This week’s installment of the Bellisario classic features some high adventure as Jake (Stephen Collins), Sarah (Cailtin O’Heaney), Corky (Jeff MacKay)and Jack the one-eyed dog find themselves squaring off against an Egyptian curse. Airing 3 November 1982, and written by John Pashdag and Brady Westwater, the story gives us some back story on Sarah, as it begins in 1937,…
Category: Bellisario & Cannell
The Rockford Files (1975) – The Aaron Ironwood School of Success & The Farnsworth Stratagem
Season 2 of The Rockford Files gets underway with private investigator, Jim Rockford (James Garner), caught up in an episode that focuses on family, so it makes sense that Rocky (Noah Beery Jr.), Beth (Gretchen Corbett) and Becker (Joe Santos) – who just took his lieutenant’s exam, are all present. Angel (Stuart Margolin), sadly,…
Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982) – Legends Are Forever & Escape From Death Island
Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins) flies into danger in this week’s installment of the Bellisario gem, Tales of the Gold Monkey. The first episode, Legends Are Forever, aired 20 October, 1982 and saw the introduction of an old flying buddy of Jake’s, the legend seeking Gandy Dancer (William Lucking). It was penned by Bellisario, Reuben Leder…
The Rockford Files (1975) – The Four Pound Brick, Just By Accident & Roundabout
The first season of Jim Rockford’s (James Garner) private investigations comes to a close with these three episodes. The first, The Four Pound Brick, was penned by Leigh Brackett(who had her pen in Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back) and Juanita Bartlett and aired 21 February, 1975. The phone gag features a call from…
Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982) – Shanghaied & Black Pearl
Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins) and his one-eyed dog Jake are in for it this time! Roddy McDowall joins the cast this episode, Shanghaied, as Bon Chance Louie. It originally aired 29 September, 1982. It was written by Bellisario, and throws our heroes right into the fire. Corky (Jeff MacKay) is kidnapped by a George R.R. Martin…
The Rockford Files (1975) – Say Goodbye to Jennifer & Charlie Harris at Large
Private Investigator Jim Rockford (James Garner) gets into it again with this week’s two episode installment. Up first is Say Goodbye to Jennifer, which aired 7 February, 1975, was directed by acting legend Jackie Cooper, and penned by Juanita Bartlett and Rudolph Borchert from a story by Roy Huggins.It guest stars Hector Elizondo as ex-war…
Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982) – Pilot
The next Bellisario series that came along after Battlestar Galactica that caught my attention (despite the fact that Magnum, P.I. started first, I came to it a little later) was this 1930s high adventure series starring Stephen Collins as ex-Flying Tiger Jake Cutter in his Grumman Goose, and his one-eyed dog Jack. Bellisario wrote the two-hour pilot…
The Rockford Files (1975) – Counter Gambit & Claire
This week’s delving into the files of private investigator Jim Rockford (James Garner) is a lot of fun in terms of plot and cast. The phone gags are a lot of fun as well, in the first episode, it’s a friend of Jim’s who wants to give him the money he owes, but he’s…
Battlestar Galactica (1979) – Take the Celestra & The Hand of God
And just like that, one of the series that helped influence my childhood, and generated my love for pop culture comes to an end… For me, Galactica, and it’s follow-up series, the less than stellar Galctica 1980 (except the one episode The Return of Starbuck) will always be joined in my mind with CFB Borden,…
The Rockford Files (1975) – Aura Lee, Farewell & Sleight of Hand
Strong writing is a feature of both this week’s episodes of The Rockford Files. Jim (James Garner) is hired by a friend of his Sarah Butler (the Bionic Woman herself, Lindsay Wagner, reprising her role from the series premiere movie) in the first episode which features a phone gag about someone calling Rockford with…
The Mind Reels 