Starsky Vs. Hutch

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Starsky Vs. Hutch) (2)

Back on the force, and right back into unprofessionalism. In S&H's defence, I would say Officer Kira was much more at fault for leading them astray, but although Starsky does at least make the point to Hutch that they're on an undercover murder investigation (and 'playing on a killer's time'), I'm not sure even then his motives were purely on a professional level, instead seeming to be an excuse to cover the jealousy over his partner's interactions with the woman he 'loved,' since Hutch switches arrangements to guard Kira, while Starsky guards Susan, the only other blond in the place because she's too stupid to quit, according to Madame Bouvet!). Even there, I wonder if his profession of love was also the usual tactic of oneupmanship to throw Hutch off-balance, and in Hutch's favour he did accept the situation once he'd visited Kira to know the truth, it was just that she then upset the applecart by claiming to love both S&H, making a world of trouble. Not as much trouble as the title suggested, which made it sound like a cool concept for an episode: Starsky pitting his wits against Hutch, and vice versa, but in fact it was only a minor tiff, and going back to Starsky's 'love,' he quite easily discards it and goes off arm in arm when Kira doesn't choose between them, so it wasn't that deep. Charitably, you might say their long friendship was more valuable to them, but really it was just a 'funny' way to close out the episode, which by the way, was certainly in the serious category (no ridiculous overacting in S&H's undercover roles), though still pretty silly.

It wasn't the episode to kickstart their return to policing, even being reminiscent of their playful competitiveness over Alison in the 'Targets Without A Badge' story, only with a much harder edge this time. The important fact to remember, too, is that a woman dies because of the three cops involved in this case of a serial killer taking out blond women from the Golden Lady Ballroom, and then taking them out, too! The trio were so busy acting like teenagers they failed in a big way, and the worst of it is there are no consequences for any of them. After the weighty moral dilemma of Rigger's death in 'Targets,' affecting them so deeply they resign from the force, you'd think it would have kept them sober for at least a few episodes afterwards, but no. It's embarrassing really, bringing the profession into disrepute, and it's not like it was even a new idea - countless times they've allowed a woman to come between them, only in the past she's not a fellow cop they're working undercover with, and it's usually good-natured, each accepting the other's tricks and tactics as fair game in love and war. This time they practically come to blows at Kira's house, and it's really not what you want to see, especially this close to the end of the series, considering the finale would be an atypical episode with one of the pair out of action the whole time, this was the last chance we'd get to see the S&H partnership working together.

Nor does it help that we'd seen similar, and better episodes, this very season: when I think of Starsky taking on Hutch, look no further than 'The Game' where Hutch's life was at stake. And the storyline of S&H going undercover in some kind of social club where the girls are being kidnapped and killed by a maniac was done, if not that effectively, in 'Discomania,' but even that stands above this episode. Maybe having another 'Nam vet (who can put together his automatic weapon blindfold), who's gone crazy, thinking the Viet Cong are still after his secrets from G2 Intelligence, might have been a stereotype too far, though I suppose these soldiers were still in the public consciousness at the end of the Seventies. But I was never fond of Richard Lynch in this series, both roles being scuzzy and unpleasant without a hint of redemption. It's also quite shocking that he actually does kill Arlene, which he might not have had the chance to do if Kira had been on the ball, which she might have been if S&H hadn't been distracting, and playing up to, her wiles. It's also key to the success of the investigation (and the needs of the rapidly diminishing running time), that Joseph 'Joey' Webster unmasks himself when he goes crazy at the ballroom, pulling a grenade when Kira pulls a gun in response to his forceful urgings, so S&H might have lost more women if he hadn't been unable to contain his mania.

