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

AKA "Victoria may have her secrets, but she certainly has no principals." Sorry, had to go there.

Victoria Principal was about 24 when she appeared in the penultimate Banacek (as the penultimate Bana-chick)--just slightly younger than Christine Belford, but was not half the actress Belford was. Nor was she ever anything approaching a good actress, but when you look like that in a bikini, who cares? Well, I do--kinda.

Here's the thing--Banacek definitely beds her, and she him--there's no doubt about it. But her aims are purely mercenary--and being such a poor actress, Principal can't (as Belford's Carlie might, in an equivalent situation) show that she might actually want to give Banacek a tumble if she didn't have her marching orders to march him into bed, to keep him occupied. Even Linda Evans, hardly a master thespian, was able to make us believe that however self-interested her seduction might be, Banacek was a childhood crush of hers, that she truly enjoyed seducing. Principal's character seems to mainly be a blank. That's partly the writing, and partly the actress. They don't even kiss. She just flashes him in a raincoat, and then fade to sex.

Therefore, I am not counting this as a score. Even though they definitely hook up, even though Principal's character has a name, and lines, and everything. Victoria may have no principals, but The Scorecard does. The sex is PURELY for the purposes of distraction, and had nothing to do with Banacek's powers of persuasion over the opposite sex. If the investigator on the case was Tom Bosley--playing Father Dowling--she'd have tried the same moves on him. And they'd probably have worked, because damn that woman had a fantastic body. And no idea how to act.

However, as is often the case, Banacek has a back-up--referred to specifically as such in the script, and apparently her name is Gina, and she does have lines, and they are heading for Banacek's pad at the end, and though she's not as hot as Victoria Principal, at least we know that her motivations are strictly carnal. The Scorecard is at 17. 20 is looking like an outside shot now, but let's proceed with all due optimism.

There was perhaps no more deliciously winsome a guest actress in 70's TV than the sublimely lovely Gretchen Corbett. The Rockford Files was never the same for me after she left (due to a contract dispute with Universal)--I used to cheer, lovestruck teen that I was, when I saw her name appear in the credits. Ah, Beth Davenport! So much more appealing than the Beth Davenport played by Veronica Hamel on Hill St. Blues. Btw, was that some kind of homage to Rockford? Well, I digress.

I digress, because I hate to get to the point--that the producers, having acquired this priceless jewel for the final Banacek, due to the idiotic script they wrote, Banacek does not, in fact, get to acquire her for his collection. She and Peppard have wonderful chemistry--just as good as he had with Penny Fuller, in the previous season, which is a very high standard to equal. Her character confesses her attraction to Banacek, not that she needs to (because Gretchen Corbett was a really good actress, and she knows how to tell us what her character is feeling without coming out and saying it). Everything is all set up for what could have been Banacek's crowning glory. And what happens? He dresses up in a ridiculous magician's outfit. He exposes her father as a murderer. She, of course, can never contemplate carnal relations with him as a result. And he is driven off into his last sunset by a showgirl, in a tacky Italian sports car. I'm not sure if it's a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. I kept trying to get a look at the logo, to distract myself from the depressing finish I knew was coming.

The showgirl is a very fetching brunette, and she has lines, and a name, so The Scorecard is at 18. But that hardly makes up for the loss of Gretchen. And I was so looking forward to him making her magician's assistant costume disappear.

So what the hell happened there? Well, maybe they just figured Peppard was showing his age too much by this point--Corbett is playing a very nice very young girl--quite possibly a virgin--and back then there were rules about that, don't you know--dumb hypocritical rules, but still rules. We've seen Banacek pass on easy lay-ups before--he always wants the advantage, but he doesn't want TOO much of an advantage (because then he'd feel obligated, and thus would lose the advantage, get it?). But of course they chose to write it up like that, and I have to figure they had a pretty good idea this would be the last one. Maybe they thought it added an element of pathos, but that's kind of ruined by his going off with the showgirl.

It's a lousy episode, but what hurts is that it could have been a good one with a few minor tweaks.

Thankfully, since I still have to go back to review an earlier S2 episode, we will not have to conclude on such a sour note.

I wish I could make this episode disappear. Except for the scenes with Gretchen Corbett. Who was headed for better things, on a much better show. But she never had half the career she should have had, IMO.

