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An Overview of the Starsky & Hutch TV Show
The Starsky & Hutch television series
consisted of a 90-minute pilot movie (originally aired as a
Movie of the Week entry) and 92 episodes of 60 minutes each;
created by William Blinn, produced by Spelling-Goldberg
Productions, and broadcast between April 30, 1975 and May
15, 1979 on the ABC network; distributed by Columbia
Pictures Television in the United States and, originally,
Metromedia Producers Corporation in Canada and some other
parts of the world. Sony Pictures Television is now the
worldwide distributor for the series.
Starsky & Hutch Television Series - Season Episodes on DVD
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Starsky & Hutch TV Series - The
Complete First Season on DVD (1975)
Amazon.com DVD Review - In the rough-and-tumble,
wildly entertaining world of Starsky & Hutch,
impatient cops--anxious to join a foot race in
pursuit of a villain--throw themselves out of moving
vehicles and roll to a bruising stop. Undercover
detectives Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and
Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (David Soul), hardly imbued
with the powers of Spider-Man, routinely scale
walls, hop from rooftop to rooftop, and fling
themselves down steep hillsides to stop bad guys
from doing what bad guys do. Two years before Hill
Street Blues redefined the cop genre as a mesh of
overlapping storylines and workaday frustrations,
Aaron Spelling's Starsky & Hutch capped a five-year
run (1975-1979) portraying LA's finest as madly
heroic creatures of reckless determination and
physicality. The Complete First Season reminds us
how startlingly brutal this primetime series could
be while maintaining a delightful, often
incongruous, self-deprecating humor. From the series
pilot on, partners and best pals Starsky and Hutch
work a fine line between predator and prey,
relentlessly pursuing suspects while also snared by
crime chieftains or short-sighted superiors. In "The
Fix," Hutch's secret romance with the former
girlfriend of a mafia boss (Robert Loggia) results
in the lawman's kidnapping and forced addiction to
heroin. Similarly, in "A Coffin for Starsky," a mad
chemist injects the wisecracking cop with a
slow-acting but lethal poison. "Jo-Jo," written by
Michael Mann, finds our guys at loggerheads with
federal officers over a dumb deal the G-Men make
with a serial rapist. The 23 episodes in this set
are all fun, if sometimes shocking, viewing. Expect
each character to take as much abuse as he dishes
out. Still, the comic sight of Starsky and Hutch (in
"Death Notice") trying to conduct business amidst
busy strippers is well worth the surrounding
violence. --Tom Keogh |
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Starsky & Hutch - The Complete
Second Season (1975)
Amazon.com DVD Review - Starsky & Hutch: The
Complete Second Season proves the 1970s ABC series,
in its sophomore year, both codified its earliest
strengths while continuing to evolve into a sharper,
wittier, and often darker show. Contributing to
those improvements were the stars themselves: David
Soul (who plays maverick police detective,
intellectual, and health nut Ken Hutchinson) and
Paul Michael Glaser (as Hutch's more impulsive,
junk-food-junkie partner Dave Starsky), each of whom
directed exemplary episodes in season 2. Series
creators also struck a more entertaining balance
between the comic and dramatic possibilities
inherent in Starsky and Hutch's bluntly honest,
fraternal relationship. A number of stories placed
the guys in intentionally funny undercover
situations: as garish gamblers in the two-part
opener "The Las Vegas Strangler;" entertainment
directors (named Hack and Zack) on a luxury cruise
ship in "Murder at Sea;" gigolo-like dance
aficionados in the playfully-titled "Tap Dancing Her
Way Right Back into Your Hearts;" and, most
amusingly, stunt men in "Murder on Stage 17."
Those are all good shows, and the duo often bicker
within them, to great comic effect, like an old
married couple. (Soul and Glaser's commitment to
their schtick as well as their more emotionally raw
collaborations is truly admirable.) But it's the
relentlessly tougher episodes that prove each
character's mettle and demonstrates the depth of
Starsky and Hutch's mutual trust. Among these is the
powerful "Gillian," in which Starsky discovers
Hutch's classy new girlfriend is a prostitute and
breaks the news to his shattered friend. Somewhat
lighter but just as revealing is "Little Girl Lost,"
starring a young Kristy McNichol as an orphaned
street urchin whom Hutch, lately in a misanthropic,
anti-Christmas mood, takes into his home. Glaser's
directorial debut, the harrowing "Bloodbath," gives
Soul a lot of room for an intensely physical and
psychological performance as Hutch scurries to find
his kidnapped partner. Soul returns the favor with
"Survival," in which Starsky desperately seeks his
missing pal, trapped and slowly dying beneath a car
wreck. All in all, a very good season, with (of
course) Antonio Fargas still sharp as sidekick Huggy
Bear. --Tom Keogh |
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Starsky & Hutch - The Complete
Third Season (1975)
Starsky & Hutch, starring Pail Michael Glaser and
David Soul, is the epitome of the hip, 70s buddy cop
show. Season Three reacted to criticism about the
hit series boundary-pushing violence by pumping up
the serious drama. The 1977-1978 season tackled
socially relevant themes like child abuse,
homosexuality and mental illness mixing "issues"
with tire-squealing car chases, gunplay and colorful
recurring characters like jive-talking Huggy Bear
(Antonio Fargas) and quick-tempered Captain Dobey
(Bernie Hamilton). A dazzling array of guest stars
including Danny DeVito, Melanie Griffith, Suzanne
Somers, Joan Collins and Philip Michael Thomas (TV’s
"Miami Vice") shared screen time with the two
handsome cops, who directed some Season Three
episodes. The show’s outrageous style and
tongue-in-cheek humor, now played alongside more
serious story lines, made STARSKY & HUTCH one of the
most popular and innovative cop shows ever. |
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Starsky &
Hutch - The Complete Fourth Season (1975)
Studio:
Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 10/17/2006 Run
time: 1080 minutes
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