The Heroes

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S3 (The Heroes)

If you want to know what 'Starsky & Hutch' is all about then this is a perfect episode to watch - it's got the car chase, it's got the gunfight, it's got the victims, it's got the heroes, the humour and the Huggy Bear. Okay, that last one I just added in for effect, Hug only gets the one scene, but this just adds to the feeling that this is the series back to 'normal,' if you want to call it that, away from particular issues and driving head-on into the all-round issue of policing in the 1970s, the challenges and tactics, the professional attitudes of the time, and the way things can appear to the untrained eye. You could say it's almost an apologist for the type of detectives S&H are, but it's more about putting the uninitiated in their place (or her place!), and showing that far from being the chauvinistic, bullying, lawless cops (well, apart from the chauvinist part, but Chris proved perfectly capable of handling their attentions and keeping a professional distance), they really are down and dirty heroes, beating the kinks out of the city. Maybe it's a patch job, but it's better than no job, and as Starsky cries, they have to work within this system and these laws. It's one of the best episodes because it's a combination of Season 1's hardness (lining up all the patrons at the bar for an impromptu 'lesson,' was very much the style of that season), with the goofiness and chuckle-worthy competing and teasing between S&H that made Season 2 more fun. Season 3, at least in this episode, is suddenly a lot less serious.

And yet… it is. This time the angle is of an outsider along for the ride, C.D. Phelps, whom they and their Captain all assume is a man, S&H backtracking considerably on their lack of cooperation on the idea of a reporter riding along with them for a column in the Dispatch (I wonder if this has anything to do with the London Daily Dispatch of 'Bust Amboy'?), when 'he' turns out to be a 'she,' and not just any she, but another blonde for the boys to fight over. We'd already had 'crusading girl reporter' Jane Hutton, in 'Murder Ward,' but Chris seems both more professional and more realistic as a journalist, where Jane stuck out like a sore thumb in her undercover operation at the Mental Institution. Chris, a mere twenty-six, wants to write about police work on the street, but makes it clear this isn't going to be a hatchet job. All the same, S&H are ordered to play nursemaid and concentrate only on their current case: someone's cutting Strychnine with heroin, killing users off. This would have been fine if they'd made it clear to Chris this was how it stood, but she's expecting a normal day in the life, so when they ignore minor calls (as they'd been instructed to), it makes them look lazy, and when they go about their methods of gaining information it looks like bullying. To be fair on Chris, she did see the worst of them - to the viewer, it's hilarious the way they fight over her attention, slimily holding her microphone hand when she interviews them, squabbling amongst themselves, but it must have made her a little uncomfortable.

This is one of the keys to making this episode so much fun to watch, because it really is excruciating the games they play - Starsky, for perhaps the first time ever, suggests they should share the driving, when he's never been happy about Hutch messing with his car before. It's because Hutch finds it a lot easier to chat to Christine, as she's wedged uncomfortably between the two sweaty cops in the front seat (no seatbelts, either!). The running jokes of the episode are uneven, that is to say, they phase in and out, one of them being the bet S&H make between themselves on whether Chris is Hutch's type or not. This begins as a $5 bet at first, but later rises to $20, but we never find out who won, probably because the friendly relations are curtailed when Chris' first column hits the stands. The atmosphere becomes decidedly frosty when it appears the hatchet job she mentioned hasn't been laid aside, after all. The distance between them is shown in the fact she's not invited into the front seat any more, having to sit in the back, while the stony-faced cops decide to show her what the grim side of city life is really like, and what they're up against. But she does have a conscience, she was never out to 'nail' them, she really did want to discover what the 'counter-culture cops' as she calls them, what 'the new breed' do. You can tell she feels bad about slating them, but stands by what she saw.

She's right, of course, because to someone coming in fresh to the tough street life that S&H deal with on a daily basis, it isn't easy to understand the way they feel they have to work - one of the most interesting ideas of the episode is the question of judgement and how much is excessive violence. This is particularly well resolved when they finally catch up with Paul Rizzo, the guy dealing in Strychnine, which turns into another hallmark of earlier seasons, but which we haven't seen much of here: a gunfight atop a roof. Chris has signed a waiver so they're not responsible for her if she gets hurt, but she ends up getting used as a hostage by Rizzo, and screaming for S&H to shoot him down in the midst of her fear. But the pair talk him down instead, in a powerful scene in which we see the pitiful criminal cry like a child, admitting his guilt, but also hear that his sister was killed by drugs or druggies, it doesn't really matter which, I wasn't paying enough attention to the words at that point because the spectacle of what was happening was so engulfing. Chris can't understand why they didn't just shoot him, and Starsky explains patiently, it was because they didn't need to, as the music turns both triumphant and sad, but also heroic. And all at once she realises the difference between excessive force and good judgement and the slate is wiped clean, S&H get a heroic review and all is right with the world again. It's a great ending!

