Fatal Charm

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S3 (Fatal Charm)

The charm of this episode never gets anywhere near fatal, but it's not as terrible as I thought it was. It's just that the idea of a nurse being a psychological time bomb waiting to explode into a truly homicidally jealous maniac is hard to reconcile. Then again, we hear in the news about awful things some doctors and nurses have done, so as ever, truth is stranger than fiction, and more incredible, and after all this is 'Starsky & Hutch,' a series in which the detectives go undercover to bust a baddie by setting him up with a female colleague, then they wait right across the street in a white-striped red Torino in full view, so the lack of care of one nurse is not the greatest stretch of the imagination the series calls for! And actually there is a bit of charm to the story, and the added incentive of finally, after two episodes away from home, getting back to the familiar: Dobey (now ex-goatee wearing Captain - I wonder if Bernie Hamilton had it for another job, or during the hiatus and didn't feel like getting rid of it, or maybe it at first snuck by those in charge and they told him to lose it?); Huggy (actually involved in their setup!); the Torino; the battered old car Hutch drives; Venice Place; the happy hunting ground of S&H, that grimy, dirty, no-good city they patrol, adding humanity into its sordid mix. Trouble is, this time Hutch doesn't do himself any favours in adding salt and light into a tasteless, dark territory, as his loose living comes home to roost.

We're supposed to see Diana Harmon as a completely unhinged and unreasonable madwoman, but seeing the episode again now, I can't help but feel a little sorry for her, and perhaps even see her point. Just a little. Not to justify the extreme lengths her ridiculous rage drives her to, and the fact that she is in a delusional state of seeming to believe Hutch is her fiance, but in the fact that Hutch casually has an evening of fun with her, then has no real response to her obvious need for a companion. She oversteps the bounds by getting herself into his apartment, but he'd already overstepped some bounds of his own, without realising it, because it was behaviour that was the accepted norm for a young man. Diana is a dichotomy between an old-fashioned girl who thinks any romance is serious and basically for life, and a woman that isn't above having the fun, assuming he feels the same way she does. The fact that she was already being dishonest when they first met away from her professional capacity is only the tiniest sign of warning, as anyone might make up a reason to see someone again. Her confession is almost like a complete opening up to Hutch, who doesn't give it a moment's thought, not realising the seriousness of her thought processes. She's not the most sociable of people, monopolising Hutch, refusing to engage with others (she doesn't accept Starsky's offer of a dance), and has a twisted hardness, a nasty selfishness to her personality that tricks and steals what she wants: pulling the glass off the napkin so it spills on Kathy, a friend of S&H's, was a glimpse of the mean nature beneath her cutesy exterior.

I found it interesting from a psychological aspect, watching this woman who is probably a bit spoiled and used to getting her own way, force Hutch into taking things a little further than he was comfortable with: she turns up at his apartment to cook a meal which he comes home to, as if playing out a weird fantasy version of what it would be like to be married to this guy, then she clearly hopes that Starsky and Kathy will go off and leave them be, but Starsky's joyful, inclusive personality misreads the situation, thinking Hutch is fond of her, and Hutch is either too lazy or too embarrassed, or doesn't want to hurt her by stating there and then that this is all a farce and they'd had their fun, there was no need to continue the association any longer, which would have put a damper on the party atmosphere of seeing an old friend. So it goes from awkward to super-awkward, when she refuses to bond with Starsky while Hutch has a dance with Kathy (he assumes she's upset because she's not dancing with Hutch, which is why he offers), too busy grinding her teeth in jealousy that she has no right to feel. She advances from merely jealous to obsessive, delusional (a $1200 watch for a person you hardly know, engraved 'Forever Diana' is taking things a little far at the best of times!), to vindictive (attacking those she thinks are close to Hutch, when she batters Linda, Hutch's undercover colleague, with a metal bar!), to murderous maniac, but it's all with no attempt to examine her personality. How did she become someone that would be capable of such acts, had she done things like this before, did she have a shady past?

This is where the episode is let down by the usual seventies TV conventions of action being the prime mover, and motive being of secondary importance. There are a couple of nice little action scenes: the opening where S&H chase a bag snatcher (you could tell it was the stunt guys trying to climb the fence or shinning up the drainpipe!), showed their partnership well: a comedic, yet successful double-act against crime. The other set-piece was when they lure the mark, Max Frost, into taking part in a buy with Linda, the undercover policewoman (played by Roz Kelly, who'd already had two roles in the series: Season 1's 'Death Notice,' and 2's 'The Las Vegas Strangler' two-parter, so it's no wonder they gave her 'Special Guest Star' billing this time, she was practically one of the cast!). It's a bit farfetched, but Huggy's out drilling the 'sidewalk' with a 'jackhammer' (translation: drilling the pavement with a pneumatic drill), from his cousin Mervin, which makes enough noise that Starsky can creep behind Frost's car and attach a metal cable to the rear chassis and the other end to a tree, so when Linda pulls a gun and he tries to scarper, his back wheels are pulled clean off. It's classic 'S&H,' with a comedic element, but a serious result (plus, it ends with Starsky doing his patented leap up and off a car roof, only this time it's only half a one, as Frost doesn't get out quick enough for a takedown, instead getting a take up: pulled off his feet by Starsky atop the roof!).

