Ballad For a Blue Lady

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Ballad For a Blue Lady)

As soon as you see it's directed by Paul Michael Glaser you know it's going to be morose and slow in an arty kind of way. And it was. Too much lingering camerwork, and wacky angles. Not that that's bad in itself, but it doesn't fit with the series' style and feels radically different to the other episodes.

The story was the same old 'one of them falls for some dodgy lady' thing. I thought the guy that played her brother Harry was a standout performance, really nailing that worried tightrope of knowing where he was and having faint hope things would improve Unfortunate he shared the name of the serial killer from earlier in the season though.

Fun to have Malachi Throne as the baddie (he'd been a Commodore in 'Star Trek'), and Huggy had a good little scene jogging along with Starsky in the car, but that end sequence... straight from a sad death scene to the two cops in a funny tag. It had no bearing on the story and seemed a little out of place. No mention of Mary-Anne or the fate of Fitch.

**