Partners

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S3 (Partners)

Oh no, not another clips show! First, I believe this is the only clips show in the whole series, and second, it's actually pretty good. I always go into it thinking negatively, because the idea of a clips show, in and of itself, is a waste of time - it's designed to reuse clips from other episodes so they don't have to spend any more money, yet still have another episode to show. And generally, this 'sub-genre,' if you can call such a cheap shot that grand a name, is a real letdown, and not worth your time (I think of possibly the worst ever episode of 'Star Trek,' the 'TNG' episode 'Shades of Grey,' or several of the 'Stargate SG-1' examples, as evidence). If you don't have enough money to make a full episode, don't give us less than half of one and fill the rest with bits of other episodes. But done right, as it was here, it can surprise you. In its favour is that seeing moments from the two main characters' lives works better than seeing bits of sci-fi plots, as we do in those other series' - this series is about these two men (clue's in the title), and they chose to show us some of the most important and moving moments from their lives - if you're going to repeat scenes that were among the best drama or action from the series, then it can work. It's also not the usual ten to the dozen clips chucked in willy-nilly, but carefully selected sequences, not short scenes. We get the full impact of what S&H were willing to do for each other and for others, we see what it was like to lose people who meant so much to them, we see them at their best.

The other reason this works as an episode is thanks to a framing story that is in itself interesting: Hutch is uncharacteristically annoyed at Starsky's speed and recklessness in a car chase, so when it ends in tears he fakes amnesia, which of course leads to his partner reminiscing about all these things they've been through together. Yep, that's the spoiler: Hutch was faking all along. When you watch it not knowing that, it has another layer because you're half thinking how preposterous it is that a character could lose all his memory, and the other half wondering how they're going to resolve the issue, but I think it works best when you do know, as you can empathise with Hutch and laugh at Starsky, then see the change that happens. We think we're getting a hint when we learn from Dr. Greene that it's possible his memory will recover with the rest of him, so we're in the mindset of it being a real affliction. So when we witness little hints that Hutch may not be quite as forgetful as he claims, and as we see the change come over him after Starsky talks about when they lost Terry and Gillian, it's affecting. At first he's rude, disparaging and irritated, but by the time we get to these misty-eyed, melancholy reminders of a sad past, we can see him lose the heart to keep up his pretence. He can't refuse to remember Gillian or Terry, they meant too much, so he says nothing. It also gives Hutch an opportunity to look at his partnership and career from the outside - he complains about cops being on a macho power trip, he expresses his feelings of disgust at such a life, he even gets to insult Captain Dobey to his face without consequences (or so he thinks!).

What makes the framing story work is that it has an arc, it's not just referring to other episodes to fill time, it has specific concerns regarding police work, S&H as defenders of the law, and could possibly be an ideal jumping on point for someone who wants to know what the series is all about. It shows us that it's all about S&H and what that actually means, why we care to see them do their stuff, demonstrating the whole series dynamic. It helps that we see some of their best acting work as well as some of the best stunt and action sequences, moments that, pulled from their respective episodes might just be better than the episodes they were taken from. To recap the episodes that feature, we have (in order of appearance), 'Lady Blue' (Starsky reminding Hutch of their code name, Zebra 3, and a previous time he displayed irritation about numbers and code names - going off on one about being a person, not a number); talk of his medical history turns to the time in 'The Fix' he was turned into a drug user; he needs to be reminded why he was a cop in the first place - to help people, so he's told about what he did to save a kidnapped girl in 'The Psychic' (running round the city in a cruel game by the kidnappers, Starsky backing him up on a motorbike), though he's not actually in the room; Hutch's complaints about his driving leads Starsky to recall his own stint behind the wheel (the fantastic dune buggy chase in 'Murder At Sea, Part II'); Huggy reminds them of when Starsky, suspended, punched Hutch in order to create a cover to get into a group of disgruntled vigilante cops in 'The Committee'; so Starsky tells of when the reverse happened, and Hutch punched him in the face, in 'Gillian'; which turns to their heartbreak at losing Terry in 'Starsky's Lady.'

