Two Hundred A Day - Episode 7: Our First Discussion Special

Episode Date: March 17, 2017

We hit our first goal on Patreon! Thank you backers! To celebrate, Nathan and Eppy discuss their experience doing the podcast so far, and how training our critical Rockford eye just keeps revealing more to enjoy. Plus, Eppy shares the benefits of what we've discussed in our narrative elements sections to his ongoing tabletop game of Urban Jungle! Thanks to: zencastr.com for helping us record fireside.fm for hosting us Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Lowell Francis's Age of Ravens gaming blog Pluto Moved On Podcasts and Video Lets Plays Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars And thank you to Shane Liebling! Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. We are exploring the intensely weird and interesting world of the 70s TV detective show The Rockford Files. Half celebration and half analysis, we break down episodes of the show and then analyze how and why they work as great pieces of narrative and character-building. In each episode of Two Hundred a Day, we watch an episode, recap and review it as fans of the show, and then tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Welcome to 200 a Day, a podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Pelletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. On this episode, we're not going to be talking about an episode of The Rockford Files. Instead, well, what are we talking about today, Epi? Today we're going to be talking about The Rockford Files in general, and a little bit about 200 a and what we what we're doing here yeah so the occasion for this episode is tipping over one of our patreon goals so thank you very much to all of our patrons at patreon.com slash 200 a day you are some discerning folk. Good taste. Yeah, so we wanted to do something fun to mark that occasion

and kind of take a little bit just to talk about how our experience of doing this podcast has been as dedicated viewers of this show, but also as people who care a lot about thinking about narrative structure. Right. Both of us do that. In our work, we both either provide tools for creating narrative in the case of games, or are actually writing or producing fiction using these same techniques. Should we start with what brought us to the Rockford Files in the first place?

I think that's like a... Yeah, that's a good question. I think way back in our first episode, we talked a little bit at the beginning of it about kind of our history. But yeah, let's go into it a little bit more. So Nathan, what brings you to the Rockford Files? Well, you do, because I started watching it because you recommended it on Twitter a number of years ago now, back in the good old days when it was still available

on Netflix. So that's why I started watching it. And then I think I immediately fell in love with the character of Jim Rockford, because he's just such an interesting, dynamic, three-dimensional character in his own right. And I think that comes through almost every episode. Yeah. I think something about doing the show that's been really interesting

has been observing how different episodes kind of highlight different aspects of Jim. Yeah, the podcast has been kind of a good excuse to dive a little deep into the Rockford Files and just not just sit and enjoy it on a surface level, which it's eminently enjoyable on the surface level. You can just sit back and binge away and it will cure what ails you. But it's been a lot of fun to just take a look at each individual episode and pick

apart what they're doing right. Yeah, I don't know about you, but usually I have two, well, I guess I have three modes of watching the show. Mode one is the very casual one where it's just like, I just want to watch something like before I go to bed, I turn on an episode I don't really remember and have it playing while I'm, you know, on Twitter, playing with my dog or whatever. And usually I'm kind of dipping in and out of the actual story. By the time that the third act of the show comes along, I might not really remember like what the actual con is. How you got here. Yeah.

I'm like, right, like those are the gorillas. There's Jim doing his thing you know and then the dramatic conclusion i'll watch and then i'm like all right that's what it was so that's mode one mode two is where i'm like more engaged in watching the show for its own sake maybe come in and out around how the show breaks for commercial right um but i'm a little more engaged in the actual story and paying attention to more of the nuances and then both three is when i'm preparing for the show and for that i will sit down with a notebook and i actually you know i take notes as it goes and i

pause it so that i don't miss things and yeah i'll back up to make sure i i get a quote right and stuff like that and watching it that way is, it feels more like work, right? Like I have to dedicate space in my day. I have to make sure that I have the energy, like that kind of thing. But I think it does result in that feeling of like, oh yeah, there's a lot of good stuff here. The reason why it's so enjoyable to just kind of skim and you still kind of like have a good feeling coming out of it is because they've done all the work of all the like detailed stuff usually.

At least that's been my experience. Yeah. I would also recommend a fourth mode because I agree. The three modes you recommend are you definitely that first mode. I would sometimes do that if I have something else I need to be working on that doesn't need my full narrative attention, then sometimes I'll have it going on. In the background. And the second mode is, I often think of that as meal mode. Oh, sure. Yeah.

