Angel Returned to The Rockford Files as the Series Began to Round Into Shape

Today, we look at how Angel’s return to The Rockford Files towards the end of its first season marked the show rounding into its classic form.

This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.

The Rockford Files was created by Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, two of the most acclaimed TV writers of all-time (particularly Huggins), as basically “What if Maverick was a private detective?”

That’s a great hook, and the show was fine in its first season, but I think that it was just TOO close to Maverick in the beginning. Good stuff, to be sure, but not as distinctive as it could have been. James Garner was always brilliant as Jim Rockford, a Korean War veteran who was wrongly imprisoned until he received a pardon and was now a private eye, but the plots were a bit too close to generic plots. The show was not even nominated for Best Drama Series for its first season.

However, by the end of the first season (which, again, had some very good episodes in it), the show began to round into form, and a notable episode I think stood out was the 16th episode of the first season, “Counter Gambit,” which saw the return of Stuart Margolin as a former prison mate of Jim’s (he had only been in the show’s pilot) who became a more regular feature on the series eventually, with Margolin winning two Emmys in the role (I did a post after Margolin’s passing spotlighting the best episodes for Margolin specifically).

In this episode, one of the guys Rockford knew in prison (who tried to kill Rockford at one point) surprises him by asking him to try to track down his girlfriend (he’s getting out of prison in a week, and she has gone incommunicado). His explanation is that while he hates Rockford, he knows he can at least trust him.

Rockford is then visited by an insurance investigator (played by the great M. Emmet Walsh), who explains that what the guy is REALLY looking for is the pearl necklace that he stole and gave to his girlfriend. The insurance company has paid out already on the stolen necklace, but they pay a reward for any stolen items found even after being paid out on, as they want to make sure that no one ever stops looking for stolen items.

So Jim seduces the woman (played by the late, great Mary Frann) and breaks into her safe to prove that she DOES have the necklace.

Of course, it turns out that this was all a scam by the prison guy and the fake insurance investigator to steal the necklace and frame Rockford for it. He looks pretty good for the crime, so he has to come up with a scheme to get the necklace back, and he enlists Angel to do so.

In a brilliant scene, he and the woman (who agrees to work with him to get her necklace back) visit Angel in a porn theater. Angel will impersonate a jewel appraiser, and tell them that the necklace that they have is paste. Then, through an elaborate scheme, he gets them to believe that Rockford switched the fake with the real one which is still in her safe, so they re-break in, and make the switch, not knowing that they are returning the real necklace.

Angel is so convincing as selling Jim out that it is such a great scene.

This was really the sort of thing that made The Rockford Files distinctive, tying in with Jim’s prison past, and also working in Angel (in small doses. Too much Angel was often, well, too much). Clever, funny writing. Howard Berk and Juanita Bartlett wrote the episode, and Jackie Cooper (in his late career turn to directing) directed it.

Okay, if I’m going to have 342 more of these, I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!