Murder At Sea

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S2 (Murder At Sea)

I felt I'd misjudged this episode a little, to begin with. Previously I'd felt it was almost a good episode, but not quite, but this time I felt I'd been too harsh, and that it was a good one after all. It started quite dramatically with the sinister man in the monkey mask (was it a monkey, or was it supposed to be an ugly person?), strangely unsettling with the contrast between its cartoony appearance, yet uncertain meaning, and the deadly intention and measured, cold movements that spoke of a devious intelligence. I'd forgotten the opening completely, and indeed, remembered little beyond the cruise side of things - for example, I often quote a saying, 'The good old days; the grand times!' in an old man's voice, which I didn't realise came from here. That's the other thing about the episode that brought me on board (!), the steady succession of wacky characters that the series does. This time we have a string of them almost from the get-go: Lord Harry Percival (or Mr. Teeth as I dubbed him), of Lord Harry's World Famous Tattoo Parlour Deluxe ("Perhaps you've heard of me?"), the next in a line of bizarre witnesses that over the episodes S&H have had to negotiate in order to get the clues they need. Then there's Oxey, the security guy who jumps them on the ship (he deserved a larger role since he was so larger than life, and I thought he was in it more!), and the aged Commodore Atwater, from whom I got the saying ("Those were the good old days. Those were the grand times."), a crotchety old man who's in charge of the Atwater Steamship Company.

We also come to a lady named October Moss, who's just like someone you'd expect to bear that name, though this is where we come back to planet Earth with the frosty reception S&H meet from her friend Helen Carnahan, played by Lynne Marta, who I believe was married (or would be), to David Soul (and had played another role in last season's 'The Bait'). She has her own secrets, since we saw her at the start, screeching away from the murderer of Eric Snow (with a name like that he had to be bad!), so intrigue is already set up early in the story. I like that it doesn't give away that this is a two-part episode, but suspicions should have been flagged up when we actually get the title on screen, as well as a long credit list (though it appears the opening theme montage is here to stay as, unlike Season 1, it hasn't changed from week to week). It had only been done a couple of times before (usually the actor's names stay in the end credits), namely the pilot and 'The Las Vegas Strangler,' which either featured a longer running time or was a two-parter, and you can see this is set up to be a BIG episode. It's strange to put another two-parter only a couple of episodes after the first one as you'd think they'd space them out, but maybe they also had sweeps period in those days when they wanted the best ratings, or maybe they were so pleased with the first one they threw money into another big idea. Plus, they probably needed to spread the budget over two episodes to justify the cost of hiring an actual steamer and filming on location on the ocean as appears they did!

It takes a while, but eventually we get to what I remembered about the episode: S&H going undercover on the steamship Amapola for a mission to bust a drugs syndicate at the destination of Acapulco, Mexico. If you thought we'd had done with crazy characters, perhaps got them out of the way before we got to the real story, you'd have been bemused to realise that comparatively, Lord Harry, the Commodore and Oxey were pretty sane and ordinary compared with the cast of misfits that assembles for the cruise, and that the story takes a turn for the wacky in a big way, like the steamer itself on a massive turning circle, honking all the way. Not to say the episode had lost me at this point, it was still engaging and fun - fun is the best word to sum up the majority of the episode in stark contrast to the opening and the stakes, this is by far the biggest excuse the series had taken so far to take off from the constraints of the daily grind of police detective life, and for the stars to make fools of themselves - none of that cool cops or grave jeopardy, the hallmarks of Season 1, this is the next step towards the ultimate destination of 'Dandruff' in Season 4. You could point to 'The Las Vegas Strangler' as the culprit for starting this direction away from hard-hitting, sometimes downbeat, drama, and into what could best be described as farce. Its decision to go boldly into location shooting, away from the city and into the casinos, with S&H acting up to stereotypes to disguise their real mission was clearly what influenced the style of this episode. Maybe 'Strangler' was a big hit, and they had demands for more of the same?

