My mom was a huge fan of murder mysteries. She's the one who got me addicted to Agatha Christie novels. She also got me addicted to all those British "cozies" murder mysteries and Murder She Wrote, Perry Mason, Ironside, and a slew of others.

But the show I loved above all of them was Columbo, because it was so darn clever how the audience was shown the murder at the beginning so that they knew something Columbo didn't. The entertainment was not in figuring out who the murderer was, but watching Columbo figure out who the murderer was. And seeing him being underestimated at every turn when, in fact, he was always the smartest guy in the room.

Recently I started rewatching Columbo to decompress at the end of the day.

In many ways, the show holds up.

In other ways, I had entirely forgotten how insanely weird the series could get from time to time. In the second episode, for example, there's a long, very long scene of the murderer (Robert Culp!) cleaning up the scene of his crime... all reflected in another man's glasses! It was a bizarre stylistic choice. It was also pretty terrible, being wildly distracting and going on way too long.

But the rest of the episode was a great watch, as always.

And the series proved to be excellent inspiration for another awesome show that worked in the same way, Poker Face. You can almost feel how Natasha Lyonne was doing her best to channel Peter Falk! And why wouldn't she? Falk's Columbo is one of the most brilliantly-realized characters in the history of the genre.

You don't get 9 seasons and 14 specials without being brilliant.