It's lunchtime. And that was the first lesson I learned when we started doing this podcast is that I couldn't do meal mode and prepare for the podcast. doing this podcast is that I couldn't do meal mode and prepare for the podcast. Like I sat down, I hit play and I'm watching it and I have a bowl of soup next to me that just goes cold while I'm writing everything down. And that's, uh, that's mode three, but I would recommend a fourth mode also, and which is to soothe over family events. This is when you get together with the family and nobody can figure out what to do. You say, let's watch a Rockford Files. That works. They'll be like, yeah, nobody objects.

In my family, the show for that has been Columbo for so long. But now that Columbo is also off of Netflix. So I might have to introduce a new tradition at family gatherings. Netflix are ruining families everywhere. I know, right? I don't know. Is there anything else interesting about how we watch the show? That's a good question.

Well, I mean, yeah, I do the same thing. I have a notebook out and I have a calculator out as well. Although I can do almost all the calculations by hand. They're small. I just, aesthetically, I enjoy having a calculator on hand. And I do not currently own one that is contemporary to the Rockford Files, but I can get really close. Yeah. So as listeners know, you know, I am obsessed with the food and Epi is obsessed with the money. Why do you find the role of the money so interesting,

in the Rockford Files particularly? It is kind of interesting. So looking at it from sort of a gaming point of view, right, where a lot of times in role-playing games, money is used as something of a motivation for characters, right? I mean, it depends on the game you're playing, obviously, but that goes with, you know, all things. But in fiction, when money is used as a motivation for characters, it doesn't work the same way. In a game, often if money is used as a motivation for characters, those characters will become financial geniuses because that's that is how you win the game right like so you learn how

to save the money you make very strategic choices even if those choices are if we spend the money on this weapon rather than this weapon then we're going to get more hit points done or whatever you know there's a lot of optimization of money and in games in real life most people i should say psychologically are not great at optimizing cost and benefit and using money to its like most perfect extent or else you know we'd all we'd have way fatter retirement accounts right people were better at that kind of thing but in a game because it's all like kind of in this circumscribed area where you can focus all of your attention on kind of all the different elements at once, it becomes that very optimized tool. But yeah, like you're saying in a lot of fiction, the money isn't the point.

The money might be a motivator, but it's not focused on in the same way. Yeah. And then it becomes a tool for the narrative in a couple different ways. Like motivator definitely, but also like, especially in the Rockford Files, it often becomes a joke. Right. And a couple different ways like motivator definitely but also like especially in the rockford files it often becomes a joke right and it's a really good joke usually the more money at stake the less likely he's going to he's going to actually pull it off and um you kind of want that to happen you you know you root for jim definitely but it wouldn't be the rockford files if suddenly he got a quarter of a million dollars for a finder's fee on something right it would be

something completely different at that point so neither of us are are dedicated you know historians in this matter though i feel like look i don't know about you but i'm probably going to end up you know reading uh reading james garner's biography and try and find some more source material on like what was happening around the show. At this point in time, it's mostly Wikipedia and diving down IMDb rabbit holes. it was kind of a let's take all the hard-boiled PI tropes and either send them up or invert them or play with that formula. And that's an interesting roll of money there. It's not like a Sam Spade-like situation. I don't know.

I feel like that vision of the PI, like they're still in an office. They still have staff, right? Yeah. But they still owe rent. You know, the case walks in right when they need money to kind of sustain that lifestyle. But there's still kind of a feeling, at least to me, that it's a lifestyle or it's a, I don't know, there's some kind of baseline. This is your work and they have something else.

And for Jim, like his work and his life are so intertwined yeah not in the sense that his work is his life uh in like an existential sense but more like i think something that is very familiar to those of us who do you know freelancing for the most part where the money's all going to the same place right yeah you're working out of where you live and you're doing work for people who you might be able to cut them a break or they cut you a break or it's all intertwined so when when gandy eats all of his ham yeah you feel it right it's uh i like that because i mean obviously being a freelancer but also just like i can identify with that there have been moments

where something is spoiled in the refrigerator and you're like not and it's not even just like i can identify with that there have been moments where something is spoiled in the refrigerator and you're like not and it's not even just like uh i was looking forward to eating that but also i spent five bucks on that you know like not not a lot but like i really enjoy that in in the character of jim rockford i uh to feel his pain in that way and um make light of it too i mean that's the yeah i think the sense of humor that the show has is really part of the appeal too it's like it's funny it doesn't take itself too seriously but then when it does take itself seriously it really stands out right it really comes across um as with our our episode when we talked about sleight of hand where that one's very serious a little darker there's still some moments in there of some lightness uh but it's more like because the rest of the show exists that episode stands out right for its its added

