Lieutenant Columbo, played by Peter Falk, remains the most original, best-written detective in television history. Other shows featuring private detectives (The Rockford Files) or policemen (Hill Street Blues) may contain more tongue-in-cheek humor or exciting action sequences, but when it comes to pure detection, brilliant plotting, and intricate clues, Columbo remains unsurpassed. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that it is one of the few "inverted" mysteries in television history. While other mysteries like Murder, She Wrote were whodunits, Columbo was a "how's-he-gonna-get-caught?" Whodunit was obvious because the audience witnessed the murder firsthand at the start of each episode—also making the show unique in that the star, Falk, was completely missing for the first quarter hour of most episodes. This inversion produced a more morally balanced universe; while the murderer in another show might spend 90 percent of its running time enjoying his freedom, only to be nabbed...