Blindfold

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

Every season they liked to do at least one story where Starsky and/or Hutch fell for the woman of the week, only to discover she harbours a dark secret and/or she dies tragically. This time the twist is that Starsky charms her from a sense of intense guilt after accidentally shooting her while trying to apprehend a couple of felons running from a safe robbery. There are things about it that push even this series' brushes into fantasy. A guy running around being a vampire may seem hard to believe in the hard police world that S&H inhabit, but what about an innocent civilian that runs out directly into the line of fire between a criminal and the cop chasing him? And then she goes blind from a mere graze along one side of her face! Perhaps truth is stranger than fiction, and there may be real accounts of innocents in a state of terror who ran into a firefight instead of keeping their heads down. And maybe temporary blindness caused by the shock and trauma of being shot is possible. The first point is easy to explain when we later discover that far from being an innocent pedestrian on her way back from art class, Emily Harrison was actually the lookout for the robbery, the main suspect being her 'old man' in the coupling sense, so it's more than plausible that she would rush out and try to hinder the law enforcement by blocking Starsky's fire for the sake of boyfriend Don. He had no compunction towards care, knowing she would be in the vicinity, and was more than happy to take a wild shot at the pursuing Starsky, even though the game was up, and demonstrates similar 'care' throughout the episode.

Emily's in the clear, she did behave rationally, if you can call trying to protect an overbearing, selfish boyfriend with, potentially, her life, rational, but she was also in fear of him. The blindness was an interesting direction to go, and it would have had greater impact if she had remained permanently blinded, forced to adapt to this new life, and that it was more a story about her learning to accept that life. Regardless of the miraculous recovery at the end, we really see some heartfelt charity from Starsky. He's absolutely horrified about what happened, but he doesn't run away from it, he wants to be there for the victim, even when those around her are hard on him - you'd think the old doctor that is looking after Emily would have seen it all, but he really lays into Starsky and is very frosty and unfeeling in his interactions. Of course he doesn't know S&H as we do, and perhaps he's seen his share of bad or incompetent cops that haven't shown the devastated conscience that Starsky exhibits, but you'd think he'd be more professional and understanding, especially as Starsky was doing his best. The same goes for Sharon, Emily's neighbour and friend, who is very prickly to this guy she doesn't know, except for him being the one to take her friend's sight, with only a fifty percent chance of recovery.

One of the nice things about the episode is how Sharon goes from this angry, emotional response (as Hutch points out), to wonder and confusion when she finds Starsky with Emily, but doesn't blow his cover, not knowing quite what's going on or what's best for Emily, to becoming his advocate and wanting her to call 'Dave' when Don's threatening to whisk her off to Hawaii to get married so she can't testify against him. It's a very positive arc, and pleasing when Starsky is justified. But to begin with he's despondent, taking some time out to reevaluate his position in the force, even though it wasn't so much his fault as Emily's, and there was little else he could do when the felon took a shot at him. But he's an artistic soul, and when he throws down his gun in disgust as the object of all the misery, he takes up another, his camera, and loses himself in photography. It's another big coincidence that he just so happens to visit the very park where Emily's sitting on a bench feeling sorry for herself, but I can forgive it because it's such a charming scene where he basically refuses to be turned away from what he's decided to do. He turns on all the charm and is able to inveigle his way into the frightened girl's life to become her companion just at the time she needed it. Without realising, he also protects her from Don, who keeps away from her, not out of guilt at her plight, but because he's laying low and word's out on the street that a cop's babysitting her.

The music should have especial mention, for its heartbreaking, childlike theme that beautifully evokes the mood, both of Starsky, who has a chance at redemption, and Emily, who is embarking on a new life without sight. Meanwhile, Hutch has to do the adult stuff, rattling Kenny's cage, Don's younger brother. Police harassment seems to be fully endorsed in that day and age, since Hutch openly tells Dobey he's off to lean on the guy, and clearly he does bully and shake him up. Not that the guy didn't deserve it, and the same for fence Pinky, whom Hutch puts the squeeze on, but it's very of its time! Pinky wasn't all that bright - to trap him into giving away Don's whereabouts, since he's fencing the stolen goods for him, Hutch enlists Huggy's aid, but surely Pinky, and just about everyone else, would know that Hug is S&H's go-to guy, yet he happily turns up at The Pits for the promise of $5K in return for the jewellery! From the telephone exchange between Hug and Hutch we learn that Police HQ is about twenty minutes away from The Pits, since that's how long Hutch says it will take him to get there, although it could be a busy time of day, so perhaps that isn't the absolute quickest time. It's nice, though, as it gives a sense of scale to the city and locations therein. I wonder if Hutch crept in and hid behind the bar when Huggy was stalling Pinky at the pool table, because otherwise why stall him? I liked the way they did it, though, with Hutch's arm shooting up unexpectedly from under the bar before Pinky could take a shot at Hug and his almost empty cash till!

