The Rockford Files (TV Series) Just by Accident (1975) User Reviews

A new identity

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 23 April 2015]

Jim Rockford's client is Neva Patterson who thinks there's something not quite right with the death of her son in a car crash. Her son was a stock car driver and drove in demolition derbies and that just doesn't quite sit with her.

Mother in fact does know best. It was a visit to the girlfriend of the late victim Joey Aresco where he finds some driver's licenses under different names all belonging to the victim with his smiling face as the photograph.

Girlfriend E.J. Peaker is on the scam though and tells the boss. Another of the stock car drivers Steven Keats is the killer of Aresco and he nearly does in James Garner.

What the scam I won't reveal, but it's a neat one and could have gone on for quite some time.

The famous Rockford Firebird gets pretty banged up, but it's back for the next episode.

The scam is a beauty, worthy of Angel Martin.

Ma Ketcham Returns!

[zsenorsock · 7/10 · 13 January 2007]

When demolition derby driver Billy Jo Hartman (Joey Aresco) dies in a car accident, his mother Louise (Neve Patterson, who played Jim's nemesis Ma Ketcham on "Nichols")calls on Jim Rockford, an old family friend to investigate. Once Jim begins turning rocks over, he discovers a lot of strange things: Billy Jo had a safe deposit box filled with $20,000 in cash and 4 drivers licenses under different names. He gets hit with a sap, almost killed in his car (twice!) and shot at before cracking an insurance fraud case.

Joe Santos must have been off for a few weeks around this time to film his role in "Zandy's Bride" with Gene Hackman or "The Girl on the Late, Late Show" because he's replaced here by David Spielberg as Jim's police friend Tom. Unlike Dennis, Tom seems anxious to help Jim any way he can and seems a little too bemused whenever he's dealing with the detective. Nothing against Spielberg, but this episode is hurt by the lack of Santos.

Neve Patterson is fine as Louise, but I'm baffled as to how or why E.J. Deaker (Minnie Mae in "Hello Dolly") got a "special appearance by" credit. Her role is not that pivotal, and sorry to say she's not very good in it (she is very cute though!). The real highlight of this show is the appearance of "WKRP" star Gordon Jump as Rockford's long suffering body shop guy, Freddie. The Firebird's in the shop again, and Freddie's afraid to give him a loaner.

The script lets Jim actually do a bit of detecting as he uses a magazine subscription to track down Billy Jo's last known whereabouts. But it also lets us down. When Jim calls the Springfield insurance office and asks for Mr. Springfield (Fred Sadoff) who's the leader of the insurance scam, his secretary tells Rockford Springfield is at the track. Now since Jim just put a bet down on a horse (in a funny scene with Millie Slavin) and its still daytime, wouldn't you think he'd go out to the HORSE track? Instead Jim knows to go to the closed demolition derby track, in the dark, despite the fact there's been no connection between Springfield and the demolition derby (other than Billy Jo and Springfield's top henchman drove there). It's a little sloppy. Then they pick an odd way to try and kill him, by wrecking his car (yes, the loaner from Freddie!) in the demolition derby. Funny? Yes. Make sense? No. At this point, we've already come to expect tighter scripts from "The Rockford Files".

Rockfoot

[stones78 · 10 April 2012]

This episode is much better than the previous one, even though it once again revolves around an accident eventually turning into murder. Jim is hired by yet another older woman needing the truth about her deceased son, as she doesn't believe his death was an accident; as we get to see, he was clearly murdered by having his car pushed off a cliff, because he refused to partake in insurance scams anymore. The head of the crooked insurance company has a funny was of pronouncing "Rockford", as it comes out as "Rockfoot", and that made me laugh whenever I heard it. This episode is also notable for a new cop friend for Rockford, as Dennis is nowhere to be found; he's played by a likable David Spielberg(Tom), who also starred as the same role in another episode and actually enlists Jim's requests and eventually gets the criminals, as they were attempting to "Malachi crunch" Rockford on a race car track. Watch for a few 70's familiar faces in Gordon Jump and Fritzi Burr, who have funny cameos to lighten the mood. Perhaps the only aspect of the show which wasn't realistic is after Jim is kidnapped and the Firebird is pushed over the cliff(with Jim in it), he winds up at the hospital with only a small bandage on his head and his wrist taped up; by all accounts, Rockford should be a dead man with a crash that big, but I digress. I'm not a huge fan of very early episodes, but this was very entertaining and had some funny lines, a cool construction site with outdoor elevator, the Firebird, and was a big improvement over the previous show, and I would easily recommend this episode to any fan.

Not up to the show's usual standards

[MoneyMagnet · 4/10 · 27 October 2014]

Much as it pains me to say, this really wasn't one of the better Season 1 episodes. (For starters, I think of this one as "The One with the Fake Dennis" - the "Tom" character who seemed to be standing in for Dennis.) It's not very sharply written (did we need the ethyl joke at the gas station?) and the idea that Rockford escaped from that attempt on his life with just a few cuts and bruises, defies belief, sorry! But really the worst thing about it, is that it's slow-paced and boring, and the lack of any of the usual supporting characters (Angel, Rocky, Beth, Dennis etc) drags it down further. We're never really clear what Jim's relationship was with Billy's mother, either... was it romantic? Well, sometimes when it comes to episode writing, you win a few, you lose a few...