The Scorecard: Play by Play coverage of Banacek's conquests

I guess the writers must have been inspired by the title and subject matter, because Banacek gets BUSY in this one. The kick-off is him at the apartment of an old girlfriend (if that's even the right word), played by the beautiful Anitra Ford, and while he's temporarily distracted by the football game, and the mystery stemming from it, there's no doubt they make it to the goal line together. That's two.

He meets with a smart and sexy lip-reading expert, played by Peggy Walton-Walker, who discreetly propositions him, and he makes it very clear he'll be seeing more (and indeed all) of her later on, so that's three.

He turns down an easy lay-up with the Madlyn Rhue character, who is playing an overly available barfly he's hitting up for information only, so I guess that's to show he has standards. Or something.

Then he walks off the field victoriously with the Stefanie Powers character, who says she wants to get to know him better. Personally, I don't think Powers enjoyed this role much, and her chemistry with Peppard is fairly minimal, but that's four. Three points in one movie--we'll see if that's a personal best as this thread progresses.

Just reviewed this via DVR, and it's a little ambiguous. He puts the old Banacek moves on Stella Stevens, and she seems increasingly receptive (perhaps opportunistically so, we may retrospectively speculate), but it doesn't seem like they have time to hook up before the denouement, which makes it seem most unlikely they ever will (do they have conjugal visits in prison for people who aren't married, but have unresolved sexual curiosity about each other?). This is not a show that revels in subtlety, and I think if they'd had even a brief roll in the hay, the writers would have found a way to convey that, so Banacek strikes out (a very rare occurrence indeed, and one suspects they were getting complaints from viewers of a moralistic bent, or perhaps just a realistic one).

Joanna Pettet is certainly appealing in this one, and Banacek clearly agrees, having a great time seducing her, with his patented combo of 70's sensitivity and 70's chauvinism. I don't THINK he has any other conquests in the course of the story? So that's five. Sorry I'm not doing these in exact order of airing. It may take some weeks to complete this project of vital cultural importance.

UPDATE: Having watched this again (well, not all of it), I realize I missed something of vital importance--an extreme rarity on this show--perhaps unique--a very definite post-coital scene.

Banacek has just bedded Joanna Pettet's sexy engineer--or rather, he's couched her. By which I mean he's in his bathrobe, sitting on a couch, taking a phone call, while Pettet lies on said couch, with her head in his lap, partly covered by a sheet, quite clearly in a state of undress. She's apparently fast asleep, presumably tuckered out by the extreme rigors of Bana-sex. I don't see what she'd be doing on the couch, unless that's where the deed was done. If you think about it for a moment, you realize this post-coital tableau doesn't make any sense at all, so just don't think about it.

Primetime TV network censors in this era sometimes behaved as if the Hayes Code was still in effect--they were nervous about showing a man and a woman in bed together, particularly in a situation like this, where unapologetic fornication is strongly implied to have taken place. So the producers decided to get around it by having them on a couch, with Peppard semi-dressed and sitting up, as opposed to him taking the call from bed. Where I assume he has a phone, since he even has one in his car (in the early 70's). If the kiddies are watching, mom and dad can say she's just taking a nap.

Banacek doesn't seem to actually have sex during this movie, but he gets cozier and cozier with the ex-mobster's daughter played by the lovely Louise Sorel, and they make it very clear they are going to do extensive follow-up and debriefing in the very near future, so that's six. And I wish we'd seen more of her, btw. In the sense of her appearing in other episodes, and in the sense of her not wearing so much clothing.

Christine Belford playing Carlie wears well on me. She got as much out of that character as she could. Plus in a later episode someone says, "she's got it altogether,nothing jumps out at ya, but she's a total package". I'm paraphrasing of course. And the biggest plus for me was at least she could act. That always help when your watching actors.

This may be my favorite of them all, even though I can't help but think the title refers more to Banacek's burgeoning harem than to impressionist works of art.