seriousness and there are other episodes that do that as well. But in terms of the 200-a-day canon, that's the one that we've talked about so far that does that. So I guess part of what I'm trying to say with that is that watching it as a series is more satisfying than watching an individual episode and then not watching for a while, right? Yeah, yeah. Part of the rhythm of the the series or part of the depth of the series is that you can identify these different rhythms between different episodes,

not even necessarily in order because it's not a long story arc connected kind of thing, but it's more the proportion of what's in what episode. I really enjoy the level of continuity that it has which is to say that the reoccurring characters uh have uh dynamic relationships that change a bit as you go along or are informed by previous episodes uh but not so much that you're like i don't understand yeah why they're behaving this way or that. With the exception of like maybe the two and three parters or whatever, you don't need to have seen previous episodes to really get what's going on in the current episode. And I missed that a little bit. Part of one of my joys for the Rockford Files is that I am an aging curmudgeon.

an aging curmudgeon. And so things that kids these days enjoy, I often don't. Or rather, let me just say that I do not value continuity as much as I do all the other things we talk about in the Rockford Files, right? And I do remember when I was younger and the only television that really had continuity was soap operas. Right. So I kind of think of soap operas as sort of a daily episodes where nothing happens. But anyways, the point is soap opera complete decide is that over the course over the course of the years, we began to get more and more television that had continuity. And in the beginning of that, that was super exciting to me. I really enjoyed being able to watch how things like that unfold. And now I've gone so far that I just love an episodic show. I just love something that just says, here's a tale onto itself.

We're not going to leave you wondering what's going to happen next. So you can end up with a show that has this overarching plot that usually has to do with will they or won't they with the two main characters, but you know, other things too. And then to make sure that each episode has its own little arc, they'll throw in some of this. It's almost like loose change. You know, it's like, Oh,

and that's a murder mystery they solved. And that's another murder mystery, you know, whatever, who cares? What we care about is do they kiss by the end? Sure. You don't get that.

The rock profiles, the episode is the episode, right? Yeah. I think there's something about the, cause there's a lot of like bad episodic television too., right? Where like, yeah, each episode in and of itself is like kind of boring or doesn't carry much weight, you know, so it's not like there's a categorical difference between the two kinds of shows because there's, you know, long term continuity shows are good and satisfying-crafted and that kind of stuff. So for me, what's kind of like really nice about Rockford Files is, so I'm younger than you, but I also don't get a whole lot out of a lot of contemporary TV for kind of similar reasons, because a lot of the time the characters to me seem relatively static over the course

of all these episodes and all these events happening but the characters don't change very much and that's what usually draws me into a show like it's either there needs to be an aesthetic that draws me in like i'm not trying to say i'm kind of this like purist like i like stuff that looks cool don't get me wrong but if you can hook me in with an episode that has a satisfying resolution and interesting characters, I'll watch the next episode. And it doesn't really matter to me if those two episodes are connected, right? Yeah. So watching the Rockford Files originally was this really positive experience where every episode I watched, I liked it.

And then because I liked each episode, I kept watching. And then because I kept watching i started noticing the patterns and then once i started paying attention to the patterns i got more out of watching the show so to me that's more evidence of like the people making the show really cared about the characters and people making the show really cared about these well-crafted narratives that kept you interested for 50 minutes at a time, but they also cared about characters that you were, that you wanted to visit again.

Right. That's, and that's great. No, I realizing that we have an audio medium, I think, uh, I just wanted to state for the record that I was nodding along to everything

you were saying there. Anyways. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, and I don't want to characterize all fiction all of the shows that that are serialized or whatever in a certain way and i certainly do enjoy quite a few of them but it like uh i think you're right the the the sort of order in which

rockford files drags you in uh which may even just be the theme music yeah like what i think what's this yeah that's part of it too is that like all the details are interesting at least to me uh i mean i assume to our audience as well uh we probably wouldn't be listening to our podcast where we get very nerdily detailed about the show but the ability to do that is kind of a testament to how the details matter like the music and how the music the music is dynamic but it's always related to the main theme uses the same set of instruments usually like that kind of thing how when there are details that don't work with the overall fabric those stand out to us and we notice them we notice the stuff that seems kind of odd or off because so many of the little things do seem so well considered well

crafted is really the the the best way to describe what's going on there and and you know going back to what you were saying about the different modes of watching it i think oftentimes when something is well crafted you can appreciate it on just a very... Like casual level. Surface level, casual level, yeah. And not even really pay attention to how it's crafted, but you're also rewarded for looking into the craft. Yeah, I think that's the key is that it's rewarding to look at it deeper. Yeah.

