Pilot

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Pilot)

I came to 'Starsky & Hutch' (or 'Starsky and Hutch' as this episode has it), back in my college days in the early 2000s when it was shown on Channel 5 in the daytime. Before that, I vaguely knew the name and that they were police or detectives of some kind, but apart from the general popular culture drip most people experience that gives us a basic peripheral grasp of most things, I didn't know or care about it. I saw the series erratically and I certainly never saw the first episode, so once I had developed an appreciation for the characters and I happened to see the first season boxed set DVD on sale for a very reasonable price back then, I decided to get a better picture of the series, or at least the beginning of it.

In most drama today a pilot episode is an excuse to show the origin story of the characters, how they meet, setting up plot threads to be picked up in the series proper and generally presenting a picture of how, who and why we should care. Back in the late '70s things weren't quite so carefully planned out, or to say the least, they weren't in cop shows like this. The episode which began it all, aside from being longer than the standard episode length, running to around 70 minutes, doesn't do any of the introducing you might expect, and they had to wait about 29 years for that in the stupid parody film of 2004 in which we were 'treated' to a story of how Starsky and Hutch met - it wasn't worth the wait. It's not particularly jarring, we just meet the characters and they quickly get on with their jobs, but for minor things this could have been an episode shown at any point in the series.

The biggest reason preventing this is that it's made clear the two detectives haven't known Captain Dobey very long as they rely on Huggy Bear their informant (who seems reluctant to help them even though their very lives are at risk which is quite far from the good friend he's portrayed as in most episodes), to tell them if he's a likely suspect to want them dead. Can you imagine them ever thinking Dobey would want them dead in other episodes? No (except maybe in fun), but it's made more acceptable because the character is different since he's played by Richard Ward who went on to be in the fourth season episode 'Huggy Can't Go Home' as an old mentor of Huggy's. He made a good Captain Dobey, but there's a good reason why he wouldn't have worked on an ongoing basis: his voice is fantastic, but once you get over the novelty it can become difficult to follow what he's saying sometimes, whereas you never had that difficulty with Bernie Hamilton - you always knew exactly what his Dobey thought!

The episode opens well, in that full darkness with only the distant lights of the city to provide some perspective, but if, as I did, you come to this episode having seen others before it, you can be forgiven for being confused by Starsky's red-striped tomato, the Gran Torino being driven by some unknown college boy and his girlfriend. The reason it confuses is because as far as I know there's no other episode of the series which features more than one of those cars at the same time (in the story - of course they used more than one from a production standpoint), and the car is so recognisable and iconic that the idea there could be another one is almost impossible to grasp at first! You can almost believe the boy is Starsky, it is dark after all, but you soon realise it isn't. I wonder if the two hitmen who chat about mundane things (not getting to see the end of a John Wayne film), before carrying out cold-blooded murder, inspired the ones in the film 'Pulp Fiction'? Why didn't the hitmen realise it wasn't their targets in the car since they could see and hear what was going on? The answer comes later in the twist that they knew exactly what they were doing and to whom.

So the car gets introduced first, although it isn't the real car. The other characters soon follow, and I like the way that certain things that would become running gags or details in the series are introduced here: Hutch is a fitness freak that eats all kinds of health foods, while Starsky can't comprehend such a diet and snacks on unhealthy stuff. Hutch has his battered old car which is such a contrast to Starsky's slick, shiny motor - that was something I'd actually forgotten and is one of my favourite things of the series, especially when you see in this episode just how Hutch treats it, landing thump on the roof. It was actually quite a good idea in maintaining the shock of the city criminals when they see the two driving around as it gives more credence to the attack that everyone's heard about: they aren't in the Torino so it must have got busted up, but somehow they survived. We also learn Hutch has been married, and one of the main gags which gets two or three outings here is the confusion over which one is Starsky and which is Hutch. And of course there's the rule that if you see a swimming pool one or both of them are sure to end up in it!

I like things that are positive and make you feel better about life, and after not having watched the series for a couple of years I'd forgotten that Bay City is not a nice place to be. It seems derelict in places, rundown, an open sewer, it's openly described as a toilet bowl that the two detectives are stuck in, two bugs that can't get out. This isn't the greatest invitation to a series, I must say, but that's the way it was back then. They later didn't concentrate on the low-life and ugly street views quite so much, revelling in the sunny bay and having a mix of locations, and to be fair, the harsh environment makes us care more about the main characters, especially when they believe it's only each other they can trust. So there was never any need to build up to a bond or show how they got to this point, they just were best mates doing the best job they could and we jump in for the ride.

