Discomania

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Discomania) (2)

I tend to remember Season 4 as the daftest year of the series, full of silliness and almost entering into a parody of its characters and past, but then I also thought of Season 3 as very serious and hard-edged and found it much more balanced on reviewing it, so it remains to be seen whether my appraisal will alter on this watch-through. When I think of Season 4, one episode stands out: 'Dandruff,' where Starsky and Hutch put on phoney accents and theatrical performances to go undercover at a hair and beauty salon. But this episode with its extreme Seventies style and overriding disco theme (dancing in suits!), is probably as much evidence of the wackiness of both the series and the period it was made, without being quite as parodic as the former, it might just be the most evocative of that period in the entire series with its exaggerated emphasis on the disco dancing, almost to the exclusion of a story. It's very indulgent towards the dancing scenes as if they're putting down a marker that this series is hip, cool and happening, all you veggies out there! It's episodes like this that you can see must have inspired the ridiculous parody film of 2004 - the dance-off in that was pretty silly and over the top, but Starsky really does get down and boogie like crazy in this episode, and while it's not as in your face as the film, you have to admit that the series did get a little zany at times.

I imagine disco fever was the in thing at the time, so they were probably just following a trend for what the youth were into back then, and I can see why they might begin a season with such a shallow story and concentrate on young people having a good time to set out the series' stall. At the same time, S&H are starting to look less youth and more creeping towards middle-age by this point (maybe Hutch's moustache didn't help!), and they must be in their early thirties, while most of the disco crowd appear to be in their twenties. Not to say they stick out like sore thumbs, but it's a farfetched idea that two men like that could infiltrate a disco hall to root out a serial killer. It makes for plenty of fish out of water fun, and they blend in pretty well despite, but you can almost imagine the lonely Judith mentioning how old they are as she does to Tony! Fortunately, the pair have plenty of energy left yet and the will to get into their parts, but the police operation doesn't come across as very efficient. It's one thing to send a couple of detectives down to Fever, the disco hotspot, but S&H don't even realise they have a liaison there who's already undercover (she says it's her first time to them, but she may have been joking since we see her at the first night where Tony's picking up another victim, and he says he saw her there the other night). If the primary reason is to make S&H look stupid and give us a laugh, it worked, but you'd think they'd know who else was on the case!

You could almost feel sorry for Tony, the wronged or damaged serial kidnapper and killer, even though we see him leave a dead woman in an abandoned area at the beginning, because he seems so full of the disco love, and yet is ineptly zoning in on the wrong potential dance partners, rejection only furthering his ire. That is until he brushes off poor Judith, who pragmatically refers to his age and her 'chubbiness' as reasons they might as well hook up - actually he doesn't even brush her off, but completely ignores her! You have to wonder if these people are really in the best place for them - I'm sure there must have been other social hangouts for Judith to go to if she didn't feel comfortable being on her own. Then again, if she's a disco fan, why not, it's just a shame she didn't have confidence in herself to dance alone as we see some of the other young ladies doing. She's certainly got confidence in approaching people! Tony on the other hand, isn't really looking for a fun evening out, but is playing some twisted hunting game. I didn't quite catch his muted backstory, but it he'd had a wife or a girlfriend who had jilted him or had died. He might even have killed her, I'm not sure, but now he wants to take young ladies back to his opulent house, dance with them in his personal dance-floor, then fill them full of drugs and dump them off dead somewhere.

Marty, a pickpocket, sets back S&H's investigation when they mistake him for the killer (who leaves a little ankle bracelet with the name of his departed sweetheart, Sharon, as a calling card), since he just happened to rip off Tony at the wrong moment. The tension of the likeable Sergeant Lizzie Thorpe, third class, being in danger from this warped crazy, is well served by the blind of Marty, and the shot of her walking to her car, the camera just following her legs as if a visual warning that she's soon destined to get an ankle bracelet like the others (and reminded me of 'The Las Vegas Strangler,' another episode where lone women go to their cars and get attacked, seen only from the legs down). Lizzie was a credit to the force, managing her fear and shock, and attempting to talk to Tony, to build up a connection and reassure him that it's okay to lose someone, as long as you don't lose yourself. There's some real horror in the episode from Tony forcing one of his captives to dance (Michelle?), snapping at her and slapping, making her jig around like a puppet forced to perform, and I don't know which was more terrible, that or the slow dance Lizzie has to endure, drugged up as she is, unable to do anything but flop around in the arms of her captor as he drags her around his dance floor.