Penny Fuller was (and still is) a very talented and exquisitely lovely stage-trained actress, who did a fair bit of TV guest work (she dated the Six Million Dollar Man as well), and she really gives this part her all, finding nuances to the character where the writers didn't put any. No bimbo she, though she goes from resistant to compliant in a heartbeat--hey, Penny Marshall (in a very small role) is ready to cheat on her fiance just from looking at Banacek for ten seconds--Laverne, how could you? One really has to wonder if he's some kind of daytime vampire. Maybe that's why we never see most of these women again?

Fuller's Gloria actually CALLS Banacek a chauvinist (he loves it when they do that), is seething at him for much of the episode, but then she's in a skimpy bathrobe, telling him to kiss her, and then readily agrees to move into his house, and he makes no bones (heh) at the end about why he's taking her back there. Only instance I can recall where the seduction ends with one of his Patented Polish Proverbs (and a good one). Anyway, once again there's no sex during the episode, but we are left in no doubt as to what's coming--or whom. Banacek just made a huge 600k score from the insurance companies, so he can take a nice long break from his labors, in his own well-appointed townhouse, with the classiest of all the dames he dallied with in the course of this show. Well done, Banacek. That's a very lucky seven for you. Quality over quantity this time, eh?

Let's be honest--the mysteries on this show kind of sucked, and the resolutions rarely made any sense.

Technically, Banacek gets laid at least once (arguably thrice) during this episode, and again shortly after it concludes. But I am inclined to say he is scoreless for the inning.

Carlie is once again the main sex interest. The other two women just seem to be casual dates--they have no lines. One is a very tall leggy brunette, the other a blonde--we can't see anything but her hair, as she leans against Banacek in the Packard. I'm going to assume these are the same two women we see him casually dating in the very last Banacek movie. Not sure if they're the exact same actresses, but that's beside the point. It would seem Banacek has a tall leggy brunette and a willowy blonde tucked away for those periods between mysteries, when he doesn't have alluring guest stars to seduce. Being mere walk-ons, they can't actually speak, but he's willing to forgive them this minor failing. On reflection, I am not going to count these women as conquests. I mean, you might as well count the Packard. They just sort of come with the job. To count for the purposes of The Scorecard, a woman needs a name and at least a few lines of actual dialogue.

The hippy-dippy documentarian, played by the delightful Candy Clark (billed as Candace here) is the POTENTIAL score, and she tries valiantly to get Banacek to give her a tumble, and he seems resistant. He's not bothered by her advances, he's clearly THINKING about maybe giving her a tumble, but she acts like a kid, even though she's clearly well above the age of consent (and she has, many times in past). So basically they might sleep together, but she'd have to do all the heavy lifting to make it happen. I guess from this we're supposed to infer that Banacek has scruples.

Carlie finds them together at Banacek's house late at night, and makes a sarcastic comment about her being his niece, effectively cock-blocking Clark's character, and giving Banacek one of his few unequivocal instances of during-ep intercourse after the third wheel departs. They do the post-mortem at breakfast or brunch or whatever that was, the next day. I think at this point we have to conclude that when she's not otherwise engaged (to very boring men), Carlie is Banacek's for the asking. Only she'll probably have to do the asking. And you thought Don Draper had it easy.

At the end, when Banacek has once again shown Carlie up to solve the mystery (oooh, didn't see that coming), she forgives him rather quickly (it seems irritation is a major turn-on for Carlie--she was MADE for Banacek), and they head off to the nearest bedroom--hey, anybody know how many times they are definitely implied to have been intimate? The second season movies I've seen with her never seemed to cut to the chase like this.

FYI, Christine Belford was born almost two years AFTER Candy Clark. SHE's the younger woman. But she's wearing lady clothes, and being all mature-like, and Clark is in tomboy attire, and bouncing around like a golden retriever. I suppose what's really being said is that Banacek likes smart sophisticated confident women, but then why does he like taking them down a peg or two (or ten), and why is he dating these really young women who haven't even learned how to speak yet, earlier in the ep? Mixed signals much, Banacek? Keep us guessing, why don't you?

Anyway, he may have done the nasty with three different women, on four different occasions, during and shortly after the events of this movie, but The Scorecard still says seven.

This may seem an inappropro remark to make on a thread like this, but am I the only one who thinks the guys (and they were all guys) who wrote for this series maybe had a few teensy-weensy little problems with women?

Nah!