None of the above made me question my questioning of my previous feelings toward the episode. No, it was the extended length and the way the story was meandering along, treading water, losing momentum in the last third and outstaying its welcome: at 55 minutes long, it needed to stay sharp, but it had the appearance of filling time until they could get to a point where a possible cliffhanger ending could cut the episode off. This had the unfortunate effect of ruining the pacing because eventually we get to something of moment and it ends abruptly as if they couldn't work out where to cut, but didn't want to ditch all the padding they'd written to make hiring a ship worthwhile, and so it dragged. This also had a knock-on effect of making part two shorter than the average episode, as I recall, but right now I'm just judging this episode on its own merits, and because of the unevenness (and perhaps a little due to the seediness of some of the characters aboard ship), I couldn't quite bring myself to rate it a good episode, though there's still much to enjoy, not the least that it's another that's well out of the usual style of the series.

It did retain some of the little bits and pieces you'd expect, such as the usual joke about S&H's names: this time they're asked which is Hack and which is Zack (being undercover as entertainers Hack and Zack, which begs the question of what happened to the real entertainment, presuming there would have been some - did they do someone out of an honest job?), and both point to the other and say 'he's Hack,' as well as earlier there being some confusion over who's who. It was good to hear their entire false names later in the episode when Starsky makes it up as he goes, saying Hutch is 'Zack Shecky,' inspiring him to the revenge of calling Starsky, 'Hack Tuppleman' ('Shecky & Tupp' - has a ring to it…). There are a few cultural references, ranging from 'Green Sleeves' to Huggy calling himself 'the Houdini with soul,' 'My Wild Irish Rose' sung by Mr. Takahashi, Starsky whistling the theme tune of 'Popeye The Sailorman,' and Bizet's 'Habanera,' as demolished by Edna Zelinka ("I'm never wrong about things like that!"). But for all the water, neither Starsky nor Hutch end up in it. I guess they only jump into freshwater? I believe we've seen Hutch interrupt Starsky as he's chatting up a girl before, which happens again, and but for the shot of the Torino sitting outside police HQ, it's a no-show for the show tomato - starting to sound like Huggy, now.

Or should that be Huggerino The Supremo? Oh dear, how far Huggy has fallen since his glory days of Season 1 when he owned his own establishment. This time he's literally writhing around on the floor in a most undignified manner thanks to a straitjacket, and I found myself wondering why he was even in the episode at all, except that he's supposed to be one of the title characters! He had the intel that Snow was a drug dealer planning a big deal for his next trip, which leads them to wonder why he was murdered before he left, but Hug himself is just shown to be looking after his cousin, Marco The Magnificent's, business while he's in court. It's always good to hear more about Hug's extended (and usually shady), family, but sad to see such a great character languishing in the shadow of the two leads, just there to be made a fool of, it felt like. He never tended to get a large role, but it would have been good to build him up a little more from the first season instead of taking a backward step. This oversight would be softened slightly later in the season when he was the main focus of an episode, but even so… Captain Dobey was never quite as enjoyable a character, but he makes it firmly into the story, and even gets to have a laugh in the Commodore's office, a very rare moment for him!

One thing I'd never realised before and was great fun to see this time, was that Nicky Cairo was played by Charles Picerni, the man who also often doubled Starsky, and was starring alongside a 'Paul Picerni,' playing his elder brother, Patsy Cairo. Coincidence, or were they brothers in real life? It seems likely as they do look similar. It's good to see Charles Picerni finally get a sizeable role after being onscreen so often as a stuntman - he'd play several other speaking characters over the years, I think, but this would seem to be his first credited character on the series. He'd actually debuted earlier in the episode in the fantastic fight sequence with Oxey, where the burly guard takes on both S&H, almost chucking them both overboard - I'm starting to spot both the doubles now that I'm looking more carefully, but it was shot from a distance and on the smaller and less distinct screens of the time it wouldn't have been obvious at all, I'm sure. Fun that real Starsky gets to meet fake Starsky, though! With the unravelling information that what S&H have stumbled onto could be bigger than they ever realised; a meeting of every syndicate leader on the West Coast (Jack Patches, Gus Traynor, Long Oscar Nash, Marty Simon, and of course, Patsy Cairo), the stakes are raised ready for part two, and with Helen Carnahan aboard under her own pseudonym of Nellie Brown, things begin to hot up.