At the same time, you could say that Chris had a point. She didn't know that Larry The Fall Guy was an insurance scammer, so when S&H treat him disrespectfully after he's had an 'accident,' pouring a drink over his prone form, it seems shocking. Likewise, she doesn't understand the way snitches work - how is it that they allow some people to break the law in exchange for information? That's a good question, because cops aren't above the law, but Starsky has an answer, for what it's worth. He admits that the snitches of today are the criminals they'll lock up tomorrow, but for the moment they're useful. It's not an ideal situation or an easy answer, but it's the way things work. Her point of view is rammed home when, after Hutch gives the tragic Roxy some cash for her help, in his usual softhearted manner, pitying a downtrodden victim of society, she ends up dead shortly after, having presumably taken some of Rizzo's dodgy (I should say dodgier, since drug-taking is hardly a health benefit even if it were 'pure'!), smack. That's the implication, anyway, I didn't get the impression he went in and outright murdered her, although that would have been perfectly possible if he used the promise of drugs to gain entry. I got the impression S&H can't help but feel that Chris is right on that point, and Roxy might well have been alive if they'd brought her in when they visited. She was another tragic figure, a warning to those who think drugs is the answer, but is in fact, in reality, the destroyer of body, emotion and dignity.

With people like Roxy in full evidence, you'd think this would easily fall within the purview of a 'negative' episode, and adding to that total would be the rough areas of town (one place S&H visit because Starsky wants Hutch to invest in a house, Hutch suggests they leave the neighbourhood before they get mugged, and I think he was only half joking!). O'Riley's, the bar above which Roxy lives looked familiar as a regular location (the external view, anyway), but it may just be these places all look alike. But when you measure it all up, it's really more on the positive side, as it's about dipping their toes into the street while they have Chris along, and the attitude they display has a lot of bearing on how the city comes across. This time, primarily due to their friendly rivalry for Chris' affections, everything is light and fun, they're not depressed and feeling under a heavy weight, or disgusted by what they come across, it's like a game. We even see them not fully concentrating on the job, such as when Hutch reassures the old woman, helping her back in her car, after she thought she'd run down Larry, and he's only half paying attention, keeping an eye on Starsky so he doesn't get a chance to get to Chris. It's actually pretty funny, if embarrassingly unprofessional - he even uses the tried and true tactic of distracting his partner, calling out to Starsky until he has a chance to catch up, then saying it was nothing, purely to keep him away from the waiting Chris! I also love it when Hutch speeds up in his battered old car, to be first to meet her, then Starsky screeches into the lot a few seconds later. Or another time, when he looks as if he's about to speed off once Chris has got in the Torino, assisted by Hutch who still has to go round the other side - I thought he was really going to do it, too, and so did Hutch!

So their antics really are hilarious, even when they first meet in Dobey's office, the Captain has his beaming, slightly abashed face that he reserves for women, and S&H barge each other and almost trip over the chair in their haste to get to Chris first! Once things have got serious, and Chris has put her views in print (S&H under the pseudonyms, Mutt and Jeff - I was just waiting for someone to say I'm Mutt, he's Jeff, but unsurprisingly they didn't see the funny side), it's no more Mr. nice cops, and they stop their games and oneupmanship to show Chris what the street is really like, a hard edge coming over them, although they're still very polite and not unkind to her, which I thought was a nice touch. She gets to see the rules and regulations in full force after they attend an attack on a woman in a construction yard (it's not clear whether she'd been raped, or it was an attempt, but she's credited as 'Rape Victim,' hardly the best character credit in the series, identifying her only by her victimisation). Back at the station they have to let him go, much to Chris' horror, because the woman won't press charges. This is the beginning of her eyes being opened to the rigours of the law and the system under which S&H are forced to work. Even so, I couldn't help feeling she had a point in some degree - it's not supposed to be up to the cops to decide what's lawful or not, only to enforce it, though of course life is much less clearcut and far messier when you're on the front line, which was really the message of the episode. The most important thing is that S&H are goodhearted and upright. They have their ways, which don't always seem entirely righteous and aboveboard, but they're dealing with the scum of the Earth who will use every trick in the book, and out of it, against them.

