Black and Blue

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Black and Blue) (2)

Race relations, minority quotas in the police force, the future for ghetto children, and both sides of life: the hard-bitten and resentful, and the sensitive and caring, show how deep the series can be, especially when this is side by side with the fluff of 'Dandruff.' I prefer this much more realistic take on the series, as much as I enjoy the wackiness it sometimes explores. How different is Hutch's split second quandary when unexpectedly confronted by a girl aiming a gun at him? He can't bring himself to pull the trigger even for his own survival and shows more character than the whole of the previous episode and its silly accents could. In some ways it is the definitively negative view of the world, with the black Fagin, Train, and his gang of child criminals he's trained and sent out to line his pockets, and the sight of rundown neighbourhoods, and wasteland, but the difference is that it's not a hardened view, there's room for redemption, and there are consequences for what happens (Hutch spends most of the episode on his back, the cost of indecision), but they aren't the final word. The most touching and standout moments come from Starsky's encounters with the old lady in the hospital, Mrs. Greene. She takes the time to reassure the worried detective that his partner will be alright, makes caring gestures and shows that there are those in the world who make a difference in a positive way, despite their own problems. And she has problems: terminal cancer, as Starsky is shocked to find out. But it didn't stop her from seeing someone else's concern and stepping in.

The nurse is another example of that, in a more businesslike manner: she, rather condescendingly, tells Starsky to 'guard the hallway' when he wants to go in with his partner, saying he's a cop, but later she comes out and updates him on Hutch's condition, though she's 'not supposed to.' I don't know if that's for reasons of patient confidentiality, but if so, it's something good old Memorial Hospital has a sketchy understanding of since the Doctor (Dr. Holmby, according to the door he enters, though he could have been using someone else's office), tells Starsky about Mrs. Greene's cancer even though he was no relation, but claims to be a cop! In contrast you have wily Train, who cares for nothing more than his own self-interests, abandoning young Vivian when Bruce, one of the gang, informs on her to him that she's killed a cop. He casts her out, and at first she wants revenge, to 'rip off the rip-off merchant,' but is still conditioned enough to want to get back under Train's wing when she sees a chance to recover his good graces by revealing Starsky's partner to be a cop.

That's a different slant on the episode: usually when Starsky or Hutch are out of action, the other one works alone to get the bad guys that did this, but this time Starsky gets a new partner quick-smart. Despite the fact she's a woman, he's not quick to accept her, until she shows she can handle herself by getting the jump on him in combat, setting his mind at rest that she can indeed back him up. This time it was necessary for him to have help because he needed to get into the black community which these juveniles have come from, and as Inspector Joan Meredith is fond of reminding him, he's too pale to pass off in these neighbourhoods. Not that that usually stops him (we've seen both S&H go into other communities to both comedic and violent response in the past), but this was a more sensitive situation, dealing with the under-age, not grown men. I felt Meredith was quite defensive and tough, but I imagine it was a much different world in those days, she was probably distrusted and resented by some in the police force for being merely a quota filler for minority groups. I like that they touch on this, and it's not just a case of shoving Starsky in with a female partner (even though he is rather indiscreet and unprofessional in his personal dealings with her), and it shows her defensive side when she's the one to bring up the fact that she fulfils quotas, rather than pointing out her own skills and right to be in the job. If anything, it actually displays how confident in herself she is, that she'll bring out this fact, but also prove to Starsky she's not there as part of a numbers game, she's serious and has the training to prove it.

