The Set-Up

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S2 (The Set-Up)

I don't remember exactly how this two-parter ends, but then I didn't remember how it began, either, and had it mixed up with Season 3's 'The Plague,' so when it started so startlingly I was a little surprised. I had this down as a notably average episode so I didn't expect it to open so strongly with Terry Nash's wife being mercilessly blasted by two besuited assassins, rather similar to how the series itself began. Then you have that serious and impassioned speech from 'Dr. George Stegner' and Nash sneaking out of his hospital room and it begins to feel a little 'Mission: Impossible'! Only after all that intriguing, erm… 'set-up,' do we get to S&H, and in marked contrast to other recent episodes the comedic element has been inverted - they had been seemingly getting it out of the way in opening scenes before more serious stuff happened (e.g: 'Nightmare' and 'Bloodbath'), so to have such a heavy opening and then some lighter scenes was another thing that set things askew. As we find out, things are much more askew than we realised, though early on I had the faint memories that he never really had a wife and it was all, erm… a set-up. Obviously.

I kind of liked how it started and got going, intrigued by the nightmarishly slow-motion assassination and George's more powerful acting than we're used to, enjoying the fun of S&H pretending to be truckers, Starsky revelling in 'Americana,' Hutch getting the wrong end of the stick when the burly trucker comes over, and even more when we finally get to the bottom of what links the opening with S&H's current situation: Joseph Durniak, former crime boss. What was most interesting here is that we get an oh-so-rare and all-too-brief glimpse into one of the main characters' backstory, hearing that Starsky's Father had been shot by gangsters when he'd been only a boy, as well as that he and Jo somehow knew each other quite well, even though Jo stood for everything Starsky's Dad fought against. He was evidently fond of him enough that he paid for the funeral, and he calls Starsky 'Little Davy.' There's the implication that his Dad was a police officer or involved in law and order somehow, but it's all so tantalisingly little to go on, teasing us with titbits we don't usually have on the characters and their lives. That's without mentioning that Hutch says he and Starsky have been partners for about seven years, though we may have had that information before - we knew that two years before Season 1's 'Pariah' they were in uniform.

What began as an episode that draws you in, eventually suffers from something they tend to have trouble with in this series whenever they stretch a story over more than one episode: things get drawn out, the pace suffers and we're left wondering if it wouldn't have been better to condense it into just the one after all. Actually, I felt like it could have been a TV film or a slightly longer episode of the series (like the pilot), as it had that feel to it, and I wanted to see the whole story in one sitting. It was, in fact, slightly longer, clocking in at forty-eight minutes when usually episodes are around the forty-five minute mark. They could easily have kept it to the usual running time and increased the sense of urgency, which really drops off after Durniak is killed. The episode had suffered long panning shots several times and a very definite unhurried approach, part of which works when you know that Durniak is going to die and S&H are going to fail, enhanced by Jo's sense of his impending doom, that they won't be able to protect him, that the gangsters he's going to testify against will get to him. If anyone was going to stop them it was going to be S&H, but it's about them failing, though we don't get the full force of it as we do sometimes. It's after that that things slide.

Terry Nash, the guy that has apparently shot dead Durniak after his information from George decides to get in contact after he hears on the news that his target, whom he was told had killed his wife, was actually going to be a witness to indict sixty gangland killers. So he doesn't exactly hand himself in, but wants to find out more. Good job it was S&H that came along instead of just any old coppers who might not have believed him and might have dragged him in for obstructing an investigation if he didn't tell them what he knew. It does seem odd that S&H so readily believe him, even when we're taken through all his imaginary life, with the North Tower Hotel he stayed at empty; St. Damien's Hospital actually being Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Girls School; there being no record of his doctor or of any death as he describes it where his wife was supposed to have been murdered. Even the bank won't corroborate his visit or account. In the 'Mission: Impossible' style of things not being what they appear, it's good, but it just takes so long for S&H to wander around gathering up all this false evidence before they think of the hidden cameras at the bank, and the already lost pacing drags on.

