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SECRET AGENT!! ROCKFORD!! M:I!!! OC!! SCRUBS!! KOTTER!! Herc’s Season-Box DVD Vault!!

I am – Hercules!!

A bit of Emmy history:

“The Rockford Files” didn’t get nominated for an Emmy its first season. Outstanding drama series nominees in 1975 were “Kojak,” “Police Story,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “The Waltons” and “Upstairs Downstairs.” “Upstairs Downstairs” won.

“Rockford” didn’t get nominated for an Emmy its second season. Outstanding drama series nominees in 1976 were “Baretta,” “Columbo,” “Police Story” and “The Streets of San Francisco.” “Police Story” won.

“Rockford” didn’t get nominated for the outstanding drama Emmy its third season, steeting today. 1977 Nominees were “Baretta,” “Columbo,” “Family,” “Police Story” and “Upstairs Downstairs.” “Upstairs Downstairs” won. (When it came to Emmys, PBS was apparently the HBO of the pre-cable era, and “Upstairs Downstairs” its “Sopranos”).

The following year, 1978, “Rockford” would not only get its long overdue Emmy nomination for best drama series, it would grab a surprise win, beating out “Columbo,” “Family,” and “Lou Grant.” And “Rockford’s” nominations in this category would continue until it left the air in 1980.

But the third season was the first to garner (no pun intended) the series’ first Emmy in any category: James Garner for best actor in a drama series.

End of Emmy history.

The Emmys can be slow to acknowledge greatness, too often favoring familiar veterans over innovative newcomers. And Jim Rockford, beloved for his pragmatic nature, chronic misfortune and understated quips, was not a typical TV hero of the era.

But he was the brainchild of two huge talents. Roy Huggins (1914-2002), having created "Maverick" in 1957 and "The Fugitive" in 1963, had already spent decades as a TV legend by the time he reteamed with Garner in 1974. Having crafted stories for "Rockford" under the pseudonym "John