They describe themselves as hard-nosed cops, not bothering with the convention of good cop, bad cop, and with so many people out there that don't like them, they have good reason to be that way, but even so we do get the occasional glimpse of their soft-heartedness, such as the moment Hutch gives the tramp some money - you can tell these aren't people that get enjoyment from simply going around and beating up the bad guys and getting a thrill from a fight, they are professionals that care about the city and its people. You can't imagine at this point when they're brazenly walking into Fat Rolly's bar and taking over the place, bullying the people and generally putting their foot down, that the series could go from this to the one in the fourth season when they go undercover as eccentric hairdressers, but Season 1 was much more realistic, tough and serious than it became later. The humour was evident even in this episode, but there was a lot more irony than comedy.

Something else that became a staple of the series and begins here are the quirky characters they meet in their day. Whether it's the mortician at the morgue, the pickpocket, Fat Rolly or the girl walking the dog, they all have an off-kilter something about them. I believe Rolly was in at least one other episode, one of the hitmen looked like the guy from 'Quadromania' and the other hitman was a regular background guy I think, but I was confused by Tallman as I had it in my head that he was Stryker, a similar character who also shows up in the first season. Maybe they both had steam rooms or something. Talking of which, that scene was amusing because you could tell from how gingerly Soul and Glaser were moving that they probably didn't have anything on under the towels - they were both positioning themselves so carefully and slowly, very aware of the camera's location. Maybe that was just an impression I got, but it was a strong one.

Another familiar face was the stunt guy that would often double for Glaser and showed up as several minor characters throughout the series as one of Tallman's associates who tells them his boss wants to see them - that scene, as good as it was (the moment they do a full, grinding circle and leave tyre marks on the road is funny), didn't make much sense. Why would the goons chase them through town instead of leaving a message at the station, or were they sent to forcibly bring them in? That wouldn't make sense either because Tallman wanted to show he was on his best behaviour, even offering the protection of his house so he couldn't be accused of coercing witnesses. I love the idea of them all going down to the trial the next day together! It also doesn't make sense that Starsky and Hutch would leap out of their car and run over to the one driven by what they thought were the hitmen because they wouldn't have had time to drag them out of it if they had been the hitmen - they would have been shot as they ran towards the car.

One thing that stood out to me was how different the policing equipment of the day was compared with our own time. Obviously progress happens constantly, but it was slightly jarring to see Starsky pull out a notebook with handwritten details on it, or the book which contained notes on criminals. The chunky radios also stood out. For some reason, for all the times I'd seen this episode as clips in the opening title sequence, I always assumed when he was charging down the stairs he was holding a bomb, but it was actually his radio. At one point, after the swimming pool incident they have to ask the public to phone the police for them. And if you think about it, if Fat Rolly had had a mobile they'd never have been able to piece together the vital clue that their apparent attempted murder was an inside job! I say I watched this episode many times in the opening titles and it does feel that way because so many clips were taken from this episode, but it's interesting that this one doesn't have an opening title sequence itself, although what would become the theme music does come in towards the end.

This wasn't a family series as evidenced by the characters heading to a seedy 'adult' film showing in order to meet Huggy in his one brief scene. Huggy isn't quite the character we know at this point - he seems a bit cool about helping them and then stays as if he enjoys the film, but although it's not one of the better scenes it was at least played for humour, with the old lady in the audience who calmly pours tea from a flask as she watches the 'film'. Unfortunately the scene where he moseys into the theatre is the one used for much of the series in the credits so it's a constant reminder of this scene! There's also a fair bit of violence with shotguns blasting doors, blowing up cars and people being chucked downstairs, but there's nothing gory or completely excessive, certainly by today's standards.

The scene at the end when Hutch bravely stays crouching and firing as a car gets blown up behind him was a scene that showed how professional and effective the duo were, but also how rubbish these supposedly unstoppable hitmen really are in a pinch. The twist in the story that they were never really after the detectives was good, as was the way Tallman speaks about them as if they can't miss, but when it comes down to it, instead of coolly making an escape, they jump on top of a car roof and stay there firing shotguns at a distance. For one thing, a shotgun is a short range weapon, for another a hitman would know that you need to make yourself the smallest target and hide behind the car, and for another they wouldn't panic and go to pieces. Credit to Starsky and Hutch as they somehow manage to shoot them down, but appear to only have winged them as it looks like they're preparing to put cuffs on them!

For the series this was quite a complicated story and is another reason why it surprises if you come to it after having seen a few episodes. I'm not sure why the bad guy needed to go to all this trouble to conceal his association with the college girl, but if he was this obsessed about his public image that he'd break all the rules to cover it up, then it's a good job his career ended. It's not clear whether he was killed by the shotgun blast, but it seems likely. Another thing that doesn't make sense is that the two young people's murder wasn't being investigated because it was assumed it was mistaken identity - now I can imagine police procedures, especially in America, were a lot more lax in those days, but no murder is going to pass without investigation, surely? At least the episode ends in familiar style for the series, a funny scene between the two leads. A good, solid episode, not remarkable, but highly watchable and while I can't really say it set the groundwork it did start things off quite well.

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