Disappointingly, we never see her again, despite Starsky claiming that next time his partner gets shot he'll request her personally, much to Hutch's chagrin! But Starsky needs to start doing some rescuing because his partner is winning this season, this being the second time Hutch has sat around piecing the evidence together in his mind until he slots it all together and realises what's going on, enabling him to arrive in the nick of time (as in 'The Avenger'), to save Starsky's life. But I liked that he wasn't written out of the episode, an excuse to show Starsky with a different partner. If it came to it, she could have been unnecessary if Huggy had been used more, though Captain Dobey wouldn't have had any faith in Starsky teaming up with him! There's some street ethics displayed by Hug when Starsky and Meredith visit The Pits for his help and (after coming on rather strong to her, saying something about his next wife - I didn't even know he was, or had been, married in the first place!), he makes it clear he's not going to help them bust every small-time fence out there, though he changes his tune when he hears Hutch is in hospital, and is ready to assist. He seems to come across a lot more suave and cool this season, where he would sometimes be a figure of fun in other seasons, or in over his head, so it's good to see him at his best. But the whole episode seems to be well directed and written, perhaps because these were done by the same guy, Rick Edelstein, who was also the Story Editor, so maybe he had a greater vested interest to make it a good one and got to plan it out as he wanted it to be?

It's ironic that race relations are an issue, when we find out that it's actually a white woman, Mary, who works for Allied Answering, and provides Train with his knowledge of when customers are going to be away from home and are open to burglary. It proves that race isn't anything to do with criminality (if the positions of Dobey and Meredith weren't already doing that), but also that it doesn't mean you don't stoop to crime if you live in a slightly more affluent area and have a reasonable job, as she did. The saddest part is when hard-faced, fierce young Vivian throws back the words Starsky and Meredith talk of: a chance, a future, because she clearly sees no future for herself beside being Train's trained Oliver Twist. There was some hope for her in the way she hesitated and stood up to her boss a little, saying it didn't seem fair to kill two cops. But he's angry at his whole tidy little operation being compromised and wants her under his control even more at a vulnerable age when she could still be turned away from him, so he doesn't give her a choice. Which is when Hutch bursts in to save the day. I wonder what happened to Vivian, as it could have been the best hope she had to be caught and rehabilitated, it just depends who influenced her after this point. Meredith could have been a role model, except that the police were seen as the enemy, even Huggy commenting on her poor choice of profession.

Starsky and Meredith made a good team, and she throws herself into the role in spite of his reservations. They do the good cop, bad cop routine on Bruce, but I'd have thought it would have worked better the other way round, Starsky as the angry short-fuse guy, especially as it was his partner that got shot, and she could have used all her charm. The chat they have in the car when they go to infiltrate Train's organisation by sending Meredith in as a teenager reminded me of 'Mission: Impossible II' where Starsky's saying how people that aren't scared make him scared and she basically tells him to feel better, then. When he mentioned that his partner was closer to him than his brother I wondered if that line was what inspired the episode to come when his brother actually shows up in a story. I don't know if we even knew he had one before this, and it could have been taken as not a literal brother, but it's good to have this little touch of continuity. The pair of them certainly made a good team, and you could almost imagine the series continuing quite well if David Soul had left, but Paul Michael Glaser had continued, though obviously not as good as S&H, of course. It had the potential to pluck at the race issues even more forensically. Meredith saying a red tomato driven by some white-faced dude would stick out in the ghetto made me think that it should actually stick out anywhere, but it's one of the conceits of the series that bad guys rarely recognise it!

Saying that, Huggy and Dobey both have good moments, and I was especially fond of seeing Dobey visit Hutch at the hospital for that game of putting pins into a wooden board (can't remember what it's called), while keeping him updated. But he's back to his cantankerous usual self later when he rings up Hutch to ask if Starsky's there because he and Meredith are missing, and ends up slamming the phone down saying it was a completely unnecessary call (since Hutch doesn't know anything), although in reality it was an essential call because the plot called for it - Hutch discharges himself and gets back on the case on the strength of it, putting the solution together lightning fast, he and his Captain heading off to Allied Answering for some answers. It's fun to see Hutch and Dobey driving around in his battered old Ford as we pretty much never see the Captain riding with one of the pair, on top of which it's always a pleasure to have Dobey out of the office. Hutch's poor old crock gets a battering at the back to match the front when Vivian drives out of the house she and Bruce are ripping off, but it still works throughout the episode. I had to wonder why Hutch was driving Starsky home at the opening of the episode, apart from the fact that it gave Starsky the opportunity to sound off about his latest weird interest, trying out an ESP quotient test on his uninterested partner, though it didn't become a running joke, except for the injured Hutch saying he just went along with it to make Starsky feel better.