One thing I was surprised at, and shows how useful it is to keep an eye on the credits, is that Christine was played by none other than Karen Carlson! Who? Gillian from the Season 2 episode of the same name, the woman who's death affects Hutch so strongly. I can't believe I never noticed before this viewing! This is actually another of the episodes to feature a repertory of former 'S&H' faces, though none (but one), are reprising characters, they've all been in another episode: Karl Regan, the guy they chase who was believed to be the last person to speak to Roxy, was played by Madison Arnold, who'd been in Season 1 ('The Hostages'); I noticed the Medical Examiner at Roxy's place, who had a kind, innocent face, as being the same as in 'Death In A Different Place' (the only character in this one to recur - though she was called Ginny last time and is only credited by her formal title here), so I wonder if they'll use her again; Lee McLaughlin had been Frisco Fats in Season 1's 'Captain Dobey, You're Dead!' and was the barkeeper Al on this occasion; and the other Picerni, Charles, joins his brother Paul in Season 3 (who'd been in 'Murder on Voodoo Island'), as Larry, his second credited role after Nicky Cairo in Season 2's 'Murder At Sea,' though better known for his stunt doubling of Starsky - the only time I briefly noticed him was driving the Torino in the car chase. I should also mention that a young Gary Graham (best known these days as the recurring Vulcan Soval in 'Enterprise'), as one of the bar patrons, Freddy.

There's very little to cross off the checklists this time, as S&H are too busy showing off for Chris, but they do mention Walter Cronkite, a US TV journalist that anchored CBS News at the time the series was airing. Another US icon is Mickey Mouse, the soft toy appearing again, this time on the desk, moving in on Pinky or Perky Pig's position! Something we've seen now and again is when a call comes in on the radio and S&H have to leave in a hurry, forcing them to dump freshly bought fast food (not fast enough, obviously!), into the nearest bin - this time it's Chris that has to throw her meal in a terribly awkward sequence for her where S&H are waiting and everything that could go wrong, does. Couldn't she have just given the meal to Huggy who was sitting nearby? Speaking of which, I wondered if his earring stud was a new thing as I've never noticed it before. As if to add insult to injury, S&H both turn up on one of the days dressed the same: in black leather jacket, red-checked shirt and jeans! It would have been very funny, except I think that was when they first realised what Chris had written about them, so they turn very serious! The other running joke, Starsky's plan to get in on a fixer-upper with the investment of Hutch, bookends the episode and features in the middle, which worked quite well - as usual Starsky's taste isn't the best. I was impressed to see David Soul do his own stunt of falling from the porch after leaning on a damaged balcony, actually hitting the ground. It reminded me of 'Murder On Stage 17' when Hutch almost went flying after leaning on a stunt balcony!

In terms of mistakes, I would point to Starsky hitting a JCB, or tractor vehicle, when he screams to a stop amidst the flying dust at the construction site, as I'm sure he was meant to stop before hitting anything! Also, when S&H want to speak to Dobey outside his office, they all walk out and the Captain asks Starsky what's the matter, but he's looking at Hutch as he says it. Could the good Captain really have mistaken two of his best men? But regardless of these little oddities, this is a really solid episode. It doesn't have as much action as some, but 'The Crying Child' showed that you don't need it to make a strong story, what you need is character, and S&H have it in spades. Their comedy doesn't go too far, it's enough to be obvious to us and Chris, so we can laugh at them, but it's not 'Dandruff' levels of ridiculousness to take us out of the story. Also, I like it when the tone changes, going from the light banter to stone-faced intent, the music changing to suit this mood, Chris reduced to an observant passenger, which in all truth, she should have been from the start. Even better, we get another sympathetic villain - Rizzo looks like the usual dead-eyed psycho, with no real reason for what he's doing other than malevolence, but his breakdown, and the fact that S&H recognise he's not the hardened killer he appears, conspire to create as powerful a resolution as 'The Crying Child,' making these two episodes a one-two punch of goodness that I wish had been the norm for this season.

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