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 […]

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This episode has to be the series best so far and for a couple unrelated reasons. First, it’s the most artistic. The story’s simple and unadorned. Rockford’s on a case. Director Vincent McEveety has a bunch of sequences with just music and sound effects, no dialogue. They probably take up a majority of the episode’s […]

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A decent long episode, benefitting greatly from Joseph Cotten’s amusing gust appearance. Unlike the pilot, which felt like an hour-long episode fattened up to fill the longer time slot, this episode actually does have the story to keep it going. There are a lot of characters in the episode and they–in addition to frequent car […]

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Here’s another decent episode–actually, it’s kind of cool, following Rockford on a case with a limited cast (his client, the people they talk to, and a foil), but it’s real problematic. First, the relationship between Jim and the female client has at least two, probably three, scenes where the client’s writing is almost no different […]

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Here’s another episode with way too little story. Rockford suspects–or at least wastes time telling her he suspects her–his client of murdering her husband. He also wastes time suspecting the police department, assuming they’re corrupt instead of doing any investigating. Without the wasted time, the episode would probably run thirty minutes. And maybe it should. […]

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A lovely guest spot from Susan Strasberg can’t hide this episode’s severe deficiencies. The most visible problem is the confused plot–Rockford’s first helping out blackmailed Strasberg, then trying to get himself out from under a murder rap. While the two parts are naturally connected, they aren’t particularly interesting together. It’s like there wasn’t enough story […]

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Two car chases in this episode, the first being a truck chasing a car, the second being at night (doesn’t anyone ever get hurt–bystanders–in private detective show car chases).
The mystery’s decent, with some good scenes–Jim’s trip to Arizona is all summary except the chase, which is a little disappointing–and lots of good comedic moments.
The problem […]

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I think this episode might have been the only non-revival movie episode of “The Rockford Files” I’ve seen. It features a great guest spot from James Woods, a nicely paced mystery and a decent romantic foil for Jim.
The problem? Maybe none. Maybe this episode is indicative of the limitations of the private investigator-centered television drama. […]

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I don’t know what I was expecting from “The Rockford Files.” I mean, I’ve seen it before: the occasional episode and all of the TV movies. But the pilot, while good, is severely lacking.
The problem is with the pacing. “Rockford” doesn’t need an establishing pilot (the majority of the establishing is done in the first […]

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