The Rockford Files: Season 4

The Rockford Files (1974-80) NBC. (5 and a Half Seasons)5 emmys the All-Time # 1 PI series. James Garner {Jim Rockford}, Noah Beery {Rocky},Joe Santos {Dennis}, Stuart Margolin {Angel}.Rockford always got the oddball cases that put him in tight spots; beat up often, lots of car chases, but he always managed to come out on top with his cons & routines. Co-star his Pontiac Firebird Classic Sports Car, {The Rockfordmobile}, that out-ran all the baddies. His Texas characters, printing press, and routines are classics! Began as a spin-off from Jack Webb's Adam-12, laid the groundwork for the series, with Jim in trouble with the law. (Jim, Jimbo, Jimmy) almost NEVER got paid!Feb 2005 James Garner received the 41st Lifetime Achievement AwardSeason 1 : 23 mostly great eps including 9 Classics! Season 2 : 22 mostly great eps including 8 Classics! Season 3 : 22 mostly great eps including 8 Classics! Season 4 : 21 mostly great eps including 14 Classics! Season 5 : 22 mostly great eps only 6 Classics though, Season 6 was a HALF SEASON CRAPPY 12 eps NOT UP TO James Garner's standard, only 2 were any good, which is partly why the show was cancelled. I DID NOT BUY SEASON 6!!!SEASON 4 IS BY FAR THE BEST SEASON 14 / 21 eps = 67% CLASSICS!!!If Universal would release the 2nd DVD of Rockfird Files 1990s Movies.....If WB would just release Bret Maverick The Lazy Ace (1980) the world would be a better place

Very clever episodes. Surpassed my expectations. Just great

With so much junk on current TV, it's a pleasure to be able to acquire classic TV series' like Rockford Files (and Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Columbo, Perry Mason and others). There are only one or two shows on TV these days worth watching (NCIS and Bones). Most of the shows on TV are vulgar, violent, unfunny and promote offensive social or sexual agendas. The comedies (both live and animated) are included in that description and even game shows (Jeopardy clues are starting to be Left-leaning or presented by left-leaning celebrities and celebrity politicians including the current residents of the White House which is disrespectful of the office in my opinion). The reality shows are unreal and stupid with most having mercenary goals. And don't even get me started on the low morals and quality of Saturday morning cartoons. My TV is usually nothing more than a monitor for my DVD collection.

This show is about crime, and people in distress, etc., all of the same material covered by today's crime dramas. However, too many of today's U.S.-produced crime dramas (I exclude the many fine British crime dramas being broadcast by public television) focus on graphic depictions low-life people dedicated to violence, drugs, sex, etc. The values of too many of the people who live in the world of entertainment are a disgrace to themselves and others, and far too often the movies and television shows that they produce are saturated with their own low-life ways of living. Rockford is a welcome respite from the trash now on television, and the chance to watch them without advertising is so wonderful, that I will keep buying the seasons of Rockford until all of them are gone.