What I will say in the episode's defence, and it's only a minor consolation, is that it's not as bad as I remembered it, remaining fairly watchable and even showing some occasional directorial flair: examples such as the message from the killer Madame Bouvet holds in her hand (with the apparent spelling mistake of 'The Spy Will Dye,' when in fact hair dye is what Joey had in mind due to his paranoia about Viet Cong women dying their hair blond to inveigle their way into his affections and gain his secrets, and which he's now convinced are sending over agents to the US to continue this spy work!), and when we flip to her point of view, the scene is also transitioned so that she hands it to Dobey in his office - a little sleight of editing that shows finesse. The same can be said of the transition from Joey holding the pin of a grenade, then cutting to Starsky at the ballroom ripping off the ring pull of a drinks can. And also the way Joey's attack on Arlene is shot, with him suddenly shoving her back through her front door, which then slams shut behind them, the camera remaining in a fixed position so we can still see his wild face through the little window. But aside from such examples, signs of finesse are few and far between and it's a sad state of affairs for the series to be so generic and undeveloped after trying something so relatively radical as a three-parter just previously. It is like nothing had changed, but that's the way TV was in those days, as I've said many times before: almost no consequences from one episode to the next so as not to put off viewers that would have to watch at the same time every week, long before even recording on videotapes was an option.

That's why doing a three-part story was so daring, although produced so close to the end of the series that they must have known they weren't coming back for a Season 5 by then. Or maybe they didn't, I don't know. If they were still rehashing old stories then perhaps the series had had its time and was ready for the scrapheap, though I'd have happily sat through another twenty-odd episodes just for the sake of the occasional flashes of goodness and quality the series could achieve. Continuity and sense, maybe not so much, as evidenced by the reappearance of Hutch's battered old motor with the off-coloured side panel which was supposedly blown to kingdom come by an assassin's bomb just three episodes before! And here he is driving around in it as if nothing had happened. Even just a little mention of Merl The Earl fixing it up for him would have been something, and I wonder if they even considered an explanation or never gave it a thought for the reasons mentioned above? Not to say it isn't nice to see the stalwart parts of the series as we approach the end: the Torino, Police HQ, The Pits (Huggy only in it at all because the episode ends there - I thought I saw Kira standing at the pool table in the opening pan, but it was a lady with a similar hairstyle), and both Hutch's place (where Starsky crashes in order to have a serious talk with Hutch when he comes in), and Starsky's - they even chat over by the green wall phone which was used so memorably when they were going to quit the force to become football players back in Season 2's 'Starsky's Lady' - so many memories, and near the end I can't help thinking of the past we've seen across four seasons.

Those seasons have been full of tropes, so much so that you come to love and look out for these familiar things, so once again, for the penultimate time, here are the pop culture references I picked up on: Carol, one of the dance girls at the ballroom, calls Starsky, Valentino (presumably for the famous American actor Rudolph Valentino a romantic lead of silent films), when she jokily suggests he should let a girl know when he's going to make a big move after he's clumsily stood on her foot in his preoccupation with seeing Hutch deep in conversation with his girl Kira, whom he'd been going out with for a month; Hutch sarcastically calls Starsky Sherlock; Starsky does a snippet of his famous Humphrey Bogart impression at the bar at Huggy's; and Hutch quotes 'if you prick us, doth we not bleed' in response to Kira. I wondered if the pinball tables seen at the Golden Lady were the same ones used only recently at The Pits, a bit of set decoration they wanted to reuse? And when Hutch visits Starsky's place we see a different angle as he enters, and it looks like a porch outside the front door with a lamp on the wall and a plant (in the continuing saga of 'just what is outside Starsky's front door'!). We're short on genuine wacky folk, but there are one or two that could be called slightly eccentric in that general vein - Madame Bouvet the obvious one, erupting into French at Dobey's seeming inability to catch the killer; Carol's a little forward, but not in the way we've seen so many in the past; and, at a push, Susan, the other blond they're supposed to be guarding, might fit the category if only for the novelty of seeing a six foot two lady dancing with Starsky.

