I enjoy the nostalgia of watching television shows that I loved way back when.

One of those was a short-lived series called Banacek, in which George Peppard played a brilliant, suave, rich, arrogantly charming insurance investigator, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in each episode for recovering insured items worth millions for their insurers and their hapless investigators.

I ate that stuff up as a young man. But as a not-so-young woman… well, despite still being able to enjoy the show, I simply cannot get over what a pompous ass he was with his love interests – and more surprisingly, the awkward ways they often twisted the plot to arrange for this chauvinism.

I get that they always portrayed him as more competent than his women-friends. Such were the times, though actually, the women in the show were far from stupid or weak… I guess all the more to show that he was able to gain the hopeless devotion of even smart, strong, competent women.

Nary a show went by in which he didn’t leave the female of the day sitting in his home waiting for him while he went about his business. He’d make a date with her, and then have to cancel for something more important. Oftentimes, it wasn’t even some new clue that had come up, just something he needed to do and decided that the best time to do it was instead of the date.

Quite obviously, to me now, this was an intentional plot vehicle to make him seem so much more important than her.

Back then, I really didn’t even notice how inconsiderate he was being. Not that I ever acted that way myself, but I think I just noticed how good he had it, and that made him cool to me.

Now, all I can think of is how utterly pissed off I would be to be treated that way.