I think that's what makes things stand the test of time is when they are rewarding to look into deeper but you don't have to look at them deeply to enjoy them in the first place yeah i feel like we we nailed the thesis there bam podcast done so i have another question for you nathan if i may you may uh why this podcast you mean other than uh an excuse to talk to you about something every so often well i mean that's perfectly fine i mean we talk about that on twitter uh yeah if you don't follow us on twitter then we will i guess read our tweets aloud into the podcast for you if you demand it but right uh we do talk about how it's a it's a bright spot in the week or however long we have where you are obligated to talk to a friend about something you enjoy. Absolutely.

So the genesis of the podcast was me emailing Epi and being like, hey, we both really like this show. epi and being like hey we both really like this show and i see kind of an angle to talk about it where it's not just uh nerding out about the show even though it is mostly that as you know from listening but also because it's so well done there's an opportunity for us to talk about another thing that we both do and that may be of value to other people to hear which is the second half where we kind of break down the narrative elements of the episode and talk about how to apply those to games and writing. And even if it's not a value to other people to hear, it's certainly a value to me to take the time to figure that out. That's definitely a lesson that I learned from the last podcast that I did last in the sense of preceding this one. It's on hiatus until we start a new arc of it.

But I did a game design podcast with a fellow friend and game designer Will Heinmarch called the Design Games Podcast. So for design games, we got together, talked about different topics of game design specifically, we got together talked about different topics of game design specifically and you know edited that into an hour-ish show and uh produced that over the course of most of uh 2015 and 2016 and the things that i liked the most about doing that were i got to see will every week or every you know however often we recorded because we live in the same city but we just hadn't seen each other very much so that was great uh and also the act of doing that made me focus on game design more and do a better job because i was mindfully thinking about it yeah for the podcast so to be you know selfish about it like having those personal rewards for doing a thing are what make doing the thing fun. Right. And then I also enjoy who are interested in things that we're going to say and people who watch The Rockford Files. And so I think for both of us, we went into this a little bit thinking, well, if that Venn diagram is just circling two people, Nathan Payletta and Epidaeus Ravishaw,

then that's fine. Yeah. If we're, if we're the only ones who are, who are enjoying what we're doing here, but I think it's a heartening to see that there's other people listening, giving us some feedback. Yeah,

it's great. And we really, not only do we appreciate hearing what people have to say about the show, I think it's just right now there's a lot of like stressful, terrible things in the world. And it's very easy to feel overwhelmed by them. And having not only something to look forward to for us, but also something that other people seem to be getting joy out of is a very heartening thing, right? To have someone send us a, you know, send us an email that says, I'm really enjoying your podcast. Thanks for doing it. Or send us a you know send us an email that says i'm really enjoying

your podcast thanks for doing it uh or send us a tweet that's like i watched the episode that you guys talked about it was great like that kind of stuff it it's good to have something joyful even if it's not necessarily like relevant in in a way it's not immediate but we all need something we all need something to to be able to enjoy when things get hard. And I hope that we're able to provide something of that for our listeners right now. And it's also helpful that it's about a James Gardner show, right? Yeah. Because that guy, if he's like, it'll be all right, you're like, okay, it'll be all right. So one of the things that struck me immediately about the show when I first started watching it was that he just physically, visually reminds me of one of my grandfathers.

Like as a younger, you know, when he was more that age. James Garner's face and kind of hair and his teeth, actually, are kind of similar to one of my grandfathers. And so it was very, he's a very comforting person in that regard for me on a personal level. It's a little bit like in an alternate reality. That's my grandpa out there, you know, doing right by the people in his life and fighting the forces of corruption. So there's a little insight into my, how my brain works. Yeah.

It's all the, it's all the good things that come from escapism. Yeah. So I would definitely recommend it on that level. So in addition to writing and designing games, I also play some games too. And currently I am playing, running a game. There's a company called Sanguine Games, Sanguine Publishing, something like that. And they put out a game

recently called Urban Jungle. And it is an anthropomorphic noir game. Their game design, to just take a moment and just say that it really intrigues me, it's clear to me that they spend a lot of time thinking about their subject matter and how their mechanics can produce the sort of fiction that they're, in this case, a noir game, their game mechanics are, to my eye, fairly, I'm going to say traditional, even though I know that's a little loaded of a term, but this is a game that has skills and powers and a good chunk of the book is the combat system,

that sort of thing. I want to say that they put this together in such a way that it definitely inspires people to play very noir-style characters. So I've been running this game with a local group here that I really enjoy running Sanguine games for in particular because they're willing to take a little extra time to learn the rules and just dig into it and the game that we've been doing oh well it's a noir it's set in this alternate universe uh late roaring 20s just before the stock market crash uh in what is the this particular world's version of hollywood i have been so informed by what we've been talking about and watching in the Rockford Files in how I run everything.

