Street Hawk: The Complete Series (1985)

Street Hawk: The Complete Series (1985)

Dirs. Various / 13 eps, approx 48 mins each (the Pilot is 70 mins).

A short-lived TV series about motorcycle-cop Jesse Mach (Rex Smith), a man with a "test pilot mentality" who gets injured in the line of duty but finds new purpose as a government-funded and anonymous do-gooder named Street Hawk!

The bike can reach speeds of 300 mph, which on public roads is as ridiculous (or as amazing) as it sounds. The action scenes are mostly clichéd, including tons of empty cardboard boxes on side streets that cars scatter dramatically as they roar through in hot pursuit of speeding bad guys, but if you're a fan of 80s weekly stuff like The A-Team, then, like me, you may enjoy it, regardless.

The 70 minute Pilot isn't as good as the 12 episodes that follow it, so it'd be advisable to not give up too early if you're willing to give it a try.

Things begin to feel more confident and complete from episode 02, which, incidentally, gets a 'memorable' v/o narration in the opening credits.

- Wet roads at night; get used to seeing them. -

The same episode features a young George Clooney and attempts some emotional investment. It also introduces a new regular female character (Jeannie Wilson), who has a 'will-they-won't-they' kind of relationship with Jesse, but she rarely gets anything interesting to do beyond that.

Norman Tuttle (Joe Regalbuto), creator of the souped-up motorcycle, argues that Jesse is wholly unsuitable to ride his beloved creation, but as time goes on the duo find a comfortable balance of respect and even friendship. The contrasts between them are simplistic TV fare (e.g. Jesse is good with women, whereas Norman is like a fumbling teenager), but at least it tried.

- Norman 'I'll fix your computer' Tuttle and Jesse 'I'll fix your daughter' Mach. -

In some episodes you can almost feel the writer's pain at having to make the motorcycle relevant to the story; it helps that the vehicle can shoot lasers, guns, and even rockets at perps, but sometimes its inclusion is more awkward than useful to the plot - although there's certainly nothing as bad as the mathematically impossible manoeuvre that comes near the end of the Pilot.

A motorcycle doesn't offer much in the way of protection from bullets, and while Jesse's on-the-job outfit isn't bulletproof, he's still pretty safe because the bad guys can't shoot for shit.

The score is by Tangerine Dream, which could be a significant draw for fans of Christopher Franke. There's some chart music, too, but much of it is cover versions (they're cheaper).

I watched the show as a kid, and while it didn't hold up to my memories of it, it's not the worst of the era. I enjoyed the revisit, but it may well have been my last. Although perhaps the best thing about the journey was the aforementioned v/o narration. The speaker puts stresses in odd places in order to make it sound more dramatic, but all he really succeeds in doing is make it more hilarious. It's difficult to accurately convey how it sounds on a page; not the standard /hɔːk/, it's more like Street /haaaaaaaaaaaaɔːk/. I got some quality comedy mileage out of it.

Besides Clooney there were a few other actors that I recognised from other things I've watched; the ones I know the name of are Christopher Lloyd (Star Trek III), Marc Alaimo (DS9), Sybil Danning, and Richard Epcar; the latter I'd not seen before but only heard (Batou in GitS).