Around the dial

Let's get right to it, starting at bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project looks at Robert Gould's ninth-season episode "How to Get Rid of Your Wife," which, despite the title, is a "lighthearted look" at psychological warfare within an unhappy marriage. Bob Newhart, Jane Withers, and Joyce Jameson star.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill recalls Gena Rowlands and her small but multifaceted role as the wife of the murderous Oskar Werner in the 1975 Columbo episode "Playback," an episode which star Peter Falk (a longtime friend and collaborator of Rowlands' husband, John Cassavetes) called the series' best.

The Sylvia Coleridge "season" continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week John takes a look at her magnificent performance in the Armchair Thriller six-parter "Quiet as a Nun," based on the novel by Lady Antonia Fraser, in which Coleridge plays—what else?—a nun. 

At Comfort TV, David reviews six episodes from The Twilight Zone's exceptional first season: three that rank as classics (including the all-time "A Stop at Willoughby"), and three that, well, don't quite measure up. For what it's worth, I concur on all six.

Roger continues his episode-by-episode review of The New Avengers at A View from the Junkyard, and this week we're up to "Sleeper," a game of tag that's played for the highest possible stakes: if you get tagged, you die.

In case you weren't aware of it, the television world has been up in arms over the last few days over the move by Warner Bros. to remove their classic theatrical cartoons—Looney Tunes—from WB's streaming service, Max. Terence has his take on it at A Shroud of Thoughts.

I've never liked the "amateur detectives" that the British are so fond of; on the other hand, I have great respect for many of their police dramas, especially the older ones. Cult TV Lounge takes us back to season one of Van Der Valk, starring Barry Foster, based on the characters created by Nicolas Freeling. TV