"This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message and I'll get back to you." - Jim Rockford (James Garner) on his Dictaphone at the start of each episode
The Rockford Files: Season Two DVD Review
By Jude Clement
The L.A.P.D. investigates many cases every year, and not all of them are brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes they can't find enough evidence, sometimes they pursue the wrong leads, and sometimes the trail is colder than an ice cream sundae. If Detective Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) declares a case dead, then private investigator Jim Rockford (James Garner) will be happy to take it on.for a price, of course.
Rockford is eager to solve forgotten criminal cases because he himself was wrongly convicted of a crime several years earlier. He was eventually exonerated, but can still feel the effects of his conviction. The police and the feds don't quite trust him, and he still isn't allowed to carry a gun. Jim's father Rocky (Noah Beery, Jr.), a retired trucker, wishes his son would pick a safer profession.
Jim charges $200 a day plus expenses. Pricey? Sure, but so is Rockford's quarter page ad in the phonebook. Not that Rockford ever actually makes any money. One reason is that this tough guy is really a softie at heart. He can't resist helping out family and friends, often providing his services gratis. In the first four episodes of the season alone, Jim tries to protect his childhood foster brother from the feds and the mob ("The Aaron Ironwood School of Success"), helps Becker extract himself from a mob-controlled real estate swindle ("The Farnsworth Stratagem"), and saves Rocky from an assassination attempt ("Gearjammers Part 1" and "Gearjammers Part 2"). His girlfriend, attorney Beth Davenport (Gretchen Corbett), is usually around to help bail Jim out of sticky situations, but in season two, she finds herself needing his help ("A Portrait of Elizabeth," "In Hazard").
Rockford also has a knack for picking the wrong clients. Angel Martin (Stuart Margolin) served time with Rockford and often tries to "help" Jim with his cases. Angel is shifty yet benign, but Jim should know better when he comes around asking for aid ("Chicken Little is a Little Chicken"). Jim also agrees to work for a thuggish former cellmate ("The Hammer of C Block"), an unscrupulous art collector ("The Italian Bird Fiasco"), a former parole officer ("Foul on the First Play"), and a heartless ex-girlfriend ("A Bad Deal in the Valley"). Good luck collecting your fee when your client turns out to be on the wrong side of the law!
Jim also manages to stumble across a variety of schemes and swindles while investigating his cases. In "The Great Blue Lake Land and Development Company," a stolen briefcase containing $10,000 in bail money leads Rockford to uncover a real estate scam. In "Pastoria Prime Pick," he discovers that a small town is setting up visitors for crimes they didn't commit and charging them exorbitant fines in order to bulk up the city's coffers.
Most of the mysteries in The Rockford Files aren't very mysterious, but with a lead like James Garner, this hardly matters. Ruggedly handsome Garner plays Rockford with an easygoing charm that effortlessly leaves the audience rooting for the character. The cases are almost secondary.
Also entertaining is the relationship between Rocky and Jim. Rocky is convinced that he knows what is best for Jim. His conviction that Jim will get hurt is quite touching, especially since Rocky never seems to notice when he himself is in danger.
Familiar faces in season two include James Hampton (F-Troop), Pat Finley (The Bob Newhart Show), Gerald McRaney (Simon and Simon), Linda Evans (Dynasty), Rosemary DeCamp (That Girl), Joe E. Tata (Beverly Hills, 90210), Michael Conrad (Hill Street Blues), Robert Hays (Angie), Dana Elcar (MacGyver), Noble Willingham (Walker, Texas Ranger), Stefanie Powers (Hart to Hart), Joan Van Ark (Knots Landing), John Lawlor (The Facts of Life), Charles Napier (The Critic), Richard Herd (T.J. Hooker), Bill Quinn (Archie Bunker's Place), Jenny O'Hara (The Facts of Life), Blair Brown (The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd), Isaac Hayes (South Park), Rob Reiner (All in the Family), Dick Butkus, John Saxon, Joseph Campanella (Mannix), Linda Dano (Guiding Light), William Daniels (St. Elsewhere), Ron Silver (Rhoda), Robert Mandan (Soap), Dabbs Greer (Little House on the Prairie), David White (Bewitched), Jayne Kennedy, Louis Gossett, Jr. (Roots), Susan Strasberg (Toma), Jack Colvin (The Incredible Hulk), Veronica Hamel (Hill Street Blues), and Gordon Jump (WKRP in Cincinnati).
The twenty-two episodes that make up the second season are divided onto six single-sided discs. This will come as a welcome relief to many fans of Universal TV shows who complained that the studio's previous use of double-sided discs sometimes led to frozen, buggy images. Since the number of discs has been effectively doubled from the first season, the packaging style has also been changed. The discs are housed in a foldout case decorated with production stills. The six discs attach to three panels - each of the panels holds two discs (one on top of the other) in a figure eight pattern. The back panel of the foldout case lists the title of each episode along with a brief synopsis. The case slides into a cardboard sleeve featuring a composite photo of Rockford on the beach at sunset.
The menus are easy to navigate. From the Dictaphone-themed main menu, viewers can play all of the disc's episodes, visit the episode index, or navigate to the languages menu. The episode index menus contain stills from the episodes along with the episode titles. Upon choosing an individual episode, the episode begins to play automatically. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
Disc one contains several "forced" trailers and commercials for other Universal DVD releases. Viewers can press the menu button on their remote to skip these promos, but they cannot use the skip button to bypass individual promos for releases in which they aren't interested. This doesn't seem like a very effective marketing move.