They're very well chosen extracts that show the heart and soul, as well as the fight and power, of the series, and I really like how organically the conversation and the respective scenes trickle down, leading one to another, not forced. It's an examination of, not just the pair of them, but their personal history as we've seen it unfold on the series, so it's a joy to hear them discuss momentous events such as when Hutch found his girl, Gillian, dead, and his buddy was forced to tell him of her real background and how she was going to give it all up for him. Or the same kind of scenario that happened to Starsky, losing Terry and the aftermath of what it was like when she was gone. We've gone through these times with them, but, as was the case for TV at the time, we rarely see any longterm consequences. We see characters reappear occasionally (less as the series went on), but we don't tend to hear S&H discuss the past, it's all about what's happening now, this week. So in that respect it's a joy to see that the events that shaped them haven't been forgotten by the characters, they're still deeply affected by those losses in particular. It makes the series more real to see such things talked about again. It could so easily have been a collection of short action scenes that didn't have much meaning out of their context, but precise care was taken to show only the best.

It also shows how the series has changed, if only in aesthetic. S&H look a lot neater in the first season clips than we're used to seeing them this season! I suppose it was the style of the time to let your hair grow (and it didn't stop there, with Hutch sprouting a moustache in Season 4!), and even though things are only a couple of years in the past there's a greater sense of change than might be expected. What hasn't changed is that S&H still have their backup in Captain Dobey and Huggy Bear, who both visit them at the same time. It's like a foreshadowing of the final ever episode of the series, when they were once again all together in a hospital room. The fun and humour is there to enjoy, especially in the framing story, as Dobey is given no respect. One moment I always found particularly funny turns out not to be quite as I thought: I always heard the airheaded nurse greet Dobey as Captain Dopey, and he corrects her, but according to the subtitles it was "Mr. Dobey" and he corrects her to Captain. The married Captain shouldn't be speaking to her in quite the way he does, I feel! And for once, the comedy, lighthearted end cap makes perfect tonal sense: Dobey's informed by the nurse that Hutch was faking all along, unbeknownst to S&H, who come in and keep up the pretence, Hutch 'unable' to remember his name, thinking it was something like 'blimp'! In sweet revenge Dobey winds up the bed so Hutch is sitting vertically, then tells them both they'll be on traffic control tomorrow!

While there is a sense of fun, with Starsky desperately trying to recover his partner's memory, there's also another look at their deep bond. The first thing Starsky does when he's brought to a hospital bed is realise that the bed next to him is empty - it's a chilling visual, usually associated with death, so he's understandably concerned for the wellbeing of his partner. Hutch has no qualms about teaching his friend a lesson for his driving which ended with them crashing through a small shed of some kind, in the chase after Billy Joe and his mate. It was a good chase sequence with the usual massive turning circle when S&H have to change direction to join the pursuit, and might well be the largest turning circle of the series! It's fast and furious (though you can see in at least one shot that the escaping vehicle only has one occupant, the driver, his jittery passenger absent), and in stark contrast to the opening conversation which is all about Hutch enjoying the sweet smell of spring in the air, while Starsky's grumpy and irritated. It soon turns into the usual rubbishing of the Torino by Hutch, Starsky defending it, so it could well be that the motivation for driving so dangerously was in response to Hutch's challenging the quality of his pride and joy, and Hutch responding in kind. He wouldn't usually be so squeamish about speed, it was just a chalk and cheese mood they were in. I must say it was very unlike Starsky to lose control and not in the spirit of the series for them to be outdone on the job by a country hick with a bad case of speeding! We're told the baddies were caught later, but it's a shame S&H had no bearing on the capture.

