A Televisual Feast

This episode hinges on Joan Van Ark’s performance. I think that sentence sums it up.

It’s a standard, unimaginative “Rockford” episode, gliding as much as it can on Garner’s charm. There’s not even a car chase. All the best moments with Rocky are–seemingly–off-screen, but there’s a good bit with Dennis. It seems like most of the middling episodes come from a Roy Huggins story (credited as John Thomas James, which has been confusing me for nine episodes) and this one might be the worst.

Van Ark could maybe have handled being the client who disappears after hiring Rockford, but she’s in it the whole episode–in love with the mobster who has to kill her, but she still loves him–and it suffers. It’s also a bit goofy, with Rockford constantly pointing a pistol at mobster Paul Michael Glaser.

Glaser’s pretty good, actually, even if he’s a tad young looking.

Since Van Ark’s worst acting comes at the end, most of the episode’s fair until then.

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