Favorite TV Show

“One more thing . . . “

That simple, unassuming line often meant the end was near for a criminal in the world of Lieutenant Columbo.

The man who made the character famous, Peter Falk, died Thursday night at the age of 83 — leaving behind a legacy as the most endearing and lovable police detective in TV history.

Sure, Falk’s star also shone bright on the big screen, including ’60s classics such as Murder, Inc. and latter-day iconic films like Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride. But he will forever be remembered as the rumpled, foppish, cigar-chomping and trench-coat-clad detective — a man so outwardly befuddled, so harmless-looking, so seemingly inept, that even criminal masterminds wouldn’t see him coming.

In a week where AMC’s The Killing wrapped up its first season with an unresolved murder case, a move that heavily divided fans and critics, Columbo’s setup feels almost prehistoric. Most of today’s cop procedurals are all about figuring out who the bad guy is. On Columbo, the audience typically knew in the opening scene, which sapped much of the fabricated drama out of the tale. The inverted crime story was all about the catch. It was left to the charismatic and scene-stealing Falk to keep audiences engaged throughout. The joy was found in watching Falk’s Columbo mentally unravel a murderer’s mistakes, and methodically link together the evidence that would put him or her behind bars — all the while, on the surface, coming across as an incompetent, absent-minded bumbler.

In another marked departure from his modern TV equivalents, Columbo never carried a gun. Detective work wasn’t solved through bullets, and it didn’t end in bloody body counts. The detective work took place behind the faint twinkle in Falk’s eye.

When it came to tools in his crime-fighting arsenal, Falk’s Columbo didn’t have today’s police labs, with their implausibly quick, all-purpose machines and seizure-inducing flashes of scientific analysis over bad techno music. On Columbo, the analysis took place in between puffs of a cheap cigar.

“The joy of all this is watching Columbo dissemble the fiendishly clever cover stories of the loathsome rats who consider themselves his better,” Variety columnist Howard Prouty once wrote. And it truly was a joy, from the NBC Columbo series that aired from 1971 to 1978, to the character’s later return in periodic Columbo specials on ABC from 1989 to 2003.

The average network police procedural these days is a world of sunglasses, overacting and flashy suits, perfectly timed witty punchlines, and policemen and -women often draped in form-fitting clothing (all the better to show off all those biceps and curves); these modern detectives often look more primed for a runway than policing the streets.

Meanwhile, Falk’s weathered face, bushy eyebrows and diminutive stature gave Columbo the feel of a door-to-door salesman — not a crime sleuth with an analytical mind akin to Sherlock Holmes.

Columbo was proof that brains could win out over brawn, that might didn’t always make right, that the biggest gun — and the quickest draw — didn’t always win the duel, and that no mystery was unsolvable. Also no mystery that Falk won four Emmys for Columbo. The Horatio Caines and Detective Stablers of the world could stand to learn a few things from the master.