This 1977-78 Season was a wonderful season of the ROCKFORD FILES along with the fact that the 4th Season of this detective drama was probably the 2nd best season of the ROCKFORD FILES as well, since it was the last season with my favorite character which was the down-on-his-luck private dick Jim Rockford(James Garner) foxy attorney girlfriend Beth Davenport(Gretchen Corbett)and Becker's skeptical superior officer Lt. Diehl(Tom Atkins) along with the fact that Beth made the episodes of Rockford more interesting.Unfortunately Gretchen Corbett abruptly quit the show in the Winter of 1978 due to a salary dispute Corbett had over her contract with Universal leaving us mourning the loss of Beth on this private detective drama which was such a shame on her abrupt departure in the second half of Rockford's Fourth Season in January of 1978 leaving no Beth in the last 2 seasons, which made it less interesting and less dramatic since Rockford didn't have Beth defending him anymore to be a buffer between him and Becker's hard-nosed superior officer Lt. Doug Chapman(James Luisi)a.k.a. "Chappy" whenever Rockford got arrested and/or in hot water in the Fifth and Sixth Seasons along with the fact that the last 2 seasons didn't have that chemisty kind of client/attorney relationship along with Becker's fondness and support towards Beth as well along with the fact that Beth was my favorite character on this show and always seemed to have a way of making people pay more attention and listen to her whenever Rockford was in trouble or arrested, even with Becker's overzealous superior officers(Lt. Chapman and Lt. Diehl), which obviously despised Rockford very much & constantly kept looking for excuses to bust Rockford & to get his P.I. license cancelled yet Beth still seemed to always manage finding a way to make Chapman & Diehl listen to her even though Rockford's frequent help from his often frustrated cop buddy Det. Dennis Becker(Joe Santos)from the LAPD often put Becker on a back-burner with Diehl and Chapman.Unfortunately, when Beth abruptly departed the show, especially in the Fifth Season, Chappy didn't seem to pay much attention to Rockford's reasons or logics whenever Rockford was arrested and/or in hot water, since Rockford didn't have Beth to back him up anymore, which really sucked and was a tad similar to how it was when Amy Allen(Melinda Culea)was abruptly dropped from THE A-TEAM in the second half of the A-TEAM's 2nd Season when Culea was fired for being too tomboyish.I also noticed Rockford's 4th Season was that both the inclusive Beth and Rockford's sleazy manipulative ex-con buddy Angel Martin(Stu Margolin) seemed to have started coming out less and less often in the 4th Season and that Chapman didn't seem to come out much in this season either and that Chappy started coming out quite a bit more often in the following season(1978-79 Season)with Beth gone even though Angel continued to appear in lesser episodes in the remaining 2 seasons of this private detective show as well.Therefore, Beth and Angel came out a lot more often in the first 3 seasons of this show than they did in the last 3 seasons of Rockford along with the fact that Beth was no longer on the show anymore and made her last appearance in "The Attractive Nuisance" episode, since Beth supposedly moved away and started a law office of her own in the second half of Rockford's Fourth Season when she had given Rockford and Angel the news in the "Forced Retirement" episode that she was resigning from the Hartcourt & Lowe firm in L.A.Now that the ROCKFORD FILES Fourth Season and Fifth Season are on DVD, I hope to see Rockford's Sixth Season released on DVD by the end of this year(2008)along with the fact that the ROCKFORD FILES-Season 6 would be a great X-Mas gift for this year if it were released by late November and early December of 2008.I also thought it was interesting seeing guest stars like*Singers Dionne Warwick & the late great Isaac Hayes in the "Second Chance" episode*Gerald McRaney in the "Hotel Fear" episode before his co-starring days as the short-tempered gonzo private-detective(Rick Simon) on SIMON & SIMON and before his co-starring days on MAJOR DAD, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, & PROMISED LAND.*Larry Hagman in the "Forced Retirement" episode after his co-starring days as Major Nelson on I DREAM OF JEANNIE days and before his co-starring days as the salty J.R. Ewing on DALLAS.*Singer Rick Springfield in the "Dwarf In A Helium Hat" episode before his teen idol days as a musician before he got famous from his song "Jessie's Girl".*Larry Linville in the "Deadly Maze" episode during his co-starring days on M.A.S.H.*George Wyner in the "Queen Of Peru" episode before his co-starring days on the detective drama MATT HOUSTON and on the police drama HILL STREET BLUES.*James Whitmore, Jr. in the "Beamer's Last Case" episode way before his co-starring days as Hunter and McCall's incompetent fellow officer(Det. Bernie Terwiller) on the police drama HUNTER.*Lance LeGault in the "A Deadly Maze" episode before his co-starring days as the bitter Army nemesis(Col.Decker)on THE A-TEAM and before his co-starring days as Magnum's skeptical Naval nemesis(Col. Buck Green) on MAGNUM, P.I.*Dennis Fimple in "The Prisoner Of Rosemont Hall" episode before his co-starring days on MATT HOUSTON.*Quinn Redekker in the "Quickie Nirvana" episode before his co-starring days as Rex Sterling on THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS*Oscar nominee(Rita Moreno) in "The Paper Palace" episode*Bill Boyett in "The Competitive Edge" episode after his co-starring days as Sgt. MacDonald on ADAM-12*Meredith Mac Rae in the "Requiem Of A Funny Box" episode after her co-starring days as Billy Jo Bradley on both PETTICOAT JUNCTION & THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES*Mills Watson in the "Gang At Don's Drive-In" episode before his co-starring days as the doofus Deputy Perkins on SHERIFF LOBOIn addition to why this 1977-78 Season DVD of Rockford was so cool, I thought it was cool how the ROCKFORD FILES-Season 4 DVD provided a bonus episode from Rockford's 5th Season by adding the "White On White & Nearly Perfect" episode on it, which was from the 1978-79 Season of Rockford on NBC, which by the way was one of my favorite episodes of Rockford along with the fact that the "White On White & Nearly Perfect" episode was almost like a preminition of Tom Selleck's days on the detective drama MAGNUM, P.I.Therefore, I would also have to say that Rockford's Fourth Season was definitely one of my favorite season throughout the ROCKFORD FILES whole 6-year run on NBC.The one thing I don't understand is on the bonus features on this DVD when the producers and critics of the ROCKFORD FILES were all talking about this show and looking back on it during the days when the ROCKFORD FILES was a big hit TV show in the 1970's, they had exaggerrated when they had explained that Rockford was the one private investigator that just could not fight, since he used to get beat up a lot, but that I know that was not true, because the only time Rockford would get beat up was when there were 2 or more people ganging up on Rockford, but Rockford would usually beat up the goones that jumped him if Rockford was fighting them in a fair fight, especially when Rockford fought his opponents one-on-one or one at a time.Therefore, the truth of the matter is even though Rockford would get beat up quite a bit throughout the ROCKFORD FILES whole 6-year run on NBC, Rockford would kick a lot of ass too and was not too bad of a fighter either, but this show kind of reminded me of the detective show MANNIX, since it was quite similar to the ROCKFORD FILES along with the fact that Mannix(Michael Connors) used to get beat up a lot too along with the fact that MANNIX took place in the L.A. Area on top of that.Something else I noticed about this 1977-1978 Season was Rockford's Firebird wasn't quite the same Firebird he used in the first 3 seasons of the ROCKFORD FILES, because I noticed that in the last 3 seasons of this show that the grill on Rockford's gold Firebird was different and more slanted than the grill was from Season 1-3, even though Rockfords Firebird was supposedly the same car throughout the ROCKFORD FILES whole 1974-80 run on NBC.This was also probably one of Rockford's better years since this was the season before James Garner's health problems and newer more popular shows like the DUKES OF HAZZARD had led to the ROCKFORD FILES cancellation on NBC with its last episode "Deadlock In Parma" on Thursday January 10, 1980, but this show still inspired the premiere of newer detective shows in the 80's like MAGNUM, PI which debuted on CBS in December of 1980 and SIMON & SIMON which debuted on CBS in November of 1981.It was also a lot better & nicer to watch these episodes of Rockford complete & uncut like they were originally shown on their original air-dates on NBC unlike they were shown in reruns on A&E, TNN, TV Land, WGN, and ME-TV since they edited each episode with too many deleted scenes to allot more time for more commercial interruptions.So now that Universal has released just about all 6 seasons of the ROCKFORD FILES out on DVD, we can now look forward to the private detective drama MATT HOUSTON-Season 1 being releasing on DVD on Tuesday March 9th, 2010 and the detective drama SIMON & SIMON-Season 4 being released on DVD on Tuesday April 6th, 2010 which gives us 2 new classic private detective dramas to look forward to for the Spring of 2010.

The ONLY reason I purchased this particular Season ( Season 4) is to have a permanent copy of the episode entitled "The House on Willis Street".This episode explains a lot about Homeland Security and how the Government was collecting Metadata on Private Citizens as far back as the 70's.Great Show.