Re: Suzanne Pleshette interview; talks about her episode and Peter(you tube link)
Actually, I think "Columbo Phile" does go into detail about how much Falk was trying to push to direct that season and it finally resulted in him getting "Blueprint For Murder" which they knew would be the most logistically difficult episode of the season. Overall, I don't think the basic essence of what she says in that is inaccurate (I did confess to shouting "Jack Smight!" when she struggled to remember the director's name).
Re: Suzanne Pleshette interview; talks about her episode and Peter(you tube link)
Right on this site you can read Levinson & Link's full account of Peter's antics -- well, tactics -- during that period. It's one of those things everybody could laugh about later (except, apparently, Suzanne Pleshette), but I guess it was pretty harrowing at the time. In hindsight, everybody understood that Peter Falk was using what small leverage he had as an actor, to bring about a better TV show. And everything was in fact better as a result, making many people (not just Peter Falk) a bigger success in the end. Once that was all understood, it seems Peter was able to mellow out a bit, and all was (mostly) forgiven.
Anyway, the Levinson & Link account is called "How We Created Columbo and How He Nearly Killed Us" -- it was originally illustrated, as I recall, with an image of a Frankenstein monster. Go to the site's home page (you can click on Columbo's face at the top of the Forum page) then follow the links to "Articles" and "How we created Columbo". It's well worth reading, and you'll find lots of other good articles there too.