If there's a moral to the story (besides not to leave your beverage unattended in public - that's how he manages to drug Lizzie, while she's off pounding the floor with Marty), I would say it's that money can't buy happiness, since Tony shows himself to be quite a flash Harry - he's introduced talking on a phone as he drives his Mercedes, then he's waving cash around to the waitresses, offering to pay the prize if his intended target and he don't win the dance competition, and owning a lavish property with a three car garage, head of some car business, I think. So if he'd wanted, he could have been a sugar daddy and drawn in a crowd of admirers, but he was too caught up in grief and revenge on womankind to use his wealth like that, and had real personality problems, despite his seemingly naive charm. Any man that has his own disco floor in the basement has to be pretty flush! Shame S&H didn't happen to look over at the large glass window into the basement which Lizzie could see them from. I know it's only supposed to be a representation so we know she knows they've come looking for her, and to increase the drama when they leave with no leads, but if she could see them so well…

It sounds like Tony had a hard life, being brought up in Brooklyn and his Dad giving him tough advice about staying alive (was that a deliberate disco reference?), and it's a shame we don't get his backstory filled in a bit more instead of hinted at, to make him a little more rounded, as a good villain is assisted by a detailed history and motives, not so we can identify with him, but to show he's not just a monster but an ordinary human, which is more chilling than the 'other.' It's amazing how quickly he picks out Lizzie as his next victim, but then the story required a personal target for S&H to be responsible for and raise the stakes beyond strangers we don't know. Tony wasn't exactly the greatest challenge for S&H, which is why he had to threaten their colleague, and he doesn't put up any fight when they come for him, showing that it was only women he had any spirit to cause violence to.

The old checklist of familiar tropes of the series is as much in evidence as always, starting with the prevalence of caricatures, or slightly wacky, off-centre people S&H encounter. The first is Harding, the police guy who fills them in on the case, with his dishevelled appearance and odd introduction that 'somebody said' Dobey 'was here,' as if he wouldn't be in his own office! Even the Captain calls him out on that. Judith is the other odd person, with her large glasses, frizzy hair and unabashed directness, and the same lines used on multiple people she meets. Starsky always attracts the eccentric ones, but then she approaches Hutch, too! The DJ, with his penchant for calling the dancers veggies, and finding what Hutch says about the decline and fall of the Western world, 'heavy,' would also fit that category. I think that's pretty much it on that count, unless you include Tony, who was most definitely peculiar, but you expect the bad guys to be like that.

There was a sort of running joke introduced, but it didn't run very far, and was one of those that, like the backstory of Tony, seemed to be a forgotten part of an earlier version of the script, perhaps, but it provided a fun reintroduction to S&H: Starsky's reading a book called 'Intimidation: Controlling People For Love and Money,' but his tactics of getting up close to people and fixing them with a powerful, unblinking gaze is rather undermined by his breath (something about him eating tostados - a Mexican deep-fried tortilla!), not to mention Dobey isn't going to be intimidated by anyone. It's typical of Starsky that he'd make such mistakes, and of course, Hutch is there to tease him with some of the best lines, like questioning if the theoretical waiter Starsky would use these techniques on has also read the book, and "You know, fourteen ninety-five would buy an awful lot of mints." But the book is soon forgotten, perhaps correctly, considering the seriousness of the subject matter (though it doesn't stop them from enjoying their undercover roles as much as possible), and it would have been interesting to see Starsky's quest for dominance continue, like when he meets Lizzie or anyone else in the episode. For that matter, this sort of scene sounds like the perfect setup for Huggy to be included, and I could have imagined him being the DJ, either undercover or just happening to be doing a job for a second cousin or something like that.

