Discussion Series / Columbo

What the heck is the whole paragraph on Perp Sweating doing there—especially with all the "shredding the constitution" nonsense? At no point during Columbo's "asking the perp for help" game is the perp officially under interrogation. They are free to refuse to answer. None of their answers is going to be admitted into evidence. None of Columbo's tactics are coercive. The only sense of coercion that anyone feels is the desire to prove their own innocence by giving Columbo explanations of the evidence he sees that point away from themselves as a suspect. They do this entirely voluntarily. The writer of the paragraph goes on to state, first, that Columbo's interrogations are more realistic than the typical Perp Sweating type you see on most police procedurals, but then, second, that such flattering and accommodating interrogations have been ruled unconstitutional in case law. Not only is this irrelevant to Columbo, it seems to exclude any sort of questioning of any suspect whatsoever. I would delete the whole paragraph myself, but I don't want to run afoul of any rules I don't know about regarding messing with trope descriptions (although I suspect that this paragraph itself is a form of trope description vandalism by someone other than the original trope writer).

Under Take That!, Alex Bradley from 'Murder, Smoke and Shadows' is considered a Take That! to Steven Spielberg. I see it, but I think there may be also a Take That! to John Landis , especially since Alex Bradley had someone die during a shoot and so did Landis Twilight Zone The Movie.