Since the pilot was on the last disc of the Season 3 DVD set I Netflixed up, I thought I'd give it a once-over, just to refresh my memory. Strangely, I thought I remembered Christine Belford undressing in this one, and that was wishful thinking--ever notice how much sexier Carlie is in this one? In later eps, they alternated between her being the seductive career girl, and the dowdy harridan--depending on the needs of the script. And Belford, being an amazingly accomplished actress for her age, could handle anything they threw at her, which is obviously why they kept bringing her back.

Quite a lot of early 70's sexual politics in this--yes, we've reached the point where a woman can offer herself to a man she is not necessarily planning to marry (though the thought has probably crossed her mind), for reasons of both business and pleasure. But having done this, of course she's morally compromised herself--in a way somehow Banacek never does--they set that double standard right from the start.

Carlie does score one definite hit--she correctly guesses that Banacek got hurt by some female as a younger man (thus 'justifying' his subsequent campaign to bed every hot female guest star of the 70's). She's the closest thing to an equal Banacek ever meets--but still very far from an equal. The influence of "The Thomas Crown Affair" is obvious, but at least Faye Dunaway got to beat Steve McQueen at chess (notice how they imply Carlie is a chess whiz?).

This is the episode I have the strongest memories of from when it first aired. It was different from anything else on TV, and while it's not as impressive to me now as it was then, it's still a damned decent piece of entertainment. And Christine Belford was a damned decent piece of--well. Never mind. Times haven't changed that much.

"If Max Is So Smart, Why Doesn't He Tell Us Where He Is?" is the only episode The Scorecard has not covered. I'm pretty sure that's one I've never seen. And it's on the first disc of the Banacek S2 set--which Netflix says they have, but it's a 'very long wait'--and when I send back a DVD to them, they just send whatever is underneath it in the queue.

Now does this mean there are a bunch of people also waiting for this DVD, and I have to wait until all of them have seen it ahead of me?

Or does it mean that somebody decided the cheapest way to obtain this DVD was to get it from Netflix and not return it?

Or did it get lost in the mail?

Anyway, you can't blame me for not wanting to buy the entire DVD set for one episode. So we'll see how long this takes. In the meantime, The Scorecard holds at 18. 19 if you count Victoria Principal.

--he can tell us Banacek's final score.

On the whole, I'm glad I finished with this one (and thank you, New York Public Library, for coming through where Netflix did not, even if it did take around two weeks). It's much better than the final S2 ep, even if not up to the standard of the best season one movies. And while technically Banacek does not seem to have sex with anyone DURING the events of this episode, it provides The Scorecard with a satisfying finale--and quite an interpretive challenge--lots of codes to crack.

We start off with Banacek and Carlie, having rehooked-up at the end of "No Stone Unturned", celebrating their return to connubiality in a lovely Boston park. As we saw before in the pilot, Banacek actually seems like he wants to get serious with her, but she's still got her guard up, and isn't fully honest with him (or willing to stop being a Company Gal), which gives him a handy excuse to once again get involved in a case she's working, and show her up. Honestly, much as he gets under her skin, I often think she gets under his even more. Somehow, the implication is that she reminds him of the woman who hurt him years ago, and made him the shameless sex-hungry scoundrel he is today. The woman whose existence, we should remember, she correctly intuited in the pilot. I would guess the writers are making a point that if Carlie would just be nice to Banacek, and offer herself to him without reservation, and not always be trying to beat him at his own game, she could be Mrs. Thomas Banacek, or at least the #1 concubine in his mighty harem. Carlie is basically one long jab at women's lib, as they called it back then. But Belford manages to make her a bit more than that (and at a few points in the episode, we get to see how pretty she really was, though GOD those pantsuits they make her wear would make Mr. Blackwell's Alltime Worst-dressed List easily).

Anyway, cut to some huge hospital complex full of sexy nurses who have a lounge where they can apparently wear harem attire if they want to (convenient for Banacek), and their own rooms where they can welcome guests if they want to (even more convenient for Banacek). Did any such hospitals exist outside the imaginations of sex-starved male TV writers, or guys who write softcore porn? I have no idea.

First of all, Banacek meets a very pretty and somewhat easy nurse played by the lovely Sabrina Scharf, yet another Star Trek alum (she played the Indian girl Kirk falls in love with while he has amnesia on that planet populated by romanticized Native Americans who mainly look like caucasian actors with spray tans). She's dating the slimy lothario played by Richard Jordan (who excels at slimy lotharios), but is clearly much more interested in Banacek, since he's a fine upstanding type of lothario. She flirts with Banacek, then winks at him.