The episode works so well because of the innate bigheartedness that Starsky demonstrates, and we see he's pretty much willing to give up his life to pay for what he accidentally did to Emily. There are moments of great drama, although I do sometimes feel that they could have been ramped up: when Emily finds out from Don that Starsky's a cop, for example - I like that it comes out so matter of fact from him, like he expects a witness to be protected by the police and for her to hold their interest, in a sort of cold, calculating way that he has about people. Though Widdicombe is jovial on the outside, it's more of a casual confidence in himself and you sense he could do almost anything, an unpredictable, but completely callous man. Oddly, he expresses some moral view when originally in for questioning he says he taught his brother to tell the truth, but it smacks of irony and he knows he's above the law, he's never in any fear, always in control. But you don't get an idea of affection for his impressionable younger brother, just that he's a tool for him to use. He bullies Pinky, has an edge to his voice, despite an outward geniality and politeness to Sharon when he wants to talk with Emily alone, and is an all-round good bad guy. We see his unpredictability in the crazy shot he takes when Starsky has a gun trained on his back, he's basically caught, the game is up, but a desperate man full of confidence, he whirls round and takes the chance, firing off a round, which is what causes Starsky to fire as Emily runs into shot.

At least Starsky has the opportunity to let out all his anger on Don when they fight in the underground car park at the Auto Motel where Don's hiding out. S&H do love to slam hoodlums to the bonnet of cars and pinwheel them around to a suitable position! The duo are split for much of the story, though Hutch does make an effort to engage Starsky in the case, even though he already knows what tack his partner's taking, devoting himself to this bystander he feels responsible for. "In the line of duty, officer, that does not mean you have to devote your whole life to her," as Hutch puts it. But Starsky is a responsible sort, and even tells Hutch he tried being blind for one hour and couldn't hack it. It's a typical hotheaded thing for him to do, experiment and find he falls short, then base his whole reasoning on that. Another moment where more drama might have been eked out was when Hutch has to break the news to him that far from being the good art student on her way home from class, Emily was the lookout and is tied up with Don. It had the smack of 'Gillian' about it when Starsky had to reveal similar bad news to Hutch, although at least he didn't hit his partner. At least, for once, the end scene does have resonance for the rest of the episode, even though it is a light moment between S&H where Hutch believes he could have done fine with being blind, and Starsky moves his familiar Indian bamboo chair so Hutch thinks the front door is the bathroom and lets him leave, crashing into something outside!

The story is pretty slight: Starsky romances Emily out of guilt and a desire to care for her, while Hutch sorts out the villains. Huggy gets involved and they both trap the Widdicombe brothers at the end, with a little help from Emily, whose sight returns at an opportune moment to see Don's gun. But it's a sweet little story, and a reminder why I like to be in this world with these characters, which is why I marked it up this time. Not to say there were no issues: as well as the potential for increased drama, there are a couple of obvious stunt guy moments in bad wigs. When Hutch does the famous, traditional takedown (jumping onto a car, then leaping off it in the chase to come down hard on the fleeing Kenny's back), you can see it's not him, and the same in the car park where he bumps the (once again), fleeing Kenny - the stunt guy's wig looks really silly! It's good to see Starsky's place for the first time this season, and both of their cars being used (there's even a shot looking through the side window when Starsky pulls the flashing red light in that looks like a shot seen in previous opening credits sequences), but there's little in the way of references or quirky characters, Pinky being the closest thing to one, and he's not really that quirky.

Starsky mentions Helen Keller, famous American writer who was blind and deaf from a young age, mentions Garbo, following it up with an impression (he does like his old films), and makes a joke about wishing his name was something more exotic, like Rudy or Marcello, which is interesting since he took on the name Rudy when undercover in 'Murder Ward,' and Marcello sounds like the kind of name he would use as a hairdresser. I also feel like I've seen them shove a rag or handkerchief into a villain's mouth before, in the way Hutch does to Pinky here. Gary Wood, the villainous Don Widdicombe, had previously been in the series back in Season 2, credited only as 'Man' in 'The Set-Up.' But it was a compact guest cast this time, though it's strange that Joan Pringle (Sharon), and Howard George (Pinky), are both credited as Special Guest Stars, yet have less to do than the other guest cast, who are only common or garden actors apparently (including a young Kim Cattrall as Emily, who would later be in 'Star Trek VI' as the villainous Valeris). The only other things to note would be the opening scene where Don wears goggles to blowtorch the safe in - you could be forgiven for thinking it's Starsky at first as they both have that Afro hair and a similar face. And we see S&H cruising the streets on duty of a Sunday morning, with Starsky giving stats that reason only cops work on Sundays and only two percent of crimes are committed on a Sunday! And I wonder if it was a purposeful choice to shoot S&H slightly out of focus when the doc's telling them that Emily's blind? Probably not, but it had an irony to it.

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