Revisiting Starsky and Hutch

[TMC]

http://comforttv.blogspot.com/2023/0...and-hutch.html

Shows like this succeed or fail on casting and chemistry. Good scripts help, but there are only so many urban crime stories and criminal investigations to dramatize. Viewers watch to see characters they like inserted into narratives no matter how familiar. And when there are two or more leads, camaraderie is another essential. We want to believe the friendships between the characters, to the point that we’re sure they would enjoy each other’s company after work as well.

It’s either there, or it’s not. With Charlie’s Angels, we could see Sabrina, Jill and Kelly hanging out (and often did). When Tiffany joined, we were pretty sure that Kelly and Kris dropped her off at the library when they went out to dinner.

With Detectives Dave Starsky and Ken Hutchinson that connection seems natural and believable from the first episode. Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) and David Soul (Hutch) argue, kvetch and commiserate like the closest of friends and partners. There is no artificiality in the rhythm of their conversations. The actors are gone and all we see are their characters.

We don’t get to know them well beyond the duties of their profession, but that was standard for shows like this. Character development and continuity never extended beyond what was necessary, and was often inconsistent. In “The Vampire,” Starsky remains open to the possibility that a series of fanged attacks on young women could be supernatural, while Hutch scoffs at the possibility. But in “The Psychic” Hutch is convinced a man who sees visions can help find a kidnapped girl, while Starsky remains a cynic. One episode has Hutch extolling the virtues of a healthy organic food diet, but later he’s scarfing down chili dogs with his partner at a dumpy fast food joint.

The partners are often helped in their cases by Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), who is always tuned in to the word on the street (a convenient way to advance the plot), and is shown in a variety of professions throughout the series, only some of which are legal.

The character would likely be condemned now as a negative racial stereotype, but that crowd is listening to NPR and not watching 50 year-old TV shows, so who cares. I will acknowledge, however, that a little of Huggy goes a long way – there’s a reason why the proposed spinoff “Huggy Bear and the Turkey” never went anywhere.

When you watch a full season of any series over the course of a week or so, the stories tend to blend together into one inclusive experience that either satisfies or does not. I was satisfied, though many of the episodes seemed familiar before I even watched them, because the same plots played out on other shows from the same genre and era.

There were the “race against time” episodes like “Savage Sunday” (a bomb ticks away in the back of a stolen car – can our heroes find it before it explodes?) and “A Coffin for Starsky” (Starsky is poisoned and will die in 24 hours unless Hutch finds the only man with the antidote!). There were the undercover assignments that amp up the comedy as the partners try out silly costumes and silly accents (“The Bait,“ “Moonshine”) and the episode in which our detectives get saddled with protecting a sassy kid (Kristy McNichol, in “Little Girl Lost.”

And inevitably there were multiple episodes in which Starsky or Hutch falls in love with the perfect woman, who also happens to be hiding a criminal past (“Gillian”), or secretly an obsessed psycho (“Fatal Charm”), or just gets killed by bad guys (“Starsky’s Lady”).

Mix in a few car chases in that Torino, a few foot chases and one or two shoot-outs, all of which could be extended or shortened to fit the desired running time, and you’ve got another episode in the can.