The Rockford Files

[Pahonu]

Enjoying the episodes but to be honest The Rockford Files hasn't really gripped me that much. Don't kill me.

So what you're really saying is that by this point in your Five-O viewing you were chewing your fingernails with eager excitement and combing your hair in the style of Jack Lord. Not the case here, eh?

It's weird. I like him fine. I like his one liners and his sneakiness. He's a cool character. Just not hooked. Maybe I just don't think the stories have been all that great.

The stories definitely get better and more unique, particularly those involving his ex-con buddies Angel and Gandy.

[Pahonu]

The Big Ripoff

Suzanne Somers - Wow. Young.

Pretty good.

Enjoy Jim's antics and techniques.

He gets beat up (and stiffed) a lot.

I only saw it once a few years back (when it was streaming on Netflix) but honestly I can't recall much about it, other than Suzanne Somers in a non-speaking part circling around some car (playing the ditzy blond stereotype I think). Also Jill Clayburgh as the main guest star but what her story was or how she figures in the plot I honestly can't remember. Guess it didn't leave much of an impression.

Enjoying the episodes but to be honest The Rockford Files hasn't really gripped me that much. Don't kill me.

So what you're really saying is that by this point in your Five-O viewing you were chewing your fingernails with eager excitement and combing your hair in the style of Jack Lord. Not the case here, eh?

It’s funny you said that because McGarrett and Rockford both had a bit of the pompadour with sideburns going! I never made that connection before.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

Enjoying the episodes but to be honest The Rockford Files hasn't really gripped me that much. Don't kill me.

So what you're really saying is that by this point in your Five-O viewing you were chewing your fingernails with eager excitement and combing your hair in the style of Jack Lord. Not the case here, eh?

It's weird. I like him fine. I like his one liners and his sneakiness. He's a cool character. Just not hooked. Maybe I just don't think the stories have been all that great.

One thing I noticed about ROCKFORD is a lot of the stories deal with organized crime, the syndicate, etc. (especially as the series progressed). Not sure if that's your bag or not. With MPI it's quite a bit different - less organized crime stories. More island flavor. With ROCKFORD it's mobsters and unions and other underworld figures. Maybe it's a Southern California/L.A. thing. Seems like every other episode dealt with organized crime in some way. With names like Muzzy Vinette or Joseph Minette, etc. I lost track how many times I heard about the Minette crime family on the show. And I was like "hey, didn't they just bust some Minette guy like 2 episodes back? Is this a different Minette now? How many Minettes are there?" But the show was always well written and acted so I wasn't too bothered by this. But MPI does offer more variety I think. You won't find a "supernatural" episode on TRF that's for sure. The show is too grounded and too cynical for something like that.

[Pahonu]

Enjoying the episodes but to be honest The Rockford Files hasn't really gripped me that much. Don't kill me.

So what you're really saying is that by this point in your Five-O viewing you were chewing your fingernails with eager excitement and combing your hair in the style of Jack Lord. Not the case here, eh?

It's weird. I like him fine. I like his one liners and his sneakiness. He's a cool character. Just not hooked. Maybe I just don't think the stories have been all that great.

One thing I noticed about ROCKFORD is a lot of the stories deal with organized crime, the syndicate, etc. (especially as the series progressed). Not sure if that's your bag or not. With MPI it's quite a bit different - less organized crime stories. More island flavor. With ROCKFORD it's mobsters and unions and other underworld figures. Maybe it's a Southern California/L.A. thing. Seems like every other episode dealt with organized crime in some way. With names like Muzzy Vinette or Joseph Minette, etc. I lost track how many times I heard about the Minette crime family on the show. And I was like "hey, didn't they just bust some Minette guy like 2 episodes back? Is this a different Minette now? How many Minettes are there?" But the show was always well written and acted so I wasn't too bothered by this. But MPI does offer more variety I think. You won't find a "supernatural" episode on TRF that's for sure. The show is too grounded and too cynical for something like that.

