The Man Who Saw the Alligators

This episode is another 'Anthony Boy' one. The melodrama is about family. Shows like this exemplifies what makes Rockford Files watchable. What makes drama are characters & their interaction. "Why did you shoot at him." "Because I thought I would hit him, meatball." Classic.

Stephen J. Cannell has chase scenes, but the show is made because of characters & their interaction. The pilot show had another actor for Rockford's dad, but Noah Beery Jr made the character real. Stuart Margolin was a constant gem as Angel Martin.

The location of the show was important part of the activity. Another reviewer stated the show was weighed down by certain activities, but the pacing of this episode was excellent & it covered a lot of ground. There were multiple threads to the plot & all were handled adeptly.

The focus is on the mobsters in this one written by David Chase, who would create "The Sopranos" and whose contributions to Rockford definitely foreshadow themes (and actors) used on the latter show. The problem for a fan of *this* show is that for most of this episode Rockford could just be Joe Smith, and the script would work about as well, as a character study of an unbalanced hit man out on parole and out for revenge, along the way interacting with his family and friends, while a mob boss lurks in the background. On the plus side, while it's a longer, 90-minute episode for reasons explained in the Trivia section, it has a nice pace and doesn't feel padded. Angel shows up partway through and does Angel things. Beautiful Sharon Acker plays Jim's accountant. It's a decent episode, but not a classic -- I don't feel I need to rewatch anytime soon. Hence a 7 of 10.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong. The trivia tidbit left about this "Rockford" episode says that rains were preventing the completion of its filming, as well as that of the first episode of "B.J. and the Bear" which was to air the same night, and that NBC decided to expand both to 90 minutes each. How do you catch up on delayed shooting schedules by increasing the shows' lengths?

I do see an announcement today at TVShowsonDVD.com that it is the 90-minute version of this episode that is being released on the fifth-season DVD.

Trekkies may recognize guest star Sharon Acker from the "Star Trek" episode "The Mark of Gideon," which had the memorably eerie scene of her and Kirk witnessing a bunch of faces looking at them through a window of a seemingly otherwise deserted Enterprise from outside the ship.

Sub-par for a Rockford Files episode. It was too long, and the long drawn-out scene at the cabin was something that would have fit in better in the 1966 Adam West Batman (balpeen hammer anyone?) than in the street smart Rockford Files. Weighed down by badly done armchair psycho-drama. Garner's acting, and the acting of the crime boss and the Italian mother make the best of an over the top script.

I saw the 78 minute long DVD version. By Season Five, they seem to be running out of new types of car chases, so we have more of the mind game stuff. Sometimes it works (the episode "Guilt" is an example of that). Also, because Rockford is a PI who has to be in mortal danger regularly, mafia types show up a lot by Season 5. Often it works, this time it didn't. Still worth watching.

The hour and14 minutes version was on Netflix when they had it. Peacock streams only a 51 minute version, WHY? And of when it is shown on tv it is cut down to 40 some odd minutes. Can't really add anything else that the other reviews have stated already.