Deckwatch

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S3 (Deckwatch)

On the bang or whimper scale, I'd have to say this is more on the whimper end for a season finale, but it's not as bad as I thought. That's high praise considering I've often had this in mind as one of the worst episodes of the season and series, and one of Paul Michael Glaser's worst excesses as a Director. But in fact I remembered very little going in so I was pleasantly surprised to find that there's actually a degree of tension for much of the episode, which is about a love-starved merchant marine that likes to leave a dead girl in every port. And seeing as he comes back to land every nine months of seafaring, and has been doing so for years, that's a lot of dead women in his wake - it's become a habit. What had become a habit for Glaser was his insistence on slowing down the pace for artistic shots and generally turning in a highly orchestrated style when the series was used to flowing. This wouldn't be his last directing duty on the series, with both series stars getting a shot or two in Season 4, so I surmise that the powers above were suitably content with what the pair of them cooked up, or it was written into their contract to keep them happy. But I've often felt this was Glaser's worst episode, the drawn-out shots, the slow pace and the bogging down of what tends to be an energetic, light TV series. It's actually not that bad, even though we're informed of the style right from that opening shot of Hector 'Harry' Salidas walking ominously towards camera on the dock (the street lighting with a diffused glow that I associate with the visual style of Season 4).

When we visit a bar for Harry to pick up his first victim, Madelaine, the camera roves around the room, following first one patron, then another, as if picking out a target, as Harry was doing, and even though this isn't typical of the series I quite liked the movement in the makeup of the shot. I also liked the shot where Starsky, Hutch and Detective Peterson are all in perspective, their heads crammed into the frame so that we have Starsky looking straight at us, Peterson in profile looking to the left of the screen, and Hutch in profile looking to the right. Visual gimmickry, perhaps, but it made for some interest. There's also fun with the two conversations being held onscreen at the same time, Starsky trying to make a deal with Chicky, the student who saw hiding Harry (though you couldn't do the plot point now where Harry asks him to get an ambulance so he'd go off and he could escape, as he'd just pop his mobile phone out and save all the trouble), while Hutch is trying to have a chat with Laura, his latest female friend, or not. It's no surprise when Laura is the next victim, Harry having broken into her place at random, where her aged Mother, Hannah, is also taken hostage. As usual it's all a bit contrived, but that doesn't matter, really. A tense standoff ensues where Hutch ends up going in against the better judgement of Captain Dobey, posing as Laura's brother, I think, who's a doctor. Or was he playing her boyfriend? Surely there would be photos of him in the house if he was a sibling?

The good stuff comes as Starsky has to scale the house to infiltrate and wait outside the door for Hutch's signal, which is disguised as three reasons he gives to Harry which is actually a count of three, and the guy's blasted away. That's it, really, there isn't much plot, it's more like 'Shoot-Out' from Season 1, where a group of hostages were stuck in a room. The tension isn't always as strong as it could be, but perhaps that's because it's a bright sunny day as opposed to a dark and stormy night, with moments that dissipate the tension, such as Harry recognising Hutch to be a cop, and old Hannah remains pretty composed for the duration of her ordeal. She's certainly the best character, in the same way that Gramps was in the previous episode, 'Quadromania.' At first you're not sure if she's fully with it, maybe her lack of mobility is just one aspect of her age, but although she accepts the situation, she seems sharper than on first appearance. Not only that, but she treats Harry as a human being, not a fearful monster, and retains compassion for him in spite of his threats and the knife he keeps near her throat. It's the shot moving in on her face, half-concealed in the doorway of the kitchen that stays with you, reading pity and sadness at Harry's inevitable death (which was another well-directed moment, Starsky blasting away, the chair tipping backward, firing through the chair, then slowly moving in on the corpse). It's difficult to feel sorry for a man that's killed in every port, no matter how tough his life was, but the music does a good job of attempting to invoke that response, where sometimes the death of a bad guy isn't given even a moment's thought.

The music is generally good, not stock music as sometimes seems to take the majority of the running time, but original, and adding to the tension, whether that's the urgency of Laura's run to the store to get what Harry wants, or the rising temperature in the house, even the lack of music for scenes, the clock ticking remorselessly by, both playing with the ambivalence of time, the fact that such a sound is homely, and a reminder that Hutch has only one hour before SWAT will be sent in. He doesn't have a very high opinion of them, saying everyone will get killed, but surely it was a much riskier strategy to go in undercover as a doctor, a paramedic, and try to sew up Harry's bleeding leg! Police officers have to have some medical training, but even so… It's a weird episode to finish out a season with: no Huggy, Dobey only gets a cameo, none of the lightness and jollity we enjoy between S&H, a far more serious style of storytelling. It's often that way when one of the stars directs, and Starsky definitely has a wholly serious edge to him throughout - I've said it before, but I think directing carries with it such responsibility and myriad details to remember that it's difficult for them to play things lightly and much easier to be a straightforward action hero with a purpose since that's exactly what they're doing in marshalling all the forces of a TV show.