If we didn't know it already, the Pinky (or Perky, I can never remember which it is), on S&H's desk is revealed to be an actual piggy bank, since Marty, during his time at the station, picks it up and shakes it, while Starsky tells him to put it down as he leaves. Hutch pulls off his old trick of distracting Starsky so he can go and introduce himself to Lizzie (Starsky having to pay the waitress for their drinks), and there are tons of references: Starsky reassures the weight-conscious Judith that Rubens and 'those cats' never painted skinny chicks; Merlin, a guess from the 'MER' Lizzie was able to scratch into her seat to clue them onto the Mercedes - Hutch suggests 'Merl,' and I wonder if he was thinking of Merl The Earl? Marty asks if it's 'Scrabble' with all their attempts to work out what it stands for. Starsky calls him a Travolta clone (even though he's the one wearing the white suit), and I'm sure 'Saturday Night Fever' would have been at the forefront of the minds of people watching the episode. Lizzie says she expected S&H to be 'Abbott and Costello Go Disco,' and there are a few disco songs playing throughout. I wonder if they had to get the rights to use them, as that's what usually happens - the 'Voyager' episode, 'Life Signs' has one piece of music used on the VHS version and a different one on the later DVD copy, and the main reason I believe the sci-fi series '7 Days' has never been released is because it has so many songs in it, difficult for the rights issues. Which makes me wonder if they replaced any of the songs in this episode? Probably not, but you never know.

It's amusing when the 'Macho Man' song is being played and Adrian Zmed is introduced, because he's like a junior version of S&H, and would later go on to costar in William Shatner's 'TJ Hooker' cop series in the Eighties -a series I first saw in the same slot as 'S&H' in the early 2000s when I was at college and they showed these on weekday mornings. Ironically, I think 'S&H' has aged better. I originally found 'Hooker' to be more exciting and interesting, then 'S&H' seemed slower and less flashy in contrast when I came to that, but now 'Hooker' seems a bit empty, only action, while 'S&H' has a lot more depth, humour and character in general. But it was fun to have Zmed in the series. The only cast member from a previous 'S&H' was Michelle (Paula Sills was Suzette in Season 2's 'Vampire'). The wasteland Tony dumps his first victim in looked a bit like the Old Zoo from various episodes, but it's difficult to tell for sure. I wonder if Arthur Marks, the Director, was any relation of Gareth Marks, the central villain in one of my other favourite series', 'BUGS'? With all the dancing I was sure the usual blonde background artists would be used again, and there were some, but it's hard to know if it's the same couple who had been in all the other disco or dancing episodes previously. And finally, the running joke of Dobey always eating, is back again in the end scene which has very little to do with the episode: S&H make a fool out of him, teaching him the 'salsa samba' and opening the office door so his staff can see, after he's dismissed the disco craze, saying the routines are just a ripoff from the Forties, and they wouldn't have it if his generation hadn't had big bands and dance halls.

The ending could have done with a last scene with Lizzie back in uniform or shown to be alright, rather than a lighthearted laugh at Dobey's expense, but that was almost always the way: they avoided the viewer going away with too much to think about, and they'd rather have them come out of it with a spring in their step, no matter how depressing the nature of the crimes and the criminals, so they come back next week for more, rather than create a reassuring or thought-provoking finale, and also so that they could go into the upbeat theme music, which would otherwise seem out of place. At least we get a mention of the Captain's wife, Edith, even if she hadn't been seen (or probably heard of!), since Season 1's 'Captain Dobey, You're Dead!' Apparently she's been on his back about taking her dancing, but the ballrooms are closing up.

As a return to the series, this episode does a reasonable job, but you can see how they could have written themes or jokes through it better, fleshed out some of the guest characters, and put the series on the map, but in reality they weren't going to change the format at this stage of the series' life, and what they did do, focusing on the disco club scene of the Seventies, you can see why, but it also makes the episode seem sparse, even with all the energetic enjoyment many of the background extras displayed, and it certainly wasn't boring in the way some of Season 3 could be. The theme music was a new variation (they'd changed it for every season, so why not keep up the tradition?), but the opening credits montage, though edited differently (such as several smaller clips played together in a block) were pretty much the same clips as last season. But it's nice to be back in a more innocent, fun age again.

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