Later, Banacek is at the aforementioned medical seraglio, I mean Nurses Lounge, and this chick named Wanda (played by Poupee Bocar, and I guess that must be her real name because who would make that up), dressed in a not-very-professional mid-riff baring outfit, comes on to him like crazy, and he to her--no wink, but it's not really needed, since Wanda doesn't play around (except in her room, which she goes out of her way to mention is private).

Still later, Banacek drops in to see Felix, and finds him trying to court yet another woman who is far too young for him. This character's name in the credits is 'girl' (what, not even "Yet another of Felix's young women"?), and she's played by a very appealing actress named Nancy Bonniwell (even though she's clearly of Asian descent), and she gives Banacek another wink.

And actually, Richard Jordan's character winks at Sabrina Scharf's Nurse Reever, to indicate they will be hooking up later once he can get away from Anne Baxter. Winking in this episode is code for sex, as is outright flirting. And here is where The Scorecard must make a daring judgment call--Banacek's final score is--drumroll please--21!

Remember, The Score stood at 18 before I got to view this episode. Remember that this is not all the women Banacek conceivably slept with in the course of the series, but all the female characters with actual lines of dialogue whom it is strongly implied that he either had sex with during an episode or shortly after the episode concludes. Victoria Principal's character from "Fly Me--If you Can Find Me" was disqualified because she only slept with him as a distraction at the behest of a villainous boyfriend, and because The Scorecard is a contrary bitch, who shall now say Banacek had sex with three women in the same episode, even though that's very equivocal, and his having sex with Principal's character is not. But hear me out.

Banacek is staying at the hospital a while, now that the case is solved. He's talking with four nurses about children's books, only one of whom has lines, that being Lois, played by the cute but not exactly ravishing Julie Rogers (who was probably capable of being a lot sexier than she is here), who loves the way he talks. I don't think Banacek is bedding Lois--she's not his type. And the other nurses don't have lines, so while Banacek is probably going to take them to bed (along with most of the female staff of this facility), they don't count.

But Scharf's Wyn Reever (who flirted and winked) is there at the hospital, and the slimy lothario has been banished from there, so she's available. So is the no-nonsense Wanda (who eschewed flirting and winking for an open proposition), and he'll be heading over to her room very shortly.

And once he's done at the hospital, who seriously thinks he's not going back to Felix's book emporium to steal that sexy Asian girl away from him (and not just to caress her ear lobes as part of some stupid New Agey mating ritual). She winked at Banacek, same as Wyn did, and we already know Banacek feels obliged to sleep with any inappropriately young woman Felix takes an interest in, because ALL OTHER MEN MUST FAIL. In this episode, a wink is as good as a nod. And she has lines (actually I think it's just one line, but that's enough).

It's all subtextual but not really that equivocal, and I swear I'm NOT just saying this so that The Scorecard ends on a satisfying note. You have to know how to read the signs. The Scorecard prides itself on its literacy. The Scorecard stands--for all time--at 21. I was thinking Banacek had no shot at 20, after Victoria Principal got disqualified, but you have to hand it to the guy--he finds a way. However improbable.

One thing I really noticed in this one (not that I hadn't before) is that moment that Banacek meets a woman, and she just looks at him, and melts--George Peppard was a good-looking guy, but not THAT much of a hunk, so we're just supposed to divine that Banacek has this irresistible charisma that women instantly fall under the spell of. It happens with Anne Baxter's surly matriarch too--there's a bit of a subtext there in that she desperately wishes she wasn't too old for him--says she was just a teenager when the 30's ended--a bit sad that She who was Eve Harrington should be reduced to such straits, particularly when you consider that George Peppard was only five years younger than her. But on this show, she's a withered crone. It's a man's world--enjoy it while you can, Banacek. Btw, if you get over to Yale, there's this chick named Hillary Rodham you ought to look up. She's dating this hick named Clinton, but you can beat his time easy. If you like Carlie, you'll LOVE her.

Sadly (or not), I think this thread has run its course. No more Banaceks to scour for evidence of his amazing amatory exploits. 12 pages is plenty. But perhaps The Scorecard can live on in some new threads. I'll give it some thought. Probably more thought than the subject merits, but that's consistent, at least.