Things that I brought up in past episodes, I've been trying to put into practice at the table, and I've really enjoyed what has happened and what's come out of that. Do you have just one specific example of that? Yeah. So one of the things that we talk about a lot is how no character on the Rockford Files, with very few exceptions,

no character in the Rockford Files doesn't have a life somewhere else in some other part of the universe, right? Like we watch episodes and there's just like little details about these characters that very much drive home that they're part of the story but they're not a tool of the story they're a real person with real concerns elsewhere i think we we used kind of the the of like, if the show was about them, this would be a 30 second scene

where they talk to Jim Rockford. Right. But then Rockford would leave and then we'd have another 25 minutes of following this person around their story. Exactly. And so I really, really took that to heart in running this game.

Anytime I had to come up with a character on the fly, I would take the time to figure out, it doesn't take a whole lot of time, it doesn't stop the game dead, but I would just sit there and go, okay, here's a character we need, we're going to come up with a name, like I said, it was an anthropomorphic game,

so it's kind of fun to roll what the random species of it is, because that can inform the character in some way. If your gorilla is literally a gorilla, that's fun. You know, that sort of thing. And then what is this character's immediate concern? And then what is their actual real-life concern? If this were not the game about the player characters, but the game about this character, what is it that they want?

So how will they react to this scene based on that? And just having incidental characters, I had a neighbor across the street in one of the scenes come out and complain about the ruckus. And I had to figure out why would this neighbor be paying attention? And what is it that they're complaining about? And this character keeps coming back and back and it's building into something completely different that I didn't expect. Uh,

whereas I just needed someone to complain about the ruckus that's going on, you know? And I think that's a really powerful thing where it's really not that difficult, I guess. Right. Like it kind of sounds like a lot of work. Like, give every character a motivation and then, like, a goal and figure out what their deal is.

But that doesn't mean write up a three-page backstory for every single incidental character. Right. It means just pick a couple things on the fly, you know, and then let the interaction play out and use that to build a little bit more of their personality. Right. And like this particular adventure, it revolves around a reel of film that has stuff on it that can be used to blackmail people. So it's the MacGuffin. It's this thing that people are chasing around.

They're all trying to find. And what's great about having all the characters feel like real characters with actual motivations is that you can play hot potato with this reel of film and it can fall into various hands and the players can just logically think out where it's going to go next, right? Like I don't have to plot out how I'm going to get it from this person to this boss or something like that i just have to figure out what is this person going to do with that reel like are they gonna call a newspaper and and try and sell the story or are they gonna try and return it to the person that it belongs to or you know. And because I'm being blatant about it,

it's then easy for the players to pick up on it and go, oh, all right, well, this is the... And you can see in the Rockford Files, Jim doing similar things. Yeah, that's another thing we say a lot, but I think is still worth repeating. A lesson that you can apply to pretty much any game is this one of kind of plot transparency almost where if you have characters that are sufficiently interesting and their motivations

are sufficiently at odds then you don't need to keep secrets uh because the secrets aren't what's interesting right like the resolution of the dynamic is what's interesting so that's not to say that you can't run a game with mysteries and secrets because that's its own thing right like that's its own mode of play it's its own joy of discovering the mystery but if that's not the focus of the game then using this this idea of like this person is telling you a story they're obviously lying to right? That's the most basic thing you can say to turn an entire session from let's find out if they're telling the truth to let's find out why they were lying, right? And that's a way more interesting question to answer, I'd say, most

of the time. I would venture that most Rockford files, he has the mystery sussed before the third act, right? Yeah. And what the episode becomes is how does he catch whoever it is up and what they're doing or get out of the situation he's in or whatever. Usually there's the mystery and then there's the problem, right? And then once the mystery is solved, the problem still needs to be addressed. So the episode's about the problem the episode's not about the mystery yeah and in some episodes the mystery is only a mystery to jim and as audience we're watching him right find out about something we already know which is fun and then sometimes we have jim's perspective and so we are discovering it as he discovers it and that's

you know those are the more joy of discovery episodes versus the, oh, how is Jim going to deal with this one kind of episodes. So both modes work. They're both fun. I think it's just being clear about what you're doing. One instead of the other is what you would probably try to try to aim for. It might be interesting for us going forward as we're doing these episodes is um noting when jim figures things out yeah and and then seeing what is done to shift the tension right so if you have a tension that says will jim figure it out and that's not much of a tension but it's still

