By season 4 standards this is a pretty good episode. Way better than "Starsky v. Hutch", for example. The writing is still weak, but at least the dynamic between the boys is back to normal. Personally, I like Paul Michael Glaser's direction as well.
5 Reviews
Last one and a decent one
vdoman11 April 2022
Good roller coaster ride to this episode and the whole series. I just finished watching every one in order. I was too wild running around as a kid to watch this series. But now I've had the time to catch up on my favorite'70s series. I've watched the Rockford Files, Six Million Dollar Man, Baretta, The
Big Valley, and Kojak.
Most memorable line from this episode: "Hutch, you gotta get outta here, your plane leaves in 30 minutes!" (He's at the hospital) Those were the days.
Most memorable line from this episode: "Hutch, you gotta get outta here, your plane leaves in 30 minutes!" (He's at the hospital) Those were the days.
pmg
petjack-4810429 August 2021
Together with the avenger, this is one of the best episodes of the 4th season and perhaps of the whole series, a worthy conclusion to a part of history, dark, brutal is the series at its maximum and congratulations as usual to glaser for the direction.
should've/could've lasted 15-20 seasons
AmericanDude4 June 2019
This show was a hit its a insult to humanity this show didn't even make it to 100 episodes. They could've hired some new writers or whatever it took to make this show last. Should have made alot of movies like gunsmoke did withJamess Arness
In memory of Hutch
monomerd24 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The series finale episode is a welcome relief to at last end the carnage of Season 4 and the destruction of a great show. (Unfortunately I still have more of Season 4 to watch; I jumped to the last episode in the hopes of easing the pain with some closure).
We won't get many scenes of Starsky and Hutch together here at the end. PMG is directing this one, so no time for acting. We open with the guys playing ping-pong, competing again, one-on-one against each other, instead of being the team we first came to know and love. Walking to the parking lot, they are ambushed and Starsky is shot in the back. This is their final scene together until the last closing scene. Hutch sits by Starsky's bedside, convinced he will die, and he can't even take his hand. He acts like he's grieving, but this Hutch from Season 4 has very little heart, so it's hard to tell.
Hutch tracks down the person who put the hit on them while Starsky manages to pull thru. The scenes in the middle, where Starsky opens his eyes and Hutch dances around happy that he's alive, are obviously shot separately with PMG and DS not even together. Cut to Starsky in bed, cut to Hutch dancing with nurse. (Real Hutch would have been at Starsky's bedside, welcoming him back from the dead.).
The final scene gives us our four primary actors celebrating in Starsky's hospital room. Hutch is drunk and Starsky is hopped up on pain pills, as an excuse for PMG and DS to barely maintain their characters to the end I'm guessing. Starsky and Hutch demonstrate some final closeness as friends, but after all the distance between them through Season 4, it doesn't help much. Mercifully, it finally ends.
I always thought the demise of Starsky and Hutch came from PMG's dislike for the violence of the show and constantly threatening to quit. But after experiencing Season 4, I see the show was killed by the changes in their relationship and in Hutch's character. I know DS initially thought the Hutch character was too "white bread" and wanted something more meaty. But you can't take the sincere, compassionate, nurturing Hutch from the first two season and turn him into a brooding, angry man; that was not character growth, it was character assassination.
I can say with not much doubt that I will never want to see much of Season 4 again. There are some things DS had going with Hutch that I could have adjusted to, but it was all too much. I feel like Season 4 could have been resolved for me with just a couple scenes in the finale that would have brought Hutch's character back to someone I felt good about. It was not to be.
We won't get many scenes of Starsky and Hutch together here at the end. PMG is directing this one, so no time for acting. We open with the guys playing ping-pong, competing again, one-on-one against each other, instead of being the team we first came to know and love. Walking to the parking lot, they are ambushed and Starsky is shot in the back. This is their final scene together until the last closing scene. Hutch sits by Starsky's bedside, convinced he will die, and he can't even take his hand. He acts like he's grieving, but this Hutch from Season 4 has very little heart, so it's hard to tell.
Hutch tracks down the person who put the hit on them while Starsky manages to pull thru. The scenes in the middle, where Starsky opens his eyes and Hutch dances around happy that he's alive, are obviously shot separately with PMG and DS not even together. Cut to Starsky in bed, cut to Hutch dancing with nurse. (Real Hutch would have been at Starsky's bedside, welcoming him back from the dead.).
The final scene gives us our four primary actors celebrating in Starsky's hospital room. Hutch is drunk and Starsky is hopped up on pain pills, as an excuse for PMG and DS to barely maintain their characters to the end I'm guessing. Starsky and Hutch demonstrate some final closeness as friends, but after all the distance between them through Season 4, it doesn't help much. Mercifully, it finally ends.
I always thought the demise of Starsky and Hutch came from PMG's dislike for the violence of the show and constantly threatening to quit. But after experiencing Season 4, I see the show was killed by the changes in their relationship and in Hutch's character. I know DS initially thought the Hutch character was too "white bread" and wanted something more meaty. But you can't take the sincere, compassionate, nurturing Hutch from the first two season and turn him into a brooding, angry man; that was not character growth, it was character assassination.
I can say with not much doubt that I will never want to see much of Season 4 again. There are some things DS had going with Hutch that I could have adjusted to, but it was all too much. I feel like Season 4 could have been resolved for me with just a couple scenes in the finale that would have brought Hutch's character back to someone I felt good about. It was not to be.
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