Columbo
Columbo is like, fucking sick right. There's this guy, and he's a cop, and nobody really knows he's a cop when he first shows up on the scene. Like he's just such a schlubby guy most people don't even know he's a detective until he shows them his badge and even then they're like 'ooooooh okay mister colummmmbo' and don't really think of him as an authority figure even though he's a cop. This basically causes them to underestimate him and he can get people to confess to a bunch of crazy shit just by talking to them, and collect all sorts of evidence that people otherwise wouldn't want to give up. A major shtick of the show (I forgot to mention, Columbo is a TV show from the 70s) is that you see the crime committed on screen at the beginning of every episode. So it's not like a 'whodunit' but a 'howshegonnafigureitout'. TV tropes calls it a 'howcatchem'. But yeah you see the crime get committed and then you watch this stumpy frumpy little detective show up and coax some rich asshole into giving the game away. Oh yeah two other big details: The villains are always rich, and Columbo is a homicide detective so that means the crime always involves a murder. Sometimes it starts as a missing persons case or whatever but he has a good gut instinct for when there is foul play involved. Anyway I wrote this whole article in one go at 1:57 AM with no revisions so that's how it's going to be. Let me just go back and add some links so it isn't a dead end. And watch Columbo.