What doesn't help is the comedy taking over. It's amusing in doses, but becomes far too invasive to the plot. The characters are fun for the most part, joining the crazy list are: Captain LaRue, one of the best characters, he's a bitter, disillusioned man, who is also philosophical, likening the microcosm of life aboard the ship to the world. But then you get Harv (played by Ed Begley, Jr., long before he became the inventor of the modern computer according to 'Star Trek: Voyager'!), and his Bayside Singles Club girls, which is where things go downhill a bit, their only purpose to 'liven up' the episode with innuendo, it seems. Then you get Mr. Takahashi and his wife, his name being mispronounced throughout, and Starsky being borderline racist by pretending to say something in Japanese that is actually gobbledygook, something you might not get away with on TV today. Not that Starsky was a racist, far from it, but it could easily be misconstrued in the far more PC modern era. There are some good additions to the category, with Hubert Stuffy, who's taking his Mother's ashes on the journey, which could have been played as bittersweet, but came across as just bonkers; Edna Zelinka and her eligible daughter, Bertha (Carole Ita White had been another character in the pilot episode!), who were great fun; and First Officer Stafford, a stiff upper-lipped Englishman in the finest American stereotyped mould! Also, look out for the dodgy, bug-eyed waiter who sneaks off with Kitty - he's been an extra in various episodes (I always remember his dozy stare at the blood donor's in 'Texas Longhorn').

Other things that aren't entirely working for me are, for one, that Starsky gets knocked on the head by one of Cairo's dudes, who leaves him in the corridor to be found by Stafford! All that did (aside from giving Starsky a sore head), was to alert S&H to the fact that Cairo and co. were onto S&H being onto them! It would have been far wiser for Starsky to be thrown overboard, but then that wouldn't have worked in TV land. That's the same reason Mr. and Mrs. Waldo-Pitkin didn't say a word when Starsky puts the mike in their faces after announcing their wedding anniversary - they'd have had to be paid more! Maybe Paul Michael Glaser had got so into his act that he'd forgotten he was playing a scene, and began to believe he really was playing the room? There's also a continuity error when Hutch drops his piece of paper with the itinerary on it when shunting off Stuffy - he drops it, then it cuts to a further away view and he drops it again! I also wondered if Starsky banged Helen's door unintentionally when he opens it forcefully on the way out of her apartment, back on dry land? Either way, he kept the scene going, so it would interesting to know if that was ad-libbing. The only technical problem was that a few outdoor scenes on the ship were blurry as if they'd had to keep them in because they couldn't film it again. It may have been so, or it may be that the quality degraded since the 70s and they only had that original.

Seeing the docks again, and assuming they're part of Bay City since it becomes about S&H's jurisdiction ending (an interesting theme there about the laws of the sea as opposed to the laws of the land), it doesn't look like the dockyards we've seen before. The city must be a very big place to have such facilities, and it would be nice to know the exact layout of this fictional place and if they'd ever made a rough map to help with the storytelling. We do get to hear where Hutch was born (Duluth, Minnesota), and that his love of the sea stems from being a Sea Scout as a boy. His appreciation for all things nautical as opposed to Starsky's ignorance could have been the running joke of this episode, but it doesn't go anywhere, another example of the writing being a bit messy and loose. I liked seeing them do police things, like Hutch picking the lock or Starsky spying, stuff that's more in keeping with being undercover in a fixed area. I'd love to hear the backstory of how this episode came to be, whether it was the writers wanting something different or the actors asking for more exotic locales - it's a bit of a stretch to believe that S&H could go off on such a cruise, but the ship always feels real, sold especially well when they stagger down a rolling corridor at one time, making me wonder if any of the shipboard scenes were filmed on a soundstage. There's plenty of fun to be had, mixed in with intrigue, but the frivolous nature of the approach tends to overwhelm the exciting aspects of the story and the focus is lost through editing. Maybe it would have worked better as a tighter, feature-length episode?

**