Columbo/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

 * When I first started watching Columbo as a kid, I hated the fact that it showed the murder being committed at the beginning, showing who did it before the mystery started! It completely took away from the concept of following the detective through the case, trying to figure out who the murderer was. It wasn't until recently, when I started watching it again, that I realized that I wasn't supposed to see the story from Lt. Columbo's perspective, but from the killer's perspective. The killer is the star of his/her own episode. We are shown why they are driven to kill their victim, and sometimes we even sympathize with the killer. We feel the same anxiety that they do when Columbo gets closer and closer to pinning the crime on them. And, most importantly, it makes it impossible for the writer to pull an impossible reveal out of their ass at the end. - Japper8
 * To add to this; this means that the star of the show, the hero the audience is expected to root for, is not the protagonist but the antagonist. ~ Doctor Nemesis