Columbo

Police Lieutenant Columbo is a shabbily-dressed, seemingly slow-witted police detective whose fumbling, overly polite manner makes him an unlikely choice to solve any crime, let alone a complex murder. However, his demeanor is revealed to be a complex put-on designed to lull suspects into a false sense of security; Columbo is actually a brilliant detective with an eye for minute details and the ability to piece together seemingly unrelated incidents and information to solve crimes. Columbo most often confirms a criminal's guilt by lulling them into a false sense of security and then setting up circumstances which encourage them, in their newfound hubris, to incriminate themselves. Columbo's signature interrogation technique is to conduct a seemingly innocuous interview, politely conclude it and exit the scene, only to stop in the doorway or return moments later and ask, "Just one more thing...". The "one more thing" also called the false exit is always a jarring question regarding an inconsistency in either the crime scene, the suspect's alibi, or his explanation of the supposedly-ended interview. The banality of the interview, combined with Columbo's apparent absentmindedness and incompetency, makes the suspect feel as though s/he is beyond the reach of law and thus plays on his or her arrogance.In the end, most of the killers stand stunned when they are caught, unable to believe that they've been fooled. In some episodes, genius murderers who believed themselves to have committed the "perfect crime" congratulate Columbo before being arrested. Falk continued in the role when the TV series began in 1971, and played the role until 2003.