No surprise the chase was so well directed as the Director was Charles Picerni himself, the double for Starsky, and (I think), the coordinator for pretty much all their stunts. He finally gets behind the wheel of the camera and calls the shots. I suppose they felt it was a justifiable 'risk' to allow a stunt guy free rein on an episode that was partly made up of previous episodes, but he used his full abilities to give us a fantastic car chase, one of the series' best. It feels like that was the deal: he gets to make his chase, but has to put up with the rest of the bed-bound episode. Presumably the writers chose the clips to suit the story, so he would probably have had less responsibility than an average Director, and he did a good job on it. It's also fun to point out that not only does he appear in one of his few credited acting roles on the series (in 'Murder At Sea, Part II'), but he was also driving as Starsky in that clip and directing the overall episode, so he gets to showcase three roles and three different positions in TV production: actor, stuntman and Director! He'd also had another role this very season ('Murder On Voodoo Island'), matched only by Karen Carlson (Gillian in 'Gillian,' and Christine in 'The Heroes'), and Helen Martin (Season 2's 'The Committee,' and this season's 'Manchild On The Streets'). It also means that George Loros appears in all three seasons ('Texas Longhorn,' 'The Psychic' and this). The only actor to return in the framing story was Zachary Lewis who'd been Mousy Loomis in Season 2's 'Nightmare' - even on a clips show with few new roles they brought an actor back! We get six old credits in 'Memory Sequences Guest Starring (In Order of Appearance).'

Memorial Hospital is the place S&H recuperate, as it should be, but that's far from the only reference or running joke: Dobey's back to eating again, digging in to Hutch's bowl of fruit (his weight is also commented on), and his dislike of Huggy is evident again - once he's gone he says he thought he'd never leave. Huggy digs in to Hutch's chocolates, keeping the good Captain company in that regard, and gets one of the few pop culture references when he tells Hutch that they go back further than Lois and Clark. Starsky does his Humphrey Bogart impression again, in response to… Is the nurse doing Lauren Bacall, or someone else? My film knowledge isn't up to it. The old joke of S&H's names being confused or mixed up returns in partial form, with that airhead nurse calling him Mr. Sparsky, then telling Dobey at the end that Starsky or Sparsky was faking it all along, when she actually meant Hutchinson (Hutch himself deliberately calls his partner, Mr. Starkey!). The scary music from 'Murder Ward' was the choice to transition between the framing story and the past, which actually works quite well, even though none of the scenes deal with the horror aspect of the series, but it does have a 'falling back in time' quality to the sound. And I think it was the blonde nurse who gets the best line: she tells Hutch it's time for an electroencephalogram, and he asks if it will hurt. Only if he falls off the examination bed! Priceless. I suppose the nurses were the equivalent of the usual dotty characters we expect, as the clips were all too serious to feature such shenanigans.

Unsurprisingly, Starsky doesn't take Hutch's revelation that he was pretending to have lost his memory, very well. It comes out when Hutch has been softened up by talk of Gillian, thanking his friend for being there for him. Starsky responds by saying that he was there for him, too, then talks of Terry and what it was like after she died. Those two scenes in particular were heavy, not to be taken lightly, so Hutch can't keep up the charade, revealing himself by saying how bad Starsky always was at Monopoly. So they both get taught some sort of lesson, Starsky the obvious one, Hutch that if you pretend to be something you're not, it will eventually make you guilty and you'll be exposed. But it truly was a selection of their greatest hits, a warm, heart-tugging teddy bear of an episode that has great heart to it, and for a clips episode that's quite something. I'm not saying I wanted more clips episodes, and I'm pretty sure this was the only one of the series, but it is surprising that it worked as well as it did and worked as a one-off, a testament to how much the two characters mean to each other and us, the audience. Perhaps that means it wouldn't be a great jumping on point for new viewers, as its resonance comes from a relatively long history, this being the sixty-ninth episode. This late in the series' life it was fitting to take the time to look back at where we'd come from. Maybe not much changes from episode to episode, but the deep friendship we see demonstrated is as strong as ever, and that, in the grand scheme, is all that matters.

***