TVSquad

Long before he toted a machine gun and traded quips with Mr. T, George Peppard starrred as the suave, clever insurance investigator Thomas Banacek on the Boston-based mystery series Banacek. Both characters loved their cigars.

A company called Hart Sharp Video is going to release a two-disc DVD set of the show's first season. It will be released on May 15 and is part of a series of sets they're going to release (the others are The Crow and Trapped In TV Guide, a prank show based around classic TV shows). Extras on the Banacek discs will include a photo gallery, a microsite, and a special TV Guide crossword puzzle.

I liked this show. It was more Murder, She Wrote than Columbo (we don't know who the bad guy is). Peppard played a freelance insurance investigator who was called in with the case got too baffling for the regular investigators. He took 10% of what he recovered (he lived well, with a driver and everything). The crimes were often complex and high-tech, like an airplane that is somehow stolen right from a runway or a priceless museum piece being stolen or a football player that vanishes on the field, right on national TV in front of millions.