I'm really not sure why this episode works as well as it does. In coming seasons, a story line like this would spin out of control with gags and craziness (see The Golden Angel for the prime example. Well, don't see it if you can help it.). I don't know if it's Don Weis who should get the credit here or if the whole tone and expectations for the show were just so different in Season 1 compared to later seasons, but I certainly do appreciate how this episode stays together and doesn't run amok.
The setting in a professional wrestling arena with costumed fighters (including some midget wrestlers) could already send the show into comic territory. And there is plenty of joking dialog going on. But PMG and DS stay strongly in their cop-like Starsky and Hutch characters as they work out the motive behind the deaths of three people connected to the arena, so the dialog feels more ironic than comic. When Hutch gets in the ring to take a few falls with a wrestler, he gets to be competent rather than bumbling. When they get trapped and Starsky figures a way to get them out while Hutch is distracted with calculating their odds of survival, this is humorous without being stupid. It just makes me wonder why so many future episodes will get so off-the-wall when it's obviously possible to keep the characters and the story strong even in unusual circumstances. PMG and DS could make just about anything work given the chance, so the fact that so much in the future will be ridiculous and ugly makes no sense at all.
This is not an outstanding episode, but it holds together and it doesn't get stupid. It's as simple as that, yet so easily lost.
The setting in a professional wrestling arena with costumed fighters (including some midget wrestlers) could already send the show into comic territory. And there is plenty of joking dialog going on. But PMG and DS stay strongly in their cop-like Starsky and Hutch characters as they work out the motive behind the deaths of three people connected to the arena, so the dialog feels more ironic than comic. When Hutch gets in the ring to take a few falls with a wrestler, he gets to be competent rather than bumbling. When they get trapped and Starsky figures a way to get them out while Hutch is distracted with calculating their odds of survival, this is humorous without being stupid. It just makes me wonder why so many future episodes will get so off-the-wall when it's obviously possible to keep the characters and the story strong even in unusual circumstances. PMG and DS could make just about anything work given the chance, so the fact that so much in the future will be ridiculous and ugly makes no sense at all.
This is not an outstanding episode, but it holds together and it doesn't get stupid. It's as simple as that, yet so easily lost.