Ordinarily I'd be pointing out all the wacky characters of this week's guest cast, but it's very much down-to-earth, real people this time, with no time for eccentrics. If the old lady had been played for laughs instead of poignancy, she might have fitted the category, and the only person I could think of that even came close was the nurse shaving Hutch (sadly, not his awful moustache!), and giving him more attention than was perhaps professionally required, or at least accepting his flirty attitude. But if there were none of that kind, there were a good few references: when asked Vivian's name, Bruce says she's Barbara Streisand (an actress very much of the Seventies); Meredith says there's no way to tell if Train's in his place unless you're Superman and have X-ray vision; when Starsky says he can't go in as his blue eyes would give him away she says 'him and Sinatra'; Vivian responds to the assertion that the cop she thought she killed isn't dead, saying her 'Mamma's Diana Ross'; and Huggy calls Starsky and his new partner, Beauty and The Beast. Stuntman Picerni is once again in evidence during the brutal fight between Starsky and Bruce in the house he's burgling, which was a good, walloping combat, even though the walls appeared to shake when they were thrown against them! And they obviously liked the horizontal lights above the hospital bed so much in 'Dandruff' that they had them back, and repeated Buddy's head-bumping manoeuvre with Hutch.

As well as both their cars, we see Starsky's apartment, only this time out the open door there's a tree quite close, or large plants, quite different to the end of 'Blindfold' when Hutch was tricked into walking out the front door - I don't think there was anything like that nearby. Also, like the secretary in 'Photo Finish,' Starsky has taken to calling at least one of his plants by name: Phillip! Wonder if he was influenced by that woman? There's a question of entrapment again, when Meredith goes undercover to fence a 'stolen' TV set acquired by Huggy, to catch Train, but he was such a despicable fellow that I didn't feel it was unwarranted, but again, it goes to show how different a time this was, much more cowboy justice than the extremely lawful manner of enforcement we have nowadays. When Starsky gets caught by Vivian while waiting for Meredith to carry out their plan, I noticed some children with, presumably, their Mother, in the background crossing the road, and they look over at what's going on. They were far enough away that I would suspect they aren't extras, but ordinary folk going about their business, and at first I wondered if they thought this holdup was real, until I realised they'd also be seeing a camera and crew, not just what we see! More guest actors were reused: Susan Kellerman as Mary, the dodgy Allied Answering operator, previously Monique in 'Quadromania'; Mary Mercier (Nurse #1 - I'd assume the one with more lines who talks to Starsky), had been a Secretary in 'I Love You, Rosey Malone'; and Maurice Sneed had learned his lesson as Maurice from 'Manchild On The Streets' and wasn't getting involved with guns this time, as Vivian's friend, James.

It was well acted, looked good, and had some well-written lines, and I found it to be a rounded watch, though I do sometimes enjoy episodes differently when I'm paying maximum attention in order to review them. I felt my last review, quite a few years ago, was a little harsh, and this does rank as one of the better episodes of this season. Starsky even manages to get one over on Huggy after he's insulted his looks, saying, "For a man that looks like an Egyptian horse, I'd say your house is made of glass." Though the best character and line goes to Mrs. Greene: "You should live a life as rich as God gave me," she warmly advises Starsky, and though we don't see her again at the end, her few moments make all the difference. Vivian's one about, "You may be black, lady, but your uniform's blue," also stands out, showing how the girl has failed to understand the intricacies of people and only sees a colour which instantly means she shuts down to the person, though it gives the episode its brilliant title. And once again we have a final scene that provides some conclusion to the specific story of the episode, when Starsky and Meredith say goodbye instead of her just disappearing and there being some joke. It's light, but it was a necessary parting to end the episode with, otherwise we'd be wondering where she was in the next one.

***