The Rockford Files: Season Six
by Corey Allen, Ivan Dixon, John Patterson, Joseph Pevney, Lawrence Dobkin
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: James Garner, Joe Santos, Kristoffer Tabori, Marcia Strassman, Noah Beery Jr.Director: Corey Allen, Ivan Dixon, John Patterson, Joseph Pevney, Lawrence Dobkin
Brand: Rockford
Writer: David Chase
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 592 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-01-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of The Rockford Files: Season Six
Movie Review: Hasta La Vista Rockford!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's about time Universal got this short-lived 1979-80 Season of this detective drama released on DVD, especially since it's been over a year since Universal had Rockford's 5th Season on DVD along with the fact that this was the last and final season of THE ROCKFORD FILES since this season was cut short since NBC cancelled Rockford all of the sudden in mid January of 1980 after only 10 episodes, due to James Garner having health problems, which was similar to how and why CBS had cancelled THE INCREDIBLE HULK all of the sudden in the middle of it's short-lived 5th Season back in November of 1981, due to budget cuts and a change in management at CBS especially since the special effects on THE INCREDIBLE HULK were becoming too expensive in the Hulk's last 2 seasons to keep running the show, because of the recession we had going on back in 1981-1982 when Ronald Reagan was the president.
In other words, THE ROCKFORD FILES and THE INCREDIBLE HULK were both cancelled on short notice, but weren't cancelled due to low ratings and both shows would've lasted longer and wouldn't have been cut so short if age hadn't caught up with James Garner and the Hulk wouldn't have been axed all of the sudden in the mid-Fall of 1981 if it wasn't for the all the budget restraints we had going on back then.
Therefore, THE ROCKFORD FILES Sixth Season was only half a season just like THE INCREDIBLE HULK's Fifth Season was only an abbreviated season along with the fact that it coincidentally just so happens that both Rockford's final season and the Hulk's final season were both cut short, but for different reasons.
Unfortunately, neither THE ROCKFORD FILES or THE INCREDIBLE HULK had a series finale episode which therefore lead us wondering for a while if Rockford(James Garner) had actually continued being a private investigator and if David Banner(Bill Bixby) ever really ended up finding a cure to his havoc infliction with the Hulk(Lou Ferrigno) along with the fact that THE ROCKFORD FILES and THE INCREDIBLE HULK were both cancelled without sufficient warning on top of that leading us to believe that Rockford and the Hulk had some unfinished business floating around.
In addition to what contributed to Rockford's sudden cancellation, Garner ran out of steam & got burned out playing his Rockford character along with the fact that THE ROCKFORD FILES started to become overshadowed by THE DUKES OF HAZZARD when the Dukes made their debut on CBS on Friday January 26, 1979 which unfortunately interferred with THE ROCKFORD FILES Friday night line-up on NBC which simply added fuel to the fire for Rockford since Rockford and the Dukes were shown at the same time-slot which was 9PM every Friday night which resulted in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD stealing a lot of viewers away from THE ROCKFORD FILES, because for one thing the Dukes were a lot funnier than Rockford was.
For another, Bo and Luke Duke(John Schneider, Tom Wopat) were eye-candy and were more attractive and better looking than Rockford(James Garner) was since Bo and Luke were a lot younger and a lot more spunky than Rockford was along with the fact that James Garner was getting tired while John Schneider & Tom Wopat were both very young full of lots of pep, energy and years, unlike James Garner who was already becoming an old-fart as opposed to Tom Wopat and John Schneider who were obviously young-farts just getting to become major superstars in their showbiz career along with the fact that THE DUKES OF HAZZARD was in its honeymoon phase of the show on top of that while the honeymoon phase of THE ROCKFORD FILES was obviously already long gone.
Therefore you could say that John Schneider(Bo)and Tom Wopat(Luke) were peaking while James Garner(Rockford)was creaking since Rockford was huffing and puffing along while Bo and Luke were humming along.
For another, the General Lee had outclassed Rockford's bronze Firebird, especially since the Dukes General Lee was a lot more flashy and a lot more upgraded than Rockford's Firebird was along with the fact that the General Lee was the hottest car on Friday nights at the time on top of that.
Therefore, you could say that THE DUKES OF HAZZARD had K.O.'d THE ROCKFORD FILES and that the Dukes were killing Rockford, especially in the ratings department even though the ratings on Rockford were still high enough to start a 7th Season in the Fall of 1980, but there was no way that Rockford was able to compete with the Dukes either, especially since back & knee problems had caused James Garner to quit doing this show.
Therefore you could say that James Garner had reached a saturation point with his Rockford character and ran out of gas which resulted in THE ROCKFORD FILES-6th Season becoming only half a season.
Overall, for the record Rockford's short-lived 1979-1980 Season was still a great season and it still had some awesome guest stars like Mariette Hartley, Tom Selleck, and Larry Manetti, especially in the episode "Nice Guys Finish Dead" episode when Rockford ends up reuniting with hot shot fellow gumshoe(Lance White) at a private eyes convention where Rockford ends up teaming up with the stellar Lance White again to help solve a senators murder that took place at the hotel where the private eyes convention was held at with the phenomenal Lance White stealing the show again by outclassing Rockford by making all the leads and finding all the clues and nearly tarnishing Rockford's reputation K.O.ing Rockford in the process just like the exceptional Lance White did in the "White On White & Nearly Perfect" episode in the previous season.
