100 TV Shows #50-It Takes A Thief and #51-Switch

[karaokegal]

More or less a tribute to the gorgeousness of young Robert Wagner and a nostalgia trip to the 60's and 70's when a character could be a swinging, love-em-and-leave-em, swaggering anti-hero, in a completely un-ironic way, with no need for a tragic back-story, redemption or "true love".

I'm sorry Neal Caffrey, you are NO Alexander Mundy.

It Takes

Comments

[hansolo5]

Gosh I missed this post!! How could I?
I remember watching it when I was about 12 (you know, in the 80's the italian tv was alwyas airing 70's if not 60's U.s. television shows... you consider that even nowadays House aired a couple of years after )
I had a crush on Robert and, I already said that , it lasted at least 10 years :-) The charachter was so smart, the guy so handsome, I really was hooked and I didn't want to go out for dinner with my family when the show was on tv :-)
And Alistair was so great too!
I agree with all you said, and I am happy to know you were watching it as well!

[karaokegal]

It's a really fascinating dynamic to see how much those kind of characters have to either be mocked or under-cut now. Also, it's slightly hard to watch with 21st Century Eyes. I had Banacek on our Netflix queue and then took it off because I was afraid he would come off as too smarmy and I couldn't face the cringe-factor with hubby watching.

[hansolo5]

Yes, and it's hard to watch them now . I think I still love ITTAT non "per se" but for the feelings it reminds me...I know too well the cringe-factor and for some old shows I used to love I need be alone to watch :-)
Maybe an exception is Starsky & Hutch, because though it seems slow now and the side characters are always kind of caricatural, the banter and the playing of the two main leads are still working and valuable to me, and hubby is ok for the car races :-)
...Never heard about Banacek... I googled it and it's with George Peppard ! another old crush of mine :-)