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Was The Rockford Files Any Good?


Pong Messiah
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I have always been obsessed with the theme song to The Rockford Files, but never seen a single episode.

 

Somebody with taste told me it was actually a pretty good show, with clever writing that holds up surprisingly well with today's better-looking/better-written crime drams -- i.e. it's something you can still appreciate today as more than a quaint relic from the 1970s. Is that true?

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I'll reply even though you have me blocked!

 

It's a super interesting show in that it both updated the hardboiled detective story to modern times (for when it was made) and more or less set the tone for the genre for everything that has followed. Instead of the trenchcoat wearing, whiskey swilling, misanthrope pulp detective, the go to soon became the down on his luck, womanizing semi-sleezeball with a heart of gold. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mystery writer today that wasn't influenced by it as a kid.

 

Its narrative was pretty procedural and not revolutionary, but what made it unique was that every week, even though there was a case, the episodes were more about Rockford's personality and panache about the case. In some way, the usual style of the time, where the case would be the A story and the persona story was secondary, Rockford often flipped the paradigm to focus more on him being awesome in his Rockford way.

 

All that said, I don't know that it has aged that gracefully. Not much 70s TV has, sensibilities have changed so much. It would be hard to binge watch now-- at least it was for me. Thankfully, the entire run is on Netflix and if you watch the pilot for the set up, from there you can cherry pick the entire series and there's plenty of BEST OF episode lists out there to know where to start.

 

What I always found interesting was that James Gardner insisted on doing his own stunts for both fight scenes and car chases and over the years it really took its toll on him.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

IMHO, Rockford is in the same league as Beretta: unless you grew up watching it and have nostalgia for Rockford, trying to watch it now for the first time is a waste of time. But if you feel you must, Pong, that is why they have METV and TVLand. I personally never cared for Rockford Files. Magnum PI is basically the same thing, except better. Well, relatively speaking. Magnum sucks by today's standards too.

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The Rockford Files, Mannix, Baretta-all sort of the same but Rockford felt less gimmicky to me. Magnum rested on the beauty of Hawaii and Selleck. Rockford's deal was that he didn't like the way most other cops and PIs roughed up people. He kept his only gun in a cookie jar. The show came out not too long after the unrest of the 60s and Jim was portrayed as a guy who would help those that the police would discount. He wasn't 'establishment' but he wasn't exactly a hippie, either. He was an everyman-a working class hero-honest, dedicated to helping people and very close with his aging Dad.

 

It definitely does not hold up for modern viewing but is a huge nostalgia trigger for me. These are about half the shows of my kid/teen years. Early it was Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie/Brady Bunch/Gilligan's Island. When I was in my young and mid teens, I did my homework in front of the TV while my parents watched these shows-Hawaii 5-0, Starsky and Hutch-anything with a Lalo Schifrin soundtrack. I grew up believing one could screech their tires while driving straight ahead at 30mph on gravel because of these damn shows.

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