I wonder if the plot could be said to be entrapment, since they used a cop to make the buy, but such things aren't even on the agenda, it's spectacle, and shows S&H working as a team again, which is always nice, as is having Hug along in a serious role. So the pieces are all in there, but like Diana, the episode isn't entirely stable, veering off into the horror sub-genre for a third time in three episodes. In that respect I couldn't really say whether the old positive/negative side to the episodes is still relevant, as there is some sign of back alleys, there's the men leering at Linda as she waits on the street, and it's not the most upbeat story, but on the other hand the usual troubles they face on the street are like nothing compared to the real threat: a working professional who frequents places like the disco joint (didn't notice the usual blonde dance couple in the background, unless the woman who winks at Starsky was one of them), the hospital, or the home of Kenneth Hutchinson, plus we see green lawns and suburbia. It's the creepiness of possession that takes over (as in Diana feels she possesses Hutch, rather than any other kind). At first, Hutch's ego is fluffed up that this woman would follow him, rather than being chilled by her stalking - I thought the comment about there being no personal service in hospitals any more would be a running joke, but it actually became a running trauma as Hutch gets more personal service than he bargained for, or wanted!

Diana comes on very strong, but it's only after Hutch has had done with her that it irks him. His old habit, a bizarre one for a police officer, of leaving his door key on the lintel comes into question, since Diana was able to get in - it looked like he couldn't find the key, except we later learn that she bluffed her way in by telling the landlord she was his kid sister from Boston, so was I misreading that key search or was there a lack of logic in the script? Either way, he finally changes those locks and stops putting his key up there, but only when he checks himself - he was going to put it up there again out of habit! In a way it's a shame to see his easy casualness lost by Diana's madness, but it's a bit of a wakeup call. It might have been acceptable for her to bawl him out in front of his colleagues at the station, and if that was as far as she'd gone, shaming him and making a scene about his behaviour to her, she might not have come across abnormally, but that was only the start. Not only does she go crazy on his apartment (even the guitar isn't safe), with a knife, I might add, she comes back later, and, in an inverted 'Psycho' homage (I assume), knifes him in the shower! I know this probably isn't the first thing you'd think of if you'd been attacked by a mad woman in your own bathroom, but after shutting her out, I'd have thought turning off the water would have been a good idea, so he could hear her. He probably wasn't thinking straight at that point, because despite all her outlandish vengefulness, I don't think Hutch realised she would go as far as trying to kill him!

The sequence was well shot, with the horror film jerky framerate and wild, unrestrained scream later used to even better effect in 'The Avenger' (though in that one the cry was "You! You!" whereas here she screeches "Liar! Liar!"), the creepiest moment of the episode. Granted, her hiding place at one end of his piano wasn't the best, but I would assume it was TV darkness - we can see her, but in the 'real life' of the episode she's hidden in shadow. Her frilly black collar jutting out of her white coat like a spider's web, was a great choice to show her mixed-up character, white and pure as a nurse on the outside, malevolent dark arachnid heart inside. Starsky, of course rushes to Hutch's aid after he and Dobey have worked it out after finding Linda badly beaten with the same tactic used to get into her place as Hutch's. Hutch is one-handed thanks to the stab, and barely manages to hold her off, although she was petite, but her fury gave her strength. Why didn't she keep stabbing instead of vacating the bathroom after the first slice? Either she wanted him to know he was going to die, or his violent repulse fended her off, but why he needed to creep round his apartment instead of switching on all the lights and picking up something for a weapon can only be put down to dramatic necessity!

The horror of it all is rather undermined by the comedy conclusion, as so often was the way, and rather than leave you with something to ponder, we never hear anything about her or Hutch's reaction. It's ends with Dobey and S&H visiting Linda in hospital, and Starsky cunningly diverting the Captain's attention from the roadworks bill left by Huggy's 'work' (totalling $800 dollars, I believe - they should have sold Hutch's expensive gift watch to pay for it), by saying Hutch was going to take them all out for a Mexican, and of course the food card always works on Dobey. Ha, ha. So we never learn how Diana became a nurse in the first place, whether she'd ever had a boyfriend before, or anything about her past. One of the things against the episode is that it makes Hutch look a little bad, an indictment of his loose lifestyle, although he didn't deserve the terrors that awaited. It would have helped if Diana had actually had any charm, instead she was just ruthless, devious and scary, which makes Hutch look a little silly for ever falling for her. And it's not great publicity for nurses! So as a whole there's too much pulling the episode apart for it to be successful, which is a shame, because with a bit more polish it could have been a really creepy, terrifying story, as it is whenever we see their personal lives affected. Still, good to see the pair back at it again in familiar environs, with a spot of clowning (Starsky has trouble with another vending machine; I think we'd seen someone working on a model ship previously - might have been the old Commodore in 'Murder At Sea'), but definitely a harder-edged tone, with Hutch's life in danger - if only he could have learned a lesson or two because of it.

**