The Best Episodes Directed By Hy Averback

When a fellow P.I. is killed on the Ventura freeway, Jim and Richie Brockelman team up to find out if it really was an accident.

Frank Burns cracks up over Margaret's marriage while on R&R in Tokyo, and Major Charles Emerson Winchester III is sent to the 4077th as a replacement by a vindictive superior officer.

Leonard Nimoy plays a heart surgeon whose talents turn to murder. Stung by jealousy, he's planning a surgical death for his brilliant but ailing associate. Will Geer plays the intended victim.

Sergeant Baker arrives at the camp with his Moose. Hawkeye decides to find a way of getting her away from Baker. He tries ordering him to release her, tries buying her, and then resorts to cheating at cards. He releases her but she won't go, so he tries to teach her how to be independent.

Broadway legend Rita Bristol and her daughter star in a musical produced by her son, not knowing that murder is lurking in the wings.

An art critic, Dale Kingston, kills his uncle for his valuable collection of paintings. All the clues lead to the dead man's first wife. Can Columbo correct the Lieutenant's error before it is too late?

Hawkeye is accused of hitting Frank and is placed under house arrest pending a court-martial. Meanwhile. Margaret is nervous about a visit from a meticulous female colonel.

Frank buys two sets of pearls, one for Margaret and one for his wife. After some talk, Radar gets Hawkeye $3,000 in lost earnings, Hawkeye gives it to Mulcahy for the orphans, but then the army wants the money back. Trapper wins big at poker after using Hawkeye's watch as a stake, so Hawkeye takes his winnings to avoid a stay in the honeymoon suite of The Stockade Hilton.

Colonel Flagg blows into camp trying to obtain penicillin to barter for information. But Flagg comes down with appendicitis, and the only penicillin he gets is in the keister.

After losing to the Marines once again, Colonel Potter wishes there was one sport the 4077th were any good at. When Klinger mentions he can bowl, the Colonel decides to have a bowling competition. Unfortunately, he and Klinger are the only 2 good bowlers in the camp, so BJ and Father Mulcahy are "recruited" to the team. Colonel Potter becomes obsessed with winning the game, and excludes Margaret from the team because she helped the team lose at softball. Then the 4077th team hear the Marines have got a "ringer" in their team after pulling some strings..... Meanwhile, Hawkeye finds out his father is in hospital and tries to speak to him over the phone, watched by Charles, who envies Hawkeye's close relationship with his father.

The camp is under fire and is swamped with wounded. They are being attacked by their own artillery in a frightening "friendly fire" incident. Trapper and Margaret get trapped in the Supply Tent together. Frank's jealousy of Trapper drives him to propose to Margaret.

B.J. and Hawkeye resolve to clear Klinger's name after he chooses Winchester to defend him at his military court-martial.

A rash of thefts breaks out in the camp. Missing pieces include Frank's silver picture frame, Margaret's hair brush, and Trapper's watch. The camp is searched and everything is found in Hawkeye's locker. Everyone thinks he did it. Hawkeye manages to announce to the camp that the items will be dusted for prints to identify the real thief, and catches Ho-Jon. He needed money to bring his family from the North, and to bribe border guards.

The military police think they've solved a rash of thefts at the 4077th when they apprehend Klinger with Hawkeye's stolen camera.

As Hawkeye and Trapper are planning to leave for Tokyo, an unusual offer to swap POW patients between the Chinese and the 4077th comes in. Henry, after much debate, agrees to send Hawkeye, Trapper, Frank, Radar, and Klinger into enemy territory. Frank almost botches the swap when he brings a squirt gun to the exchange. Fortunately, the Chinese Dr. Lin Tam has a sense of humor; he went to the University of Illinois, after all.

Trapper and Hawkeye seek to keep a new nurse from being transferred by Hot Lips, and they vie for her affection. Henry Blake, challenged by another commander to a boxing tournament, makes Trapper fight a big, intimidating soldier in exchange for keeping the nurse at the 4077th. Hawkeye and Ugly John employ the use of a glove soaked with ether to insure Trapper's victory, which impresses the nurse. Margaret and Frank's attempts to unfix the match collapses, as they are flattened by the unconscious boxer!

Frank chooses a lull in the action to ask Hawkeye and Trapper to perform his hernia operation, and that's just when the war returns full tilt.

While Henry is away in Seoul, Burns and Houlihan are in charge, and Hawkeye is the officer of the day. His refusal to release a wounded Korean soldier, wanted by US Intelligence, leads to a confrontation with Colonel Flagg.

Henry's departure to Tokyo leaves Major Burns in charge of the 4077th. He declares total prohibition of alcohol, which leads to a near riot amongst the camp, especially from Hawkeye and Trapper.

A private with a prominent proboscis pleads for prohibited plastic surgery--but Frank and Margaret smell a rat.

A Greek Colonel thanks the 4077th by giving them food and drink for an Easter celebration. But the feast is foiled when softhearted Radar saves the main course from the spit - a lamb, which Radar tricks Henry into giving a medical discharge and sends home to Ottumwa, Iowa. Thus, Hawkeye and Trapper invent the famed Spam Lamb! Meanwhile, a soldier who had shot himself to get out of the army confesses to Frank, thinking he is Father Mulcahy.

The nurses are evacuated when the threat of an enemy parachute drop arises. Hawkeye and Trapper try to enliven everyone's spirits whilst they are gone. Hawkeye: "The plot thins. Watch the cake sue for malpractice when Frank cuts into it."

Mail from home worries Henry that Lorraine may be seeing other men. Father Mulcahy presides over a Jewish circumcision ceremony for the Korean-born son of a US GI.

A local dog bites Radar, and the camp conducts a search to find the pooch, so that Radar doesn't have to undergo a series of painful rabies vaccinations. Hawkeye defies Frank, to take care of a GI who's suffering from a case of hysterical paralysis.