a tension right like it's the same thing as like will he survive? Though sometimes an episode is about him not knowing something. The tension of the episode is him being stuck in a situation where no one will tell him what's going on. Right. But that's not every... Again, that's a separate little mode that's not every single episode. But then there's things that are done in episodes where once he figures it out or once we figure it out the tension shifts right like to will he figure it out in time or what does he do with that information so i think it would be kind of interesting like i said going forward as we

look at these episodes to see how much of a mystery each episode is and what what is done with the mystery because since we tend to just say, oh, it's a mystery genre, and then we have in our heads, culturally, we assume that if you say to someone, oh, we're going to watch a mystery, I would hazard to guess that most people would say, oh, okay, so this is going to be this sort of situation where you have a bunch of suspects, and up until the very end, we're going to be guessing about which ones are the right one and that the genre isn't as a whole like that it actually is quite diverse and in its structure yeah i'd say that not not

that i want to get into the the business of classifying episodes right yeah but i do think there is an interesting spread of episodes that are more more towards the whodunit end of the spectrum to episodes that are purely problem solving and there actually aren't really any mysteries yeah where someone comes to him and says i just need a con man to get me out of this problem right yeah and then that's a different structure of episode entirely. Yeah. That's probably something that we could pay a little more attention to going forward about what was the orientation of the narrative and what parts of Jim, you know, what parts

of his personality does he need to use for those different kinds of shows? Yeah. I think that'd be think that'd be interesting. I think this is one of those examples where I think one of the things that I do enjoy about doing this podcast is that we also learn while we're on the air and start developing new ideas. If I had any reserves about doing this podcast in the beginning, I think it would have been that, well, I'm not an expert on these things. Well, let me tell you why you do not need to be an expert to start a podcast, my friend. I think that has been conclusively determined at this point.

What I'm saying is that I think it's worth it to kind of go through the process of becoming an expert. I fully expect to be a Rockford Files expert by the end of this podcast. We'll have a quiz when we're done with every episode. Right. I do wonder at what point, and this is an open question, but if listeners have feedback about this, feel free to let us know. But I do wonder at what point we are ill-served by sticking to the Hulu episodes and we should start, you know, go ahead

and start looking at the other, because there's three more, well, there's two and a half more seasons. Yeah. Plus there's the TV movies from the 90s. I think we definitely want to do one or two of those at some point. Yeah.

Because I've never seen them, so I think it would be really interesting to come to those really fresh. I've seen a couple of them. And I think absolutely they'll be interesting to explore. Yeah. Because the ones that I saw, they were pretty good. I mean, I would imagine that if you were living in the 90s and you were a rockford fan and you had less access to rockford than we do now right you don't have the internet you can't just call it up you probably have a lot more invested in what these new rock made for tv rockford movies would

be right you're you're like this this really needs to scratch its itch because it's not going to get scratched any other way. And, like, I don't even know how they would compare in that kind of environment. I would kind of suspect that they were not tremendously well-received. Although they did do something like six of them, I think. Yeah, there's a bunch. So maybe they were. But the two that I saw, I enjoyed quite a bit. But I definitely had this like, oh, who's this new character?

And why is this not Beth? And I had to go online to find out what's going on with the actors or whatever. It's also fun because you get to see Jim. Well, fun. This is a horrible thing to say. It's fun, but you get to see James Gardner trying to do Rockford, uh, after years and years of Rockford wearing away at his body. Oh yeah. Uh, and they work that right into the character, uh,

which to me is endearing. I enjoyed that sort of character, but I'm sure also was hell on him. Oh, I'm sure. Well, I look forward to watching them. At this point, I'm intentionally trying not to so that when we do do one, I'm coming to it really, really totally fresh. Yeah, so far we've been recording episodes

that other people can go and see if they have a Hulu subscription from the first three seasons and that's a lot of episodes right like if we did their 22 episode seasons or something like that or 24 yeah it's a lot so if we just did all of those that's going to keep us for a while obviously but this brings me to a question i had for you that i don't think we've really talked about which is so far we've kind of been, we've been cherry picking episodes, either that we know are good, uh, or that we kind of cross reference kind of the description, what we kind of remember about them and the cast

and, you know, other things that we think will be interesting to talk about. But there are episodes that are a little more formulaic or a little less interesting. Are we best served by sticking to the cream of the crop? Or is it worth looking at some of those maybe less memorable episodes, if for nothing else, and to contrast them with the ones that we've really been enjoying? You know? Yeah, no, I was actually thinking about that same thing recently, because there's also the problem of burning through all of our good stuff. Right. There's a couple episodes that I think are going to be really interesting when we do them.