It's just too bad Rockfords sexy attorney girlfriend Beth Davenport(Gretchen Corbett) couldn't be in this season either since Beth had departed the show during the second half of Rockford's 4th Season since Gretchen Corbett left the show in the Winter of 1978 due to a salary dispute with Universal which of course resulted in Beth being excluded from the show in the last 2 seasons of THE ROCKFORD FILES which therefore made things a little less intriguing & leaving us to still mourning the loss of Beth since Beth wasn't around anymore to be a buffer between Rockford and Becker's hard-nosed superior officer Lt. Chapman(James Luisi)a.k.a. "Chappy" in particular whenever Rockford was in hot water with the LAPD, unlike the case in the first 4 seasons.
In addition to what makes THE ROCKFORD FILES short-lived 6th Season so interesting is Rockford's 6th Season was also the season and year before the detective drama MAGNUM premiered on CBS back in December of 1980 and made Tom Selleck a superstar as well as a sex symbol, which practically made MAGNUM, P.I. a spin-off of THE ROCKFORD FILES and HAWAII 5-0, especially since Tom Selleck did a couple of guest starring roles as the eccentric goody two-shoes private investigator(Lance White) on THE ROCKFORD FILES before being a private investigator on his own show(MAGNUM, P.I.)along with the fact that THE ROCKFORD FILES and MAGNUM were both private detective shows like MATT HOUSTON, MANNIX, and SIMON & SIMON all were.
As a matter of fact, the idea and creation of the show MAGNUM, PI was inspired from THE ROCKFORD FILES, especially after Tom Selleck's 2 astonishing guest starring appearances as the inclusive private dick(Lance White)on THE ROCKFORD FILES.
Therefore, it was almost like a preminition of Tom Selleck's days on MAGNUM along with the fact that Tom Selleck wasn't even famous yet when he guest starred on THE ROCKFORD FILES along with the fact that the "Nice Guys Finish Dead" episode was my favorite episode from Rockford's Sixth Season and the "White On White & Nearly Perfect" episode was my favorite episode from Rockford's Fifth Season.
It's just too bad that Tom Selleck's role as Thomas Magnum on MAGNUM, P.I. couldn't be as intelligent or as successful as his impeccable private detective(Lance White) role on THE ROCKFORD FILES, because Magnum(Tom Selleck) used to get himself into just as much trouble and just as much mischief as Rockford(James Garner)did.
It was also in interesting seeing
-Country Western singer Barbara Mandrell doing a cameo in the "Love Is The Word" episode
-Larry Mannetti in the "Nice Guys Finish Dead" episode before his co-starring days as Magnum's old Navy buddy from the Vietnam War(Rick "Orville" Wright) on MAGNUM, P.I.
-Jerry Douglas in the "No Fault Affair" episode during his co-starring days as John Abbott on YOUNG & THE RESTLESS
-Sandra Kerns in the "Deadlock In Parma" episode before her co-starring days on CHARLES IN CHARGE
-James Whitmore, Jr. in the "Nice Guys Finish Dead" episode before his co-starring days as Hunter & McCall's doofus fellow officer(Sgt. Bernie Terwilliger) on HUNTER
-Award winning actress(Lauren Bacall)in the "Lions, Tigers, Monkeys, & Dogs" episode
-Oscar nominee(Rita Moreno)making her recurring role as Rockford's former hooker buddy(Rita Capkovic)in "The No Fault Affair" episode
This was also the last season with Joe Santos playing Rockford's often irritated cop buddy(Lt. Dennis Becker)which later co-starred in the last 2 seasons of MAGNUM, P.I. as Magnum's cop buddy(Lt. Nolan Page).
It's just too bad that THE ROCKFORD FILES had to be axed all of the sudden in the Winter of 1980, despite the fact that this was my 2nd favorite season throughout Rockfords whole 6-year run on NBC.
In the meantime, I can hardly wait till Rockford's 6th Season gets released on DVD in January and I would highly recommend this DVD season to anybody who was a Rockford fan back in the 1970's like I was and/or to anyone who religiously watched THE ROCKFORD FILES every Friday night when it was on NBC from 1974-80, but after reading more recent reviews on Rockford's Sixth Season DVD, I'm beginning to wonder if this DVD actually showed each 1979-80 Season episode complete & uncut like they were originally shown on their original air-dates on NBC or if Universal had actually went ahead and released this DVD with deleted scenes on each of these episodes like when they were shown in reruns on A&E, TNN, TV Land, or WGN, since one of the recent reviews indicated that this DVD didn't show the episodes complete & uncut and had a lot of scenes that were cut out which may have been due to a fire that errupted at the Universal movie company building in Universal City in the Summer of 2008.
Additionally, now that Universal has released a complete series DVD of KNIGHT RIDER, MIAMI VICE, and THE INCREDIBLE HULK, I'm hoping to see Universal make a THE ROCKFORD FILES-The Complete Series DVD, since Rockford was a popular classic Universal TV show like KNIGHT RIDER, MIAMI VICE, & THE INCREDIBLE HULK all were.
By the way, I've got some great interesting news for all you classic private detective drama fans out there to keep in mind for 2 new releases in the works for the Spring of 2010 since I just got word that Paramount will finally be releasing MATT HOUSTON-Season 1 out on DVD on Tuesday March 9th, 2010 and Shout will be releasing SIMON & SIMON-Season 4 out on DVD on Tuesday April 6th, 2010 and are now both available for pre-order online as we speak.
Summary of The Rockford Files: Season Six
Genre: Television: Series
Rating: NR
Release Date: 20-JAN-2009
Media Type: DVD
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