The Decline and Fall of Starsky and Hutch: A Brief Exploration Of Where S4 Went Wrong
What is the point of the trend towards comedy in the later seasons of things? Here I’m referring directly to Starsky and Hutch, that iconic buddy-cop show that’s as 1970s as picketing and 'Smash' (it must have been tastier in the seventies because modern 'Smash'… is an acquired taste). I’m currently working my way through the fourth series and the sea-change between this and even the third, whose lighter touch was signalled from the first episode wherein Starsky goes under voodoo, is bizarre. Firstly, I think we must have had at least five disco-themed shows. Admittedly this was still in the throws of the disco period, being filmed a year after Saturday Night Fever made falsetto and medallions cool again and in the year of Ottawan’s unparalleled ‘D.I.S.C.O’ but if disco was made for one thing, it was not Starsky and Hutch. What worked on the big screen with a budget of $3.5 million and months of rehearsals does not on something practically made for 30-yea...