Good catch. It’s much more of a David Chase thing, as in The Sopranos, than an LA thing. He wrote like 20 episodes and produced many also. The mob isn’t really very big or influential here in LA and never has been, but you wouldn’t think so from Rockford. The “ette” suffix was used repeatedly for mob member’s names, like Manette, Frachette, etc…. Many were repeated and fans have joked about all these mob elements.

Yes, the closest Rockford got to anything supernatural were the few encounters with new age religious characters, my favorite being from Quickie Nirvana, but that’s not the same really.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

Enjoying the episodes but to be honest The Rockford Files hasn't really gripped me that much. Don't kill me.

So what you're really saying is that by this point in your Five-O viewing you were chewing your fingernails with eager excitement and combing your hair in the style of Jack Lord. Not the case here, eh?

It's weird. I like him fine. I like his one liners and his sneakiness. He's a cool character. Just not hooked. Maybe I just don't think the stories have been all that great.

One thing I noticed about ROCKFORD is a lot of the stories deal with organized crime, the syndicate, etc. (especially as the series progressed). Not sure if that's your bag or not. With MPI it's quite a bit different - less organized crime stories. More island flavor. With ROCKFORD it's mobsters and unions and other underworld figures. Maybe it's a Southern California/L.A. thing. Seems like every other episode dealt with organized crime in some way. With names like Muzzy Vinette or Joseph Minette, etc. I lost track how many times I heard about the Minette crime family on the show. And I was like "hey, didn't they just bust some Minette guy like 2 episodes back? Is this a different Minette now? How many Minettes are there?" But the show was always well written and acted so I wasn't too bothered by this. But MPI does offer more variety I think. You won't find a "supernatural" episode on TRF that's for sure. The show is too grounded and too cynical for something like that.

Good catch. It’s much more of a David Chase thing, as in The Sopranos, than an LA thing. He wrote like 20 episodes and produced many also. The mob isn’t really very big or influential here in LA and never has been, but you wouldn’t think so from Rockford. The “ette” suffix was used repeatedly for mob member’s names, like Manette, Frachette, etc…. Many were repeated and fans have joked about all these mob elements.

Yes, the closest Rockford got to anything supernatural were the few encounters with new age religious characters, my favorite being from Quickie Nirvana, but that’s not the same really.

Yep, I forgot about Frachette. There sure were many "-ettes" in the underworld, weren't there? They did come up with some really memorable names though - gotta give 'em that. I'm thinking of "Anthony Boy" Gagglio, who was a hood. Or a "torpedo" as McGarrett would probably call him. "Muzzy" Vinette was a cool name from "The Kirkoff Case". A former boxer turned hood with a busted windpipe, who spoke with a raspy voice of course. He worked for Abe Vigoda's mobster character Al Dancer. There was also a Max Savatgy in "A Deadly Maze" whose ethnicity I'm not sure about. Last name was pronounced "Savadji". Turkish maybe? Azerbaijani? Georgian? Not sure. And then there were those Armenian hoods (the Boyajian brothers I think) in "Rattlers Class of '63". So TRF went international too when it came to hoods and gangsters.

[T.Q.]

Find Me If You Can

In Pursuit of Carol Thorne

Okay episodes.

Enjoying seeing old stars (a ton from M*A*S*H).

I may not do episode to episode "reviews" for TRF.

To be honest, I loved Hawaii Five-O, but even half way through that it became a drag doing the reviews. Became a chore.

As long as I keep watching Rockford I will post occasionally on any stand-out episodes (for me).

Sorry Z-Ivan. Don't BAMBOO CAGE me.

[Pahonu]

Find Me If You Can

In Pursuit of Carol Thorne

Okay episodes.

Enjoying seeing old stars (a ton from M*A*S*H).

I may not do episode to episode "reviews" for TRF.

To be honest, I loved Hawaii Five-O, but even half way through that it became a drag doing the reviews. Became a chore.

As long as I keep watching Rockford I will post occasionally on any stand-out episodes (for me).

Sorry Z-Ivan. Don't BAMBOO CAGE me.

