In a previous post, I mentioned my regret that I have only a handful of Rockford Files movies left to watch. Well, I’m currently one episode away from completing a re-run of all four seasons of Starsky & Hutch, and that will leave me not so much mourning the series that was but more the one which might have been.
It opened with so much promise, a tough show about two tough cops, surviving on their own resources and dispensing a very personal brand of justice. Unfortunately, by the end of the second season, the producers were under pressure to tone down the violence, not least from Paul Michael Glaser, who was already eager to move on and explore his directorial ambitions. The close bond between the two cops had been a strength of the early episodes, but as stories began to focus more heavily on their personal life, the writing began to suffer.
By the final season, increasingly ludicrous plots were being introduced with little regard for the audience’s intelligence, and the show was clearly on its last legs. Strangely, one of the very final episodes, ‘Huggy Can’t Go Home’, recaptures that early spirit and energy, possibly because it was directed by David Soul.