There's one, I can't recall the title of it, but it has to do with the computerized collection of data. Yeah. And it's astoundingly prophetic and really, really well done. astoundingly prophetic and really, really well done. There's another one that was very clearly about problems with the legal system and how it can be exploited by prosecutors. And they did it very deliberately. That one ends with a title card saying this is the problem. Like this is a real problem in America right now.

Yeah. That went up on tv at the end of the episode and so i'm really looking forward to both of them but i also want to hold those off partly because i want to hone our craft a little yeah obviously i want to get better at what we're doing and also partly because it's a little premature if you start with them right yeah uh i might be wrong maybe you want to start strong and then just keep going. But so I think, yeah, maybe you want to do both, right? You want to be.

Yeah. I wonder because there is a little like at some point we're going to watch one and be like, this one wasn't as exciting. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and expose the business a little bit. But we. Yeah. Oh, behind the curtain. Yeah. Yeah, behind the curtain. Yeah, peeking behind the curtain.

So we've been recording episodes pretty frequently because we know that there's going to be a time later this year that we probably won't be able to record. So depending on exactly when this episode comes out, we may have anywhere from three to five episodes in the can that we've watched and so far as we've been watching them i feel like everyone that we've watched has been our new favorite right for for one reason or another and i don't know if that's just the shine of it being of us kind of training our eye right right yeah as we watch them with this analytical eye we're getting better at looking at them for the details and appreciating those and since they all have great details like how much is it just us seeing more right mathematically it seems highly improbable that we're that every single one is going to be our new favorite episode yeah uh so when we hit one that's like not as exciting or not as

interesting or not as well done um or falls a little flat uh i'm actually kind of looking forward to that a little bit so that we can contrast that with some of our other yeah things i mean i i'm going to go out go out on a limb and say that there probably aren't any real stinkers there's a couple i haven, I haven't watched every single episode of the show, because it went off Netflix before I completed my, my last season watching. But even the ones that are a little boring, are probably gonna be more interesting when I watch them for the show, right? But I don't know, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But I'm kind of assuming that at some point, there'll be an episode or two where we're like, yeah, is a you can you can skip this one whatever this is doing has been done better by a different

episode it's it's interesting because like the we're very critical we're looking at this thing with a very critical eye but we're not out to what do people call it when you do bad reviews where it's not a we're not uh riffing on riffing it yeah yeah we, uh, we're not, uh, riffing on riffing it. Yeah. Yeah. We're not, yeah, we're, we're just,

so there've been a few times in, in episodes that we've done thus far where we've talked about moments that stand out because usually Rockford is really good about this. The example that immediately sprung to my mind was the limo driver in, um, the Gandy and Gabby episode. Just another Polish wedding. Yeah.

That character was not a character at all. And it stood out. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if that's a very deliberate choice on their part. Right. I think we theorized then that possibly because that episode was kind of a backdoor pilot. Yeah. because that episode was kind of a back backdoor pilot yeah

possibly that limo driver character would need to be would be a character in a real Gabby and Gandy show and thus they didn't want to like establish anything yeah because they probably wouldn't even have had the actor picked out yet right at that point and so

but like there's been a few times where we've said and the only reason why this stands out is because normally Rockford Files is really good at this. In the episode Charlie Harris at large, the motivation for the bad guy at the very end, the reason for getting physically involved is very unclear. And yeah, kind of stands out as being like that didn't really need to happen that way. Why did it happen that way? We don't really see a reason so we did some theorizing because we have enough of the pieces knowing these characters the way that we do we can kind of make assumptions about that kind of stuff but there's

you know the that's what separates the great episodes from like the good episodes is the great episodes we we don't end up having that feeling of like that didn't seem to make much sense or that seemed to stand out from the background level of like care taken to to write these shows and the show inspires in us enough faith that we'll we'll try and fill in those gaps so it would be interesting if we see an entire i don't think we'll see an entire show like that but um also it may it may turn out knowing us uh you know it may turn out that we'll see one and then we'll both be like well that wasn't all that great let's not do that one or yeah we just wouldn't talk about it well maybe we might do like a roundup of like if we get like three or four of them together uh it might be kind of fun

to just just do uh okay we're gonna rocket through four episodes of rockford files go that's what we'll that's what we'll need to do if we keep on recording at this pace because that's kind of a thing and this is uh you know the the goal hopefully is to get enough patreon supporters that we can get to our goal of releasing episodes more often. Yeah. Because they're so fun to do, and I feel like we would love to be able to get more of them out, but it really needs to be...

