Not that I hate Mannix, but rather that I find so many other crime shows far more interesting (though leave it to Stephen Bowie to puncture a hole in that theory). … I'd never argue that Rockford was pure, unadulterated noir, but I do view it as illustrative of Roy Huggins's signature gift of merging light and dark…

"Too ’70s to qualify as neo-noir"? I thought the seventies was THE era for neo-noir, with films like The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, Hickey & Boggs, etc., plus TV shows like The Rockford Files and Harry O, which had at least some taste of noir to them. … Surprised no one has mentioned "Live Blueberries," probably the…

Finally got around to reading this; another impressive piece, Stephen. I always felt there were two sides to Kelley: the soulful and the shameless. I appreciate the former and am less grateful for the latter. I sometimes wonder whether Kelley ushered in the sort of "extreme (shock me) TV" that became fashionable as…