Rockford Files Season 6

If ever a star had that certain something which put him in the same category as those shining ones from the 1930's and 1940's, it was James Garner. He had a fine film career, to be sure, but it was his laconic charm as Jim Rockford on television with which he will always be most identified. He was an ex-con given a full pardon when it was discovered he was innocent after all. Working as a P.I. and parking his gold Firebird in front of his trailor on the L.A. beach, Rockford could never quite shake the ex-con tag, nor could he shake his old cellmate, Evelyn "Angel" Martin.

Stuart Margolin was Angel, always looking for the easy buck, and getting his old buddy Jimmy into trouble with him. Neither Rockford or the viewing audience could stay mad at Angel for long, however, because in Margolin's hands, Angel was really a stand-up guy at heart and you had to admire his enthusiasm. Noah Beery, Jr. portrayed Rockford's lovable dad, Rocky, with equal aplomb.

Rocky was an easygoing retired trucker who loved to fish, and passed on the hobby to Jim. Between the car chases, cons, and mad scrambles to stay out of jail were simple moments of life we all recognized from our own. It was that down to earth formula, coupled with Garner's charm and some excellent writing from Juanita Bartlett which kept Jim Rockford coming into our homes week after week for years. Rockford would only work on closed cases in an effort to avoid the cops which, of course, never quite worked out.

Joe Santos was Rockford's often exasperated police pal, Dennis Becker. He was the buffer between Rockford and Becker's superiors, who in season 6 was James Luisi as Lt. Chapman. He hated Rockford and wanted any excuse to pull his P.I. license. Becker was a pal, but could only do so much for Jim as he had to stay out of hot water himself. He had a wife and kids to support, and for some strange reason, that sometimes took priority over helping his old buddy Jim out of a complicated jam. Beth was gone by this season, but Rita Moreno lit up the small screen as Rita Capkovic.

Season 6 only had 12 episodes, but some really fine ones, and some terrific guest stars. Rockford got to go to Hawaii in one installment. In a way, looking back, as someone has already mentioned, it was sort of the changing of the guard type of season. Tom Selleck would reprise his role of Lance White, the detective so perfect it drove Rockford nuts! Larry Manetti would guest star on an episode as well. They would make Magnum P.I. a television staple the following year, and by the end of its long run, Joe Santos would star on that classic also.

Season 6 episodes are: PARADISE COVE (MARIETTE HARTLEY) -- LIONS,TIGERS, MONKEYS AND DOGS (LAUREN BACALL--2 PARTER) -- ONLY ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE (MARCIA STRASSMAN--2 PARTER) -- LOVE IS THE WORD -- NICE GUYS FINISH DEAD (TOM SELLECK) -- THE HAWAIIN HEADACHE -- THE NO-FAULT AFFAIR -- THE BIG CHEESE -- JUST A COUPLE OF GUYS -- DEADLOCK IN PARMA

It was only from December of 1979 through January of 1980 that we got to enjoy Mike Post's Rockford Files theme song, which only began after we'd heard one of those crazy messages on Jim's answering machine. It had only been a couple of years since Garner had finally gotten his Emmy Award for his fine portrayal of the affable Rockford. There is comfort food, and comfort television, and Rockford certainly falls into that category. A really fine television show worthy of its fan base.

First of all kudos to Universal for finally finishing up the Rockford series on DVD. That being said, why did they use the washed out, soft focus prints that we saw for years in syndication? It appears there was no restoration performed here. To make matters worse, parts, and in some cases whole episodes were mastered from *video* sources! Some scenes contain slight ghosting, rippling and tracking distortion problems consistant with aging videotape. The color is faded, the contrast is poor and the focus is soft on nearly all episodes. Why!? These obviously aren't the same crisp, clear prints used on seasons 1-5. Also, "Lions Tigers Monkeys and Dogs" is released here in two parts (like in syndication). It was released on VHS as a single two hour episode in the 90's. Again, why? I'm curious if it has anything to do with last year's fire at Universal Studios which destroyed its film archive. Studio officials said everything was backed up. But what was the quality of the backups? I'm curious if the original Rockford prints were lost and these syndication prints are all that's left. That would be a shame.

Im shocked that reviewer smuthdude is the only one who even mentioned and noticed this. But these are all the edited syndication versions, and on some the quality is soso.

On "Lions Tigers Monkeys & Dogs", which was my fave episode of the final season, the audio is warped in the first 10 mins or so..like a dying reel to reel tape. I can tell they cleaned up the picture pretty well, but the audio gets almost annoying. Thankfully it clears up after the first 10 mins.

What I dont understand is, why didnt they just grab the VHS copy exsisting of the original uncut print for this one and clean it up?

My other issue with this release is the menu. It looks very rushed, cheap and ALMOST like a home made bootlegg to be honest. You dont get the same style as on all the other seasons.

Like smuthdude said, the syndication edits may be due to the fact of the fire at Universal destroying the original masters..so guess we can take that possibly into concideration, also its quite possible that the entire season 6 original prints were gone years ago, and these were all that was left.

On season 5, I had noticed that "Black Mirror" was cleaned up and converted from a UK/PAL format video print with slightly pitched faster audio, if anyone realised that. But at least it was the original uncut!

I woulda taken that format for the entire uncut season 6 vs what we got here but hey, like I said, im happy just to have it in any format. Cause as we know, the youngsters that run Universal didnt wanna release any Rockford after season 1 to begin with. So we are lucky!

Bottom line, worth having to complete the series, but just dont expect the original NBC versions and the usual top DVD remastered quality.

3 stars not for the content or show, but for the form we got it in.