Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Captain Dobey, You're Dead!
DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Captain Dobey, You're Dead!)
Captain Dobey was third billing, but at the beginning of the series he was, like Huggy, more of a recurring character, existing only to shout at S&H or direct them, a force above, that gradually we came to see had a lot of respect for them, and trust. Respect in terms of pride in their ability to do their job on the tough streets, not personal respect, because Dobey had to stay above them; to maintain dignity and a little distance, though in truth they never saw him as a dignified man, taking great enjoyment in bursting his pomp, and in private felt they could get away with most things. They knew they could count on him just as he knew he could count on them, even if they did butt heads a lot. What I'm getting at is that Dobey was created for conflict and for support, unlike Huggy, who was a friend they could turn to for word on the street. Both of these characters grew in prominence through the first season, but mysteriously they never came to the same level as the title characters, always supporting, and even getting less exposure in later seasons as the series focused on the leads.
One exception is this story in which we get to peer behind the facade of angry bullishness usually thrown up as Dobey's screen (helped by the stresses of his position), into his private life. We meet his family: wife Edith, son Cal, and daughter Rosie. We visit his home, we see him go to church, we learn of his campaign to look into the murder of his friend Isaac Douglas, we may even have first heard his name spoken here (Harold). I sense the episode was an experiment and I have no idea why we never got any more Dobey-centric tales after this as it helped to flesh out the man behind the desk and make him more sympathetic. S&H get the lion's share of the action, it's true, but Dobey handles himself well, as does his brave wife. In one of the most thrilling scenes we see Dobey's nemesis, the former cop Leo Moon, whom he went through the Academy with and helped put away for his crimes, attempting to break into the family home. Edith, always keeping in mind the safety of her children at the foremost, strikes the man as he tries to enter, even though she's terrified herself. But even braver is when she's fought him off, and then goes out to warn the police car out front, though she knows Moon could still be around.
Finding the guard stabbed to death puts her over the edge, hysterical until S&H come speeding in heroically to comfort her. But she's not a policewoman herself, hasn't had the training, so it shows what mettle she had, and made me wish we could have seen Dobey's family again. The cute factor is played up with little Rosie asking S&H why the nasty man wants to hurt her Daddy, and as we've seen before, they are great with children. Or have we? This may be the first time we get them interacting with a child, so maybe the writers saw how good they were at it and began including more stories where they did that? Something else we hadn't seen a lot of, and may have been a first, was Hutch's famous launching tackle, which would become a trademark move: chasing a bad guy he runs up some steps and leaps off like Superman onto the guy's back, taking him down hard!
One thing that's definitely a first is the episode title appearing on screen. All the episodes had names, but for whatever reason they usually didn't bother displaying them - it wasn't until I got the DVD set that I discovered what each was called. Not so here, as the dramatic title appears right after Moon escapes prison in a dramatic opening, stating the warning and the intention of the enemy. One thing that looked suspect in the scene was when Pommier crowbarred the drain cover off. It doesn't look as if it needed any effort! If you think about it though, he may have already prised it open while waiting, so it just needed to be pulled up. Pommier was one of many characters in the story, maybe too many - there were names after names, making the story seem broader, but also less easy to follow. Dobey talks to Miss Sutton, a TV interviewer, about his mission to open an inquiry into Isaac Douglas' murder; S&H meet with Frisco Fats (The Fat Man), and the lady in charge of a massage parlour, trying to locate Lola, Moon's girl; there's CJ Woodfield, the man at the bottom of the trouble, his right hand man Norris, left hand man Crenshaw, and of course, Leo Moon and the Dobey clan!
What makes the setup a bit different are the several levels of criminality: Moon's broken out of prison by Woodfield's people because they want Dobey dead for their own reasons: Moon has his goal, they happen to share it. Pommier is the guy assigned to fly Moon around, but is never accepted into the inner clique, resulting in him being a target at the end once he's threatened to expose the high-profile Woodfield, so the interplay between the villains is more complex than usual. We've had 'Mr. Big's like Woodfield before, rich and seemingly above the law; and we've had personal enemies like Moon to contend with, too, (Prudholm being the best), but we've not had these archetypes working together in an episode, so it makes for a higher strain of adversary to contend with, although ultimately their distrust for each other doesn't help them.
Woodfield was well played: a crippled man you can almost pity if not for his evil, leering face, and quavering, malicious voice. He appears to contemplate suicide at the end, but S&H come in before he completes the thought. Because they're dealing with a higher class of criminal we see the rich side of the city again with Woodfield's place, as well as the respectable residential area Dobey lives in, not to mention a large church and grounds, expensive cars and planes, so this falls into the posh camp of episodes, with only the massage parlour to hint at the seedy underbelly, and even that features the lady in charge teaching her girls to play chess. Seems like a higher class of character all round! She and Frisco Fats are the closest we get to 'S&H universe' characters, those weird, crazy, strange eccentrics who the cops generally come into contact with. I doubt they could get away with making personal remarks about Frisco's weight nowadays - he'd probably sue the force!
The story's pretty serious for S&H, but then their Captain is being threatened. This gives them reason to play the hard cops routine on the mechanic, telling him they'll close the whole airfield unless they get the answers they want. But there are some gags, the most obvious being a running joke about left-handed people like Starsky being odd, until they realise little Rosie's also left-handed. It doesn't go anywhere, but it doesn't have to, that's the point, although sometimes you vaguely wish such things could have been tied in to a theme somehow. There's also the joke about being in a TV studio for the first time when they watch Dobey doing his broadcast - this in-joke would be taken much further in 'Murder on Stage 17.' The "He's Hutch, I'm Starsky" thing comes up again, as does Dobey's relationship with food, Starsky taking the Captain's 'candy' bar. Note how Hutch gives it to his partner rather than eat it himself because he's a health food nut.
There's no Huggy, it being a Dobey story, and them not being best of friends, no popular culture references I could spot, but Hutch does his wiping the window thing to see into Moon's hideout, as seen every week in the opening titles. I've noticed they haven't changed in the last few episodes, having settled into what they'd probably be for the rest of the season, after clips being inserted or removed from week to week in the early episodes. It's good to see Dobey get some action for a change, but S&H still upstage him with their dramatic leaps from the Torino on at least two occasions. Why the villains insist on standing there plugging away at them instead of hightailing it out of there, I don't know, but both Moon and Norris end their episode that way!
One of the best scenes is when S&H visit Woodfield for breakfast at his invitation. Much like Stryker or Tallman, they're quite happy to go along with the villains and take advantage of their hospitality, before banally throwing in their true feelings ('frankly we don't trust you, could I have more milk?'). I wondered if they had the villain saying grace and mentioning how he liked to be close to his creator to counterbalance Dobey's religious leanings? I love the Captain's line after S&H have saved him and they question where he's going - he says he's given them their thanks, now he's going to give the Lord's his! One of the better episodes of the season thanks to the proper inclusion of Dobey, but also due to some good baddie politics, a sense of scale (look at all those police around the huge church building), and a feeling of history; Dobey's investigation something he's been trying to pin down for over a year. But also some good action scenes, including the distressing break-in and heroics from ordinary people. Not up there with 'Pariah,' but a solidly good episode that plays well within the world of S&H.
***
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