is different - Goren has interesting speech patterns ([in linguistics it's called an idiolect, the way a particular person speaks/uses language] I kind of wonder if it's something that Vincent specifically consciously did for that character or if it's just a natural Vincent thing like the way Mark Ruffalo's voice sounds like his tongue is laying limply in his mouth).  He often has little pauses here and there or slight (intentional??) stutters and he speaks differently depending on the intended effect - maybe he's coaxing someone to confess and getting at them psychologically and he'll speak softly and deliberately, or perhaps he's trying to ruffle someone's feathers and he'll speak more severely with maybe even a bit of a mocking tone. And so on. (you can tell I've watched a lot of him) In the one episode of Columbo his voice pretty much sounded the same in all the times he was talking to people with no particularly noticeable variations. It's possible that in other episodes he'll be in different situations that cause him to speak differently, but from that one episode I did not notice it. In terms of situations he was in, the entire episode consisted of him talking to the suspect and a witness. There were no scenes in a police station at all, and also no interrogation. It was kind of like Criminal Minds in that the episode ended with the suspect's arrest and went no further. I would also call it the Law part of Law and Order with a Criminal Intent flavoring, minus all the police procedure parts (interrogations, working with other people, paperwork, etc). So in that aspect perhaps it's like BBC Sherlock in a way. I haven't watched that in a long time so I might not be remembering the nature of it completely accurately. 
Another thing that I noticed in this first episode is that Columbo (purposefully/intentionally, presumably) seemed to come across as not quite as sharp, which I'm not sure if I liked because it seemed like he did it too convincingly and came across as truly clueless, rather than it being intentional in order to play a suspect into his hands which is what we see Goren doing on multiple occasions. Maybe it's just because that was the first episode and I don't have an acute sense of what the character is supposed to be like the way I do with Goren since I have watched so much of him.