personally I have always felt that Starsky had a lot of internalized homophobia to work on (there is an episode where he finds out a mentor was gay, and he clearly has SO MUCH TROUBLE DEALING, and there is at least one scene in that episode -- they are in a car, talking, and it reads to me a lot like Hutch is treading very carefully not to give away his total crush on Starsky so as not to freak him the hell more out than he already is, and and...I need to go read some S/H RIGHT NOW.)