Universal presents The Rockford Files: Season Two, collected on six, single-sided DVDs. Created by prolific television producers Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, James Garner plays private investigator Jim Rockford, an ex-con wrongfully convicted of armed robbery, who served five years before new evidence resulted in a pardon. The show was well known for opening with his answering machine ("This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and number and I'll get back to you"), followed by the caller’s funny message, and for its theme song by Mike Post, which reached No. 10 on the pop charts.
Rockford usually works the streets of Los Angeles. His rate is $200 a day plus expenses. Business isn’t booming, but it is enough to keep him in a shabby trailer down at the Malibu beach parking lot. The people who frequent his life, his father Rocky, his former cellmate Angel, Police Detective Becker, and attorney and former paramour Beth Davenport, get him out of as much trouble as they get him into. A number of cases this season originate with people who know him.
Rockford’s personality and humor are the strength of the show and Garner was perfect for the role. The viewer enjoys spending time with him, allowing some of the corniness of the storylines to be overlooked. Some situations within episodes appear to be more an author’s imagination rather than a believable recreation of events in the real world. For example, in “Chicken Little is a Little Chicken” we meet some underworld gangsters who are completely inauthentic to anyone who has seen Goodfellas or The Sopranos. Another common plot device that wears thin are all the women who fall under Rockford’s spell. It’s a nice fantasy, but becomes a little silly after a few episodes.
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