I WAS INDULGING in the guilty pleasure of watching a "Columbo" rerun on television -- A&E has now restored them to an evening slot, apparently having tired of running the same episode of "Cracker" 14 times -- and I was struck by the kind of revelation that makes my brain such an amusing if dangerous place in which to spend time.

I was viewing the episode in which Robert Vaughn plays a philandering auto dealer who disposes of his mistress on a cruise. He fakes a heart attack and apparently has an unshakable alibi as he lies drugged in the ship's infirmary, but meanwhile . . . well, you don't care.

He makes a few mistakes, Peter Falk smokes him out, Vaughn gnashes his teeth in that detestable way he has -- was there ever a more genuinely unlikable actor? -- and they all go to the seashore, as Melina Mercouri once said.

So I was watching a scene in which Falk was talking to Bernard Fox, who was playing the ship's purser. The conversation was about tedious details of the ship's routine. But there was something very odd about the pacing, something both studied and improvisatory, both naturalistic and mannered.

And it came to me suddenly, this interesting supposition: The 45 extant episodes of "Columbo" are really the lost films of John Cassavetes. Because that was the conversational style I was seeing. "Columbo" is basically all conversation, and it has a lot of strange diversions for a supposedly plot-heavy show.

Also: many silences. Also: very long scenes in which no one seems quite ready to get on with the script.

So I was chewing on this when the credits rolled at the end, and guess who the director was? Ben Gazzara, the very same Ben Gazzara who co-starred with Falk and Cassavetes in "Husbands," directed by (ta-da!) John Cassavetes. Well, shiver me gosh-darned timbers, as we say on the high seas.

I WAS AWARE that there was a book called "The Columbo Phile," by Mark Dawidziak. Gripped by my curious obsession, I quickly laid my hands on a copy.

Indeed, the usual suspects were all together in Hollywood in the early '70s, when the classic "Columbos" were shot. John Cassavetes was the chief villain in an early "Columbo" episode, and Gena Rowlands, who was married to Cassavetes, appeared in an episode shot the same year as the cruise-ship one I'd seen. Gazzara directed two episodes of the show.

More: Falk and Rowlands co-starred in Cassavetes' "A Woman Under the Influence" during that same time. Cassavetes and Falk co-starred in Elaine May's "Mikey and Nicky."

"The Columbo Phile" also suggested that, after the first season, when creators Richard Levinson and William Link had pretty tight control over the show, Falk was in many ways the auteur of "Columbo."

ALAS, MY ACTUAL theory, that Cassavetes served as an uncredited creative consultant for all the shows, was given short shrift in "The Columbo Phile." Well, no shrift at all. Distinct lack of shrift.

But still . . . the right time, the right place. The scent was in the air. Falk loved to rehearse, not setting the lines until each actor felt entirely comfortable in his or her character. So those strange pauses -- in the scene I mentioned, Fox and Falk seem to be trying to out-wait each other -- were carefully planned. The randomness was deliberate. Just like a Cassavetes movie.

"Columbo" episodes are sort of like dim sum. There's this tight little plot, and everything is wrapped inside it. It's easy to swallow because it hangs together. But inside each episode is an art movie bursting with flavor, a savory world of madmen and sinners somehow stuck inside a television program.

Maybe that's why they're still popular. Probably not, I know. But you don't mind if I keep working on my theory, do you? That's very kind, really. Just one more thing . . .

I'm sorry to bother you, sir. Do you have a pencil? You know, my wife ...
And if she's hiding up on Blueberry Hill? Am I going to find her, child? You know I will, 'cause I'm jrc@sfgate.com .