This is the obligatory episode to raise your awareness of a current social problem. All successful TV shows seem to take up a cause or two and create a story to make their viewers aware. In the 70s, it was child abuse, domestic abuse, and drug abuse. Today the list is quite different, but you will still see it happening at least once a season on most shows. Both comedies and dramas found ways to use their characters to get the audience's attention on societal ills.
This show didn't age that well because Starsky and Hutch are so ignorant of the issues of child abuse, and that just isn't the same these days. They don't know the basic things that most people just understand about abuse victims in this day and age (such as, victims will lie to protect their abusers) so it makes the show feel out-of-date. Also out-of-date is the total lack of options they have to take care of the children while the abuse is being investigated.
I guess the fact that this episode seems so out-of-date is a positive thing and perhaps means that shows such as these may really raise awareness and help lead to more and better resources. Starsky and Hutch and the social worker actually have a conversation in the final scene about the expectation that this kind of abuse and policing of it will improve substantially in their lifetime. Forty years have gone by, and it seems to me there has been significant progress.
This show didn't age that well because Starsky and Hutch are so ignorant of the issues of child abuse, and that just isn't the same these days. They don't know the basic things that most people just understand about abuse victims in this day and age (such as, victims will lie to protect their abusers) so it makes the show feel out-of-date. Also out-of-date is the total lack of options they have to take care of the children while the abuse is being investigated.
I guess the fact that this episode seems so out-of-date is a positive thing and perhaps means that shows such as these may really raise awareness and help lead to more and better resources. Starsky and Hutch and the social worker actually have a conversation in the final scene about the expectation that this kind of abuse and policing of it will improve substantially in their lifetime. Forty years have gone by, and it seems to me there has been significant progress.