Because of that tone, which doesn't allow for fun, it's an ignoble end to the season (and certainly in the negative vein of viewing the city, as we come to understand Harry's seedy life, see him crawling through cardboard boxes, hiding under bridges etc…), but even more so by the complete shift in the final scene where S&H, Hannah and Laura are all hanging out in the kitchen of the house at a later date - why did S&H go round there, to make things better or to finish things out, because through the banter we hear that Laura wants to cool things off with Hutch because she can't take being so close to the life of a policeman (though it may be that she has issues with commitment in general as we heard from her Mother that it usually ends up with Hannah playing cards with the latest boyfriend in the kitchen). Starsky's playing cards with Hannah, there's a lemon meringue that, ordinarily, you'd know was going right in someone's face, but when it happens, Starsky getting it by mistake when it was aimed at Hutch, complete with 'wa wa wa waaa' music, it's so out of touch with the rest of the episode as to be jarring! I'm not suggesting there should have been a funeral for Harry which they all attend, but some thoughtful conclusion would have been preferable (along the lines of 'Manchild On The Streets'), to all out silliness. Fine, if it fits the episode, but this time it really didn't.

Since most of the time is spent in a room in a house, there isn't much to take note of, nor are there the usual lists of references and points of interest to examine. One thing I did think was that this was a rare episode with an all-new guest cast, since I didn't recognise anyone in particular. So many this season have featured returning faces from roles in previous seasons, but my theory was proved wrong: there are in fact two that crop up, Carole Mallory as the short-lived Madelaine (she was Sue Bellamy in Season 1's 'A Coffin For Starsky'), and Wendell Powell as Patrolman #2 (he was Intern in 'Manchild On The Streets'). I did, in fact, recognise Susan French (Hannah Kanen), as being a face I knew - she had a role on 'TNG' ('Man of The People'). Chicky's the closest thing to a wacky character, but it's understated and he's more of an argumentative teen than over-the-top personality. Starsky's stunt double does the roof-based derring-do, you can tell; the area where Harry hides out looks similar to where Hutch used to live with ramshackle houses near a bridge, but it might not be the same; there's a mention of County General (the hospital Hutch is said to work for); and I noticed both a Dad with a baby carrier on his back and that Hannah had an electric wheelchair, making me wonder if these were new things of the day.

At the end of the episode I find myself reflecting: where are the speeding villains? Where the fun banter, the buddy-buddy horseplay? The fights and the running gags? Where's Huggy and Dobey? The question I'm left with at the end of Season 3 is 'where are Starsky and Hutch now?' A TV series in those days wasn't meant to change and grow, it was meant to give just exactly what was expected, to dip into week after week, or whenever you felt like it. You knew what you were going to get. So there was no grand plan for a season, stories got written, were produced and then watched, it was still all throwaway entertainment before the age of home video. Would anything have been done differently if they'd been allowed to peer into the future and see people watching even today? Probably not. There might have been a greater sense of pressure to get things right, but it's day to day living that we all worry about, not the future. It would have been nice to have a big, season-ending cliffhanger, or a massive, exciting story to finish with, but it was really just another episode. If we're looking at how the season panned out as a whole, I'd have to say that I enjoyed it more than expected. I had low expectations for many of the episodes, which was a factor - I wasn't all that keen on starting the season since I've always considered it the weakest of the four.

When I think back over the line-up, I have to admit that I mostly enjoyed what I watched, whether it was a great story or not, it was simply a pleasure to be going through the series again and spending time with S&H in their native habitat. I think also that watching with attention turned up to eleven for the purposes of writing reviews helped to make it more rewarding, as even the weaker episodes had points of interest to discuss or the opportunity to relay my impressions and thoughts. The good ones still stand out: 'The Crying Child,' 'The Heroes,' 'The Plague Part II,' 'Manchild On The Streets,' 'The Heavyweight,' 'The Trap,' 'Foxy Lady' and 'Partners.' So nothing really changed in my broad perspective of which worked best, but in viewing the lesser stories I found that they generally worked much better than memory allowed. I'd still have to say this is likely to be the worst season, but that's more to do with tone and being different to the others, even though it was less serious than I had it in mind to be. Season 4 returned to a better composition of drama and comedy (even if it took things too far sometimes), but I can give Season 3 a little more respect than I used to think it warranted, simply for getting me back in that world, with those characters.

**