Perhaps Mr. Arnold could squeeze into that category, too, but in his case he was just a lech that acts on impulse and tries to molest Kira, while Hutch bursts out of her house thinking this is the killer. It must be a sign of the time that the man's eventually allowed to go about his dog-walking in peace when he professes to be 'only' a family man with two rotten kids. So that's alright, then! He doesn't get booked for assault, there are no consequences, he just apologises for his impulse, but really, a man walking a big scary Alsatian suddenly grabs a woman and tries to force her to kiss him in the dark, and it's okay?! I know that Kira didn't press any charges and probably just wanted to get inside after a busy day, but if he could do that on an impulse what else could he do, maybe even go down the route of becoming a serious danger in future? The immoral outlook is even worse from Kira who's quite happy to lead both S&H along because she 'loves' them both and doesn't feel the need to choose one over the other, then gets hysterical when they can't accept this, and orders them out of her house. She accuses Hutch of wanting his cake and eating it too, but she must be the biggest hypocrite of them all! Was this the Seventies 'liberated' ideal, I wonder? If so, then it causes a lot of confusion and pain, almost messing up S&H's friendship. Until they come to some sort of seedy arrangement - I'm not even sure what they were implying in that last scene where they present themselves to Kira. I hope it was as relatively innocent as being open to sharing her, but it was weird and out of place for the series.

The cast throws up some interesting oddments, as ever, with Marki Bey returning for a record-breaking sixth, and I believe, final appearance as Minnie, there to give out some friendly advice to Starsky in one of the more sensible and pleasant moments in the episode. The only other repeat offender is Richard Lynch, who'd been the actor Lionel Fitzgerald in Season 3's 'Quadromania.' Arlene was played by Topo Swope, a surname I thought was quite unheard of before, until I checked my cast list for the series and found a Tracy Brooks Swope as Rosey Malone in Season 3's 'I Love You, Rosey Malone,' so I wonder if they were related? Yvonne Craig was best known for her role in the Sixties 'Batman' TV series, and was also in the original 'Star Trek' - she played Carol, one of the dance girls. Interestingly, Garrett Craig was credited as Arlene's partner, Richie, so again I was wondering if they were related, especially as I was confused over which girl was which, so I thought it might have been a little in-joke that they cast the Arlene actor's real-life husband, but that didn't work as it was Arlene, not Carol who was picked up by Richie! They weren't terribly imaginative with Susan's name, as she was played by Susan Miller! I couldn't work out who the guy credited as 'Weirdo' was in the episode as I didn't recall anyone like that, but it must have been the bloke that cuts in on Kira's dance while S&H argue over her. It might have been Picerni that was driving the Torino when we see it pull off after Kira when Starsky's tasked with tailing her home. And I don't know why, but Hardy, the guy sent to analyse a piece of material found at Arlene's murder scene, isn't credited at all, despite having lines.

The cane tip is the vital clue that helps S&H realise that the stick-carrying guy is the one they're after, if his pushing a table over and threatening to set off a grenade wasn't clue enough! Actually, the moment with Starsky lobbing the active grenade through a window was pretty good, a background extra leaping over a bannister to avoid the explosion, which was a little meagre, it must be said. And how did Starsky know there wasn't anyone passing under the window? Starsky's shown to be a bit of a philosopher with his little speech to Kira as they relax by a fire: all about 'we come into this world alone, go out of it alone, in between you try to experience everything as it comes; expect nothing, don't take anything too seriously.' Except that was exactly the wrong kind of philosophy for her to hear, as it basically seems to let her off the hook and shows that he'll accept whatever happens, it's no big deal, which only encourages her unfortunate muddling, and Starsky doesn't appear to actually believe his statement when it comes down to it and he thinks his best buddy has betrayed him, so they were hollow words, only good for relaxing next to fires with an attentive ear to tell it to. I wonder when they actually shot the episodes, because the season came out in 1978-1979, but Starsky has a calendar on his wall for June 1977. I can't believe they would have filmed that far in advance, but why have a calendar up with such a date, it doesn't make sense? Fitting really, for an episode that was a bit senseless and a little meagre, it has to be said.

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