Texas Longhorn

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Texas Longhorn)

This was one I didn't really remember too well before watching it again, but I knew I'd liked it and for some reason felt like I might not like it as much this time. I was wrong, it was a very well balanced episode, not radically different from the other stories in that it's about S&H chasing about town meeting various characters in order to work out whodunnit and where they are now, before finding and bringing the perps to justice, unsurprising as they are detectives and that's what they do, but I've realised what I like about episodes like this that make them stand out from others which can be mundane. The essential ingredient is that which decides whether the story is bleak, miserable and unpleasant, or sad, heartbreaking and perhaps hopeful in some way. Episodes that dwell on the 'toilet bowl' view of the city (as they coined it in the first episode), make you feel down, and while it can draw you closer to the main characters by them being alone against the world (successfully achieved as their introduction in the pilot), liking them is not dependent on this and I would argue is achieved better in the scenes where they feel pity for a victim of society even if that victim is a criminal.

This one pulls off the pathos superbly, and my favourite scene has to be when they visit the Angel, someone who can point them in the direction of the villains. Her life story is laid out on the table by her side: the pictures of her fifteen years ago as a famous singer sit right next to a used syringe. At first S&H expect trouble and are very cautious before they enter, but when they see it's just a lady lying back in a chair they come in and take in the room. The moment when she breaks into song is so sad and stands out in a generally enjoyable episode as being a real 'moment' and the kind of thing they didn't reach very often on the series. I couldn't help noticing what a mobile face the actress had - she scrunches it right up at some points and opens it wide at others, but it was an excellent performance, perhaps the most affecting so far on the series.

They deal well with the moments of pity, reflected again in Zack Tyler's attitude to losing his wife Emmy Lou. It's a story of revenge and tragedy as two men thoughtlessly ruin two lives, raping and killing the wife and bringing out the worst in Zack. There's a moral issue at the heart of it - taking the law into your own hands, and it definitely comes down on one side: that it can only lead to tears. Zack had to die for his crimes, but at least he goes out in a good way, telling S&H the story of the scorpion and the frog and claiming he couldn't escape his nature to be vengeful. Whether he could have tried harder and made the right choice is a moot point, but he's a devious man, lying about Chako being one of the two who attacked him so the man will be released and he can bring down summary justice on him. Yet you also feel for him, and his story explains, if it doesn't excuse, his behaviour.

Zack was a very real character for the series, full of nostalgia, a good old boy, a Texan cowboy-type who utters every word with a touch of regret in his tone - not surprising when he's just lost his wife, but he doesn't fit into the usual 'quirky' category of many people S&H come into contact with. There are plenty of them in this story! We meet Ray, a fag-chomping, croaky-voiced female tattooist, the wrestler who S&H have to fight, the angry nurse at the blood donor centre and the man sitting in front of her who gawps fish-like at S&H when they announce they're police and continues gawping with eyes and mouth agape until they leave! Returning from the pilot is Fat Rolly (also called Smelly Rolly in this episode), and Huggy's barmaid Diane is in the background at his place again. I don't think Rolly made any other appearances after this, probably because he was going to prison, by the sound of it, but I like that they were at least attempting to build up a city populated with people we know.

The wrestling sequence is one of the comedy moments despite the violence, with S&H having difficulties with the big guy (played by Butcher Brannigan which makes me think he was a known wrestler, perhaps a bit of stunt casting - either that or his parents had a sense of humour when naming him!), getting chucked around and then the cuffs don't fit. It turns into a nice tag scene at the end when he turns up at Huggy's to apologise and reels off this fancy wine that he'd like. The nurse was in the tradition of difficult people S&H have to deal with, but I can understand some of her frustration as the running gag this time is Starsky having trouble with machines - the phone booth takes his change and doesn't work, the phone at HQ gets a crossed line, and when he tries to get a candy bar out of the dispenser at the blood donor's it also eats his change. I like it when they have a running gag, and this time it was even more of a sore point as everything goes right for Hutch, increasing Starsky's annoyance.

He's actually in a pretty good mood though, going off into his bright, sunny monologue about how their mission is just like Cinderella (they've got to travel the city to find the boot which is missing its silver toecap). Another pop culture reference (if you can call Cinderella one in the first place) is mention of Hemingway and Joe Greene - I don't know Joe Greene, but I imagine he would be a name people would recognise (a boxer, maybe), since Huggy's talking about how he feels meaner than him. Huggy gets to be in it a bit more, first being really irritated, then switching and being really jolly at the end which must have given the actor a bit of fun. He makes a bizarre sight at the end when he sort of pulls back his head and flaps his long arms in front of him in a delighted clap in a frog-like way that shows he had a unique physicality to him, something else that endears him to us.

S&H pull the same hard cop/hard cop thing on Rolly that they did in the pilot, not giving him any leeway because they know the kind of man he is, what he deserves and how best to get information out of him. I like the way Rolly's security man is shoved through a door then lies on top of it for the rest of the scene while they talk to Rolly, preferring to be down there rather than getting up and possibly having to contend with the invaders. They are uncompromising against villains, but spare kindness for the victims of society which makes them so much more interesting as characters. It also seems fair for the world they live in with people like Chako and Harris going around doing whatever they want, the city needs S&H to fight back, a bit like superheroes, but within the law. Although they do things sometimes which would be frowned upon in modern society such as Starsky wapping Chako with his file when the man refuses to talk. But even Chako had some kind of moral code, horrified to learn the woman they killed was Zack's wife, not just some girl he'd picked up (as if that distinction would have excused their actions!). He seems to have some kind of religious conviction or something that gives him a line not to cross.

Harris on the other hand is completely without morals from what we see of him. He's a sailor that has no real place to call home, drifting through life doing what he wants. It makes me wonder if the attack on Zack and Emmy Lou was an unplanned spur of the moment thing. He seems like the kind of guy that would see something and take it, with Chako a willing accomplice. Charles Napier (who died last year) makes a good villain, though he doesn't get a star turn until the end when both Zack and S&H come after him. He's not one to be taken unawares and pulls out a rifle of some kind, and the action scene with him running and shooting as he's chased is really good, capturing the moment of instinctual fight or flight, outnumbered he retreats to an iron box that's as impregnable as a tank, as if he'd thought ahead that he might need protection sometime. It also shows he shortsighted as he thinks he can hide in a box and shoot everyone that comes after him! I like the way Starsky uses the environment to his advantage and I actually thought he'd killed him when the crushing claw slams down on the box. It's quite brutal the way he lifts it up and drops it from a height, but fortunately Harris was only injured, not killed.

There's a very good mix of action, from the wrestling fight and the shootout at the end, drama with Chako threatening to cut the waitress, humour (Starsky finally writes a report, but embellishes it so much Dobey tells him it reads like a comic book!), and poignancy, that it could well be the most well written episode up to this point. There's even some nice directing with shots such as the reflections as Harris chases Emmy Lou through the puddle, and the excellent transition using the pit head (or donkey head, or oil head, whatever they're called), to go from night to day as it moves up and down. The usual stunt guy gets a couple of bits of business when he rolls down the stairs as Chako (his curly hair looks nothing like that guy's straight hair, but it happens so fast you wouldn't notice), and even more difficult to spot is when he doubles Starsky, rolling over the car's bonnet in the chase after Harris. It's noticeable that nobody mixes up S&H's names this time, but they do end with the traditional funny scene when Hutch says he was beginning to think he and Starsky were the only sane people in the city and his partner replies he was beginning to wonder about Hutch. A nice way to finish a beautifully rounded episode.

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