They do take a lot of time, and we need to be able to do it. So right now, basically, we're trading... We're able to record them now, so we're taking the time, but we're trading the longevity of the podcast. That means that we're going to be able to keep it out longer uh at the current pace uh for frequency so if you want to hear more episodes check out the patreon uh or tell your friends to to do so but the other part of that is that it's fun to reach out and get people's opinions and thoughts on the show to guide us going forward because we're still kind of figuring out what the best way to do a lot of this is

which is one reason why we've started doing the polls uh through the patreon page so when we have a question about like what should we do with this a lot of the time we don't have a real strong reason to pick one direction over another direction so uh it's not that we don't care it's more that we could do it either way why not let the people who are actually listening to this inform that decision so and those are all open to the public you don't have to be a subscriber to to vote on those so uh if you want to make your voice heard on any of these decisions and we're just keeping them open in perpetuity. So if something changes over time, we get a groundswell of support for doing a three hour episode for a two

parter instead of doing two separate podcast episodes or something like that will, will change because we do have a two parter and I was just going to say it's either out there now or it'll, it'll be out soon enough, but I'm super excited about this one. Yeah, we do have the two parter that will either have dropped recently or will be dropping soon depending on when this comes out

but the last thing i want to say about that is that all of the polls you can go to actually if you go to 200 a day.fireside.fm survey that is a shortcut to all of the polls on the patreon page so you don't need to click through to patreon and click through to a link and find the tag and because their functionality is still a little weird yeah stuff i i did that work for you well thank you and there's also a button on our web page just to click to get to the listener surveys so you can make your voice heard that way. So, uh, which, uh, what's your spirit Rockford character? Oh man, that's hard. Do you have an answer? I, well, you know, I like to think I would love to be, what would you like it to be?

And what do you actually think? I mean, I would love it to be a Becker, but it's probably an angel. Like that's kind of what I was thinking. Is it weird if I say, uh, I'd like it to be a becker but it's probably an angel like i can't that's kind of what i was thinking is it weird if i say uh i'd like it to be beth no that works because i think he's kind of the most adult person on the show right and i'd like that to be a reflection of me but uh it's probably angel yeah yeah it's either angel or gabby. Like one of those two, I think. You don't see yourself as a Rocky? You know, I'm not.

I'd love to grow into a Rocky. That would be the goal. That's aspirational. Yeah. Someday, if I play my cards right. Well, I mean, okay. So we're currently in the middle of this two-parter Gear Jammers, which is an amazing, the first, at least the first episode has been an amazing Rocky episode. We get to see the hidden world of Rocky's life. It's a great character piece in addition to being a really fun episode.

And I think without that episode, I don't know how much I would want to be a Rocky. I mean, I love that Rockies exist and that they are in this world. They're wonderful human beings. And I don't know if I have the patience to be a Rocky. But now seeing the other one, I'm like, okay, yeah, I could dig this. I like the life he's got going on. The secret life of Joseph Rockford. Yeah.

I mean, like he honestly has made me wonder, wait, should I have been a trucker? Is that a thing I should have done with my life? And then I think about possibly driving a truck in a city and I immediately start to have a panic attack. So probably not the career for you. What else should we throw in here? Certainly could ask our listeners to tell us who their spirit Rockford character is. Yeah. If you have a strong association with one of the characters of the Rockford Files, I'd say go ahead and tweet at us, at 200pod.

We'll get a retweet party going with all of your thoughts. We'd like to hear it. Generally, any feedback you have on the show, obviously you can go to our website 200aday.fireside.fm it has a contact form there if you are a patreon supporter we value and prize

your feedback specifically and also reach out to backers for specific things so you can hit us up on patreon.com slash 200 a day for that. Follow on Twitter, as I said, at 200pod or I'm at ndpayoletta. And I'm at Epidaia, which is spelled like Epidaia. Do you have anything else you want to include

in our little roundup reflection thoughts on the show so far? Bonus episode? It's been tremendous fun thank you for for uh chatting about the rock for files man thank you stranger in the audience for listening you specifically not the whole audience but you yeah well thank you so much for agreeing to do it with me thanks so much to our listeners uh in general as well as you particular listener for listening and uh thanks to our uh financial supporters at patreon um takes the whole crew as it were to uh keep this keep this con game going

yes yeah but yeah it's tremendous fun and keep telling us what you like about it and what we can do better and we'll keep talking about the rockford files okay