Losing Streak

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Losing Streak)

Not a memorable episode by any stretch, proved by the fact I actually thought this was the one with a mobile gambling den in the back of a truck. Instead it's about a down and out former jazz singer, Vic Rankin, desperate for the money the boss of Garth White's Jazz Club owes him for his piano playing. He's a gambling addict, estranged from his wife, Evelyn, who can't take putting him back together again each time he's gone off the rails, and he's the man S&H are chasing down this week. It's a definite negative picture of the city, though S&H are in pretty high spirits considering Starsky has a horrible toothache. Mind you, Hutch is probably in a good mood precisely because his friend is down - witness the rare moment when he compliments Starsky on finding a place to eat where they both like the food. Again, he could be rubbing in how good the burger is because Starsky isn't enjoying it, but either way a meeting of the food minds almost never happens with these two!

There's more than just the gambling and Vic's problems to put this over the line into the downer view of city life, as we meet his former accompaniment, Belinda, a desperate drug user going cold turkey because she can't afford her next fix. One of the few moments I really liked was when Vic hides at her place to crash out, and she admits it's not much, but he's welcome to it. Of course, temptation then gets the better of her and she tries to sell him out for a measly $100, but this does lead to the most exciting part of the episode. Vic gets shot by White's goons, and like some kind of Roger Moore at the end of his James Bond years, climbs out of a window and drops to the ground to escape. This was also one of the few times I noticed David Soul's stunt double in action. I always spot Paul Michael Glaser's hairy double, whose face and body language is clearly different, but I think Soul's easygoing loping style must have been generally easier to emulate, and it's only when Hutch's face is noticeable from the front, as here, that you can see the double has a higher forehead, or something that marks him out as not being Soul.

The Starsky double usually gets the big stunts as he did with the fight on the stairs with White at the end, taking a leap over the railings onto the fleeing baddie's back, which I think was usually Hutch's signature move, but maybe they hadn't tied such things down this early in the series. Another familiar sight gets tied down for the first time in this episode, I believe, when we see Memorial Hospital's huge sign on its wall. We may have been to the location before, we may even have heard Memorial in dialogue (though I'm not sure), but this is most likely the first showing of the place as we would know it from so many episodes. Also connecting to another episode is the appearance of Orange (or Little Orphan Annie as S&H call her), and Sandy her dog. The odd, Orange-haired girl would reappear again, one of the few characters that did, though I can't remember in which episode. She doesn't have much to do here, just a scene with S&H and Huggy, but they must have thought she was wacky enough to be seen again.

Huggy gets to be in the story a bit more than the average episode, but it seems he really has left his bar and restaurant behind! This time he hangs out at a jazz club (Ziggy's Jazz Cave, the second in the episode!), and also has a shoeshine business going on in the street. I'd love to know why they chose to get him out of Huggy's, I can only assume it was to give him more interesting places to be, or maybe it was just too difficult to work him in if he was stuck in the bar? His added scenes may have been because the other main character, Captain Dobey, doesn't appear, and I'm not sure if he even gets a mention. Could Bernie Hamilton have been off sick or on holiday? Who knows?

The staples of the series are mostly in place, but come across as being a bit weak. I never spotted any pop references (though the jazz pianist Toby, from White's club could have been a name, I suppose, he certainly had the broadest smile in an episode yet! I liked how the episode begins by pulling back from him as we assume he's playing the piano, then we see he's actually tapping his fingers and enjoying Vic's playing), there are only a couple of crazy people (Orange and the guy with the hose that keeps spraying Starsky - in that scene look out for the tyre Hutch goes to deflate. It looks like it's already gone flat before he starts on it), and the running jokes are represented only by Starsky's tooth. The ending fell as flat as the tyre, with S&H hanging about with Vic's wife as Vic plays at his new job, Starsky making inane comments and Hutch telling him to shut up and listen. Might have been a rush job if they couldn't come up with anything better than that.

Though it is such a standard 70s TV episode, S&H's banter and jibing with each other improves and makes it watchable, and there were a few things to like. As well as the scenes I've mentioned there's a good little comedy moment when S&H go to the place of a poker game where Vic had shot someone. Trying to have a private conversation they keep having to tell the guy whose game it was to go away, as he tries to eavesdrop on what they're saying in the most overt way. Okay, add him to the list of odd characters for this episode! There's also one of those moments of kindness that humanises S&H so much, when Hutch takes pity on Belinda, giving her money so she can buy more drugs. It's not an ethical thing to do, but it shows how tenderhearted he is that he can't watch someone suffer without responding in some way. A bit like the way they treated the Angel in 'Texas Longhorn.'

As usual there are some things that don't make sense or could have done with an explanation, such as what happened to Ernie Lemke, one of White's men who gets caught by S&H outside Belinda's place. Starsky's seen to watch him as Hutch chases Foote, then he phones for a 'black and white,' but shortly after you see them both exit the place without Lemke in cuffs and with no other police presence, so what did they do with him, cuff him to a railing? They also take their time in getting to Evelyn's house when a call comes through on the radio that a woman's been reported screaming from the address. They fiddle about with the burgers and seem more concerned with Starsky's tooth problem than speeding to the rescue! Also, on the second visit they make to her house, Hutch is talking to her at one point, looking away from camera, when a mysterious shadow is cast on his back as if someone were sneaking up behind him. Granted, it's probably the camera man, but I was half expecting someone to pounce!

To add a bit more continuity, Huggy's cousin Elijah is mentioned for the second time (after the previous episode), and apparently has the great words of wisdom "be true to your teeth, and they'll never be false to you," which is sounding less and less like the cousin we meet in 'Huggy Bear and The Turkey.' I also thought the actor who played Foote was the same guy that was dozy Arnold in 'Death Notice,' but it wasn't, they just had the same frizzy hair. S&H do a bit of their hard cop, hard cop routine on White as they try to figure out what's going on, but they mainly remain in a good mood with, again, no. The poor ending, as happy as it was, didn't leave the episode in the best light, and with a bit of tweaking, perhaps to include a little more action or building up of supporting characters it could have been better. Even then, the story wasn't very original or inspired, so they would have been onto a losing streak…

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