It could easily have just dealt with Nash's fake life quicker and got to the real culprit, but then they… erm, 'set-up' another element at the end with this girl, Debra, being told a similar story to Nash by the same 'George' we saw before. It's meant to be a thrilling end, but it felt artificially extended. S&H were too ready to believe this stranger and hang out with him - yes, we, the audience have got to know Nash a bit, but they hadn't, and yet before long Hutch is saying they can all stay over at his place for the night (though we don't see it). I can understand they want to keep this guy close at hand and are playing a hunch that there's something fishy going on, and with very little leads to follow up on he might be their best bet, but it's playing into FBI man Wilson's hands, sticking so close to a guy that was at the scene of Durniak's murder! It could be because I'd seen the episode before so I wasn't so easily fooled, but everything seemed so much of an, erm… 'set-up,' down to the photo Nash holds of him and his wife, which is clearly doctored, with a split down the middle; cine-film of the pair (who was holding the camera for that, then?); and when an old associate, Steve Reynolds (1966, 3rd battalion Khe Sanh), recognises him in the street, calling him Buddy Griggs. We're supposed to be piecing all this together that this guy isn't really who he thinks he is and his memories are impaired, but the mystery is off.

It's farfetched that Nash (or Griggs - the moment reminded me of a similar scene in 'DS9' episode 'Tribunal' when O'Brien bumps into an 'old friend' from a previous ship), would just go off and try to kill someone because his wife was murdered, but I suppose if brainwashing is part of the mix, and the sixties and seventies often dealt with this 'science' as if it was a dangerous reality, then he could be tricked into anything. At North Tower, the fake guard's lack of concern for a guy that just walked past in a shredded and bloodied jacket (after he just asked him if he was alright!), would can be explained away if the guard was part of the… erm, set-up, which he must have been. It wouldn't explain some of the technical issues in the episode, such as the photographer who captures S&H and Nash on film - apparently able to take photos and cine-film from what looked like an ordinary camera, but more cleverly, shown to be snapping from close to the building, yet gets images and film from the three men going towards the building! He wouldn't have been able to shoot that angle from where he was. Unless we're meant to believe he was only taking photos and someone else was taking cine-film, but it's shot in a way that we're made to think it's him! Also when Debra's watching the footage it zooms in on the image on the projector screen, while the camera is moving away as if it had been matted in and couldn't quite be synched! Also odd to have a narrator at the end: "Next time on Starsky & Hutch, the conclusion of 'The Set-Up.'"

There are various connections and references, not the least being S&H undercover again; this time as truckers with the handles the Puce Goose and the Blond Blintz; as well as Hutch undercover as a waiter who brings Durniak and Starsky the room service breakfast. As a trucker, Hutch seems carefree and happy, maybe a change of career was in order, going so far as singing 'Black Bean Soup' (still going around my head now!) - after two weeks of driving around (from El Paso to Fresno they tell the guard), you'd think he'd be tired of the role, but it looks like both he and Starsky were enjoying themselves! Dobey (whose password to enter Durniak's room was very fitting for him: "Come on, Starsky, open this door!"), mentions Don Quixote; the 'Newsworld' magazine sounded like a made up name, but the Washington Post is real, I think. S&H running up against someone in authority (Wilson), who doesn't trust them or approve of their methods is fairly common, though we haven't seen it for a while; and Hutch does a car boot takedown in grand style on the thief fleeing from the Webster hotel.

The photographer at the end is another clue that things aren't all fine and dandy - he shows up earlier at the scene of Durniak's assassination outside the Freemont Hotel and points S&H in the direction of the Webster. The bank manager, Thistleman, who we see very briefly standing in the bank, may have been the same guy who was looking for his golden eagle coin at the end of the previous episode - as actor Darryl Zwerling is credited as 'Man' in that one, and his name is one that comes up at the opening credits of this (it's annoying when they don't include the character's name with the actors, though they usually only do it when it's a two-parter), I don't know who else each character could have been in their respective episode. In this he doesn't have a moustache, but I'm sure this is the one that I was racking my brains over trying to remember where else I'd seen the guy at the end of 'Huggy Bear and The Turkey.' No doubt he'll be more obvious in part two. I just hope that this one wasn't all just… erm, 'set-up' for the conclusion.

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