I get that it felt like a chore. It would for me too. I wouldn’t even want to review every episode of Rockford and it’s my favorite series. Some people enjoy the process of completing a series with reviews. We have several here on our forum, but I’m definitely not one of them!

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

Find Me If You Can

In Pursuit of Carol Thorne

Okay episodes.

Enjoying seeing old stars (a ton from M*A*S*H).

I may not do episode to episode "reviews" for TRF.

To be honest, I loved Hawaii Five-O, but even half way through that it became a drag doing the reviews. Became a chore.

As long as I keep watching Rockford I will post occasionally on any stand-out episodes (for me).

Sorry Z-Ivan. Don't BAMBOO CAGE me.

"Find Me If You Can" is definitely a stronger episode than "Carol Thorne". With a cool premise of a woman hiring Jimbo to find her. Enjoyed seeing both Joan Van Ark and Starsky... err.. Paul Michael Glaser. I think that was also the episode where Joan Van Ark asks Jim something like "what kind of hero are you?" and he says something like "I'm not" or "I don't like getting shot at". That's the thing I love about Jim. He doesn't play the hero or pretend to be a hero. In fact he's perfectly content admitting that he's a coward and would rather run than fight. There's a great line from him in another episode: "I have a particular aversion to violence, especially when it's directed at me". It's all about self-preservation for him. Can you blame him?

Don't worry about bamboo cages. That's only for transgressions against the mighty and towering HAWAII FIVE-O. Book 'em, Danno!

[T.Q.]

That's the thing I love about Jim. He doesn't play the hero or pretend to be a hero. In fact he's perfectly content admitting that he's a coward and would rather run than fight. There's a great line from him in another episode: "I have a particular aversion to violence, especially when it's directed at me". It's all about self-preservation for him. Can you blame him?

He has some really great one liners/expressions.

I also didn't notice until yesterday the answering machine message is different each episode. DOH!

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

I also didn't notice until yesterday the answering machine message is different each episode. DOH!

I might just have to bamboo you for that one!

[Pahonu]

That's the thing I love about Jim. He doesn't play the hero or pretend to be a hero. In fact he's perfectly content admitting that he's a coward and would rather run than fight. There's a great line from him in another episode: "I have a particular aversion to violence, especially when it's directed at me". It's all about self-preservation for him. Can you blame him?

He has some really great one liners/expressions.

I also didn't notice until yesterday the answering machine message is different each episode. DOH!

That IS almost cage-worthy!



In response to his expressions that you noted, that’s Garner’s greatest strength as an actor, I think. He doesn’t need a great line or overly-dramatic delivery. He can react to another actor with his expressions and it proves far more effective and compelling than any thespian trodding the boards.

[80s Big Hair]

The Rockford Files in Lego.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4PrlXdBQo

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

That's the thing I love about Jim. He doesn't play the hero or pretend to be a hero. In fact he's perfectly content admitting that he's a coward and would rather run than fight. There's a great line from him in another episode: "I have a particular aversion to violence, especially when it's directed at me". It's all about self-preservation for him. Can you blame him?

He has some really great one liners/expressions.

I also didn't notice until yesterday the answering machine message is different each episode. DOH!

Hey T.Q. how is your viewing coming along? Where are you now? Done with season 1? Or stuck on the same episode like I am with MPI season 4.

[Pahonu]

The Rockford Files in Lego.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4PrlXdBQo

Awesome!!! Thank you

[T.Q.]

That's the thing I love about Jim. He doesn't play the hero or pretend to be a hero. In fact he's perfectly content admitting that he's a coward and would rather run than fight. There's a great line from him in another episode: "I have a particular aversion to violence, especially when it's directed at me". It's all about self-preservation for him. Can you blame him?

He has some really great one liners/expressions.

I also didn't notice until yesterday the answering machine message is different each episode. DOH!

Hey T.Q. how is your viewing coming along? Where are you now? Done with season 1? Or stuck on the same episode like I am with MPI season 4.

Yep. Kinda got abandoned.