Simon revs it up with STREET HAWK on DVD
When youre presented with a synopsis anything like the one that follows, it becomes incredibly difficult to not eat it up and then bask in the undiluted awesomeness of the DVD...
When Jessie Mach is crippled after an assault by an old enemy, his position as motorcycle cop seems finished. That was before a computer technician named Tuttle recruits him for a special government project. He is to be the test pilot for the Street Hawk, an advanced motorcycle that carried tremendous firepower and capable of speeds of over 300 MPH while in a city with little risk of collisions with Tuttle staying at the command center seeing everything Jessie does through the camera in the helmet. This deal includes special surgery to repair his legs while keeping him the facade that he is still handicapped. Unfortunately for Tuttle, Jessie insists to get involved in stopping crime rather than the simple tests Tuttle wants. So now the city has the additional protection of the mysterious superhero known as Streethawk.
Fan-written IMDB synopsises are fantastic. They combine facts with fan passion, and are generally littered with terrible terrible grammatical errors that somehow make them all the more charming. For me, this particular one was the reason behind my agreeing to review Street Hawk, yet another example of the 1980's TV watching public's predilection for super-vehicular madness (think Airwolf and Knight Rider predominantly).
Ordinarily, I would avoid such a series, relying on my sixth sense for these things that was protesting its inevitable shitness, but I was mesmorised by the heady mix of components that could well have made Street Hawk the bona-fide real thing. You see, Ive looked for the worst TV series ever to be screened on US and UK television for some time now, a thankless, and frankly excrutiating endeavour which lately has seen me watching The 10th Kingdom and Manimal recently, only to be left too warm by both. But surely Street Hawk would be the one?
So to the case against- it was a teen-aimed direct pretender to the crown of Knight Rider, it was cancelled half-way through a 13 episode first season run, and featured a main character called Jesse Mach. I am in! That just smells like pure gold-plated shite.
But then I pressed play.
Many, many people who know me would tell you I have sometimes questionable taste in movies and TV shows, mixing the sublime with the ridiculous within my collection- and a few would probably even accuse me of being too kind to certain projects out of loyalty to a director/actor/studio. In my defence, I have a penchant for the terrible end of the quality spectrum and am endlessly fascinated in the human potential to make a mockery of art- I saw Godzilla three times at my local cinema (though even I couldnt stretch as far as staying in one memorably torturous cinema screening of Romi and Michelle's High School Reunion). And in line with this fetish, I love TV programmes that are so very cliched or an obvious and cynical attempt to draw on the success of another, similar project that they are little more than enjoyable pastiches, marrying the best qualities of their competitors and predecessors, but making sure no actual brain-work went into their formation.
Street Hawk is immediately obviously one of those pastiche pieces- it is terrifically ludicrous from start to finish and is as far away from high-brow entertainment as could possibly ever be achieved. Unlike Tarantino's method of pastiche, as hinted above, there is nothing clever about the way Street Hawk imitates Knight Rider, other than in purely financial objectives (though cancellation can hardly have helped there much), and as such the TV series would struggle to ever transcend the comparison- doomed to be perpetually included in the rather sad sounding triumverate alongside Knight Rider and Air Wolf. Doomed even further, and in no way down to their own misgivings, to be associaed with everything about the 80s that the 90s apparently "fixed".
Sadly, like Knight Rider before it, and Air Wolf too, Street Hawk has aged remarkably badly. In all cases, the major issue is not the deficiancies of the technologies behind filming in the 80s, even though it does look grainier than a beach- because certain series, like Moonlighting, can rise above those obvious limitations to be more timeless- it is rather a more ingrained problem to do with how the series created a moel of futurism. All of these vehicular programmes depended upon a fairly realistic portrait of near-future techonology, so in 1982 Kitt looked only slightly futuristic, but was still covered in enough knobs and bright coloured plastic lights to look decidely "of the future". Even more sadly, the future that Street Hawk and its ilk promised never really arrived, and it became almost immediately outdated by our own boring hover-boardless future.
The acting skills on show are perhaps best viewed in the right context- Rex Smith (a proper macho 70s/80s actor name) and Joe Regalbuto manage to show reasonable chemistry, and their banter is enjoyable, but they are largely victims of terrible scripting. The limitations of the concept show far too clearly in the limitations of the script, and the set-pieces, while impressive in part, feel all too samey, stretched too thinly across the concept of an undercover cop/vigilante biker. It is this context that makes the series so ludicrous, and subsequently so mindlessly enjoyable.
In the end of course Street Hawk was cancelled. A consequence of costing somewher around $1m an episode and yet looking cheap in comparison to Knight Rider, and of being screened at the same time as the immensely successful Macgyver. But it was never really because the programme never lived up to expectations- indeed it is loved to this day as a legend. That it is no doubt protected by the rose-tinted goodness of memory is inevitable, and some people are bound to be confronted by a different reality to the way hey remembered the series when they do shell out for this box-set, but they will probably be in the minority. Fans of the show will adore being able to buy it after 25 long years, and are unlikely to be put off by anything, and just as likely, this release will win the series precious few new fans. It is too much of another time. Pure and simple.
And those old fans will definitely eat it up. Everything that made it so enjoyable to them first time round is preserved on the DVD release, with the pleasant addition of some good behind the scenes Extras. If the people that matter can see fit to release the excellent soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, which is still the best ever TV soundtrack music, then the rabid and vocal fans who called for the DVD release for so long will have their dream scenario complete.
If you need convincing any further that Street Hawk is the ultimate blend of the genius and the heinous, it briefly had George Clooney in it, many many years before he would hit silver-haired ex-God status, and by the look of it, a good few years before he was fixing babies hearts, and breaking their mothers' on ER. Oh, and Christopher Lloyd pops up too, minus the wispy white hair and the "Great Scot!" and all that.
It is surely only a matter of time before Hollywood commissions a remake.
Sadly for me, it isnt the worst TV programme ever made. And yet, it is in no way anywhere near the best TV series about bikes- that prestigious honour goes to the frankly peerless Sons of Anarchy (which was just released on DVD in the UK last week as well).
Episode List:
Street Hawk (90min pilot) A Second Self (50min) The Adjuster Vegas Run Dog Eat Dog Fire on the Wing Chinatown Memories The Unsinkable 453 Hot Target Murder is a Novel Idea The Arabian Female of the Species (a.k.a. The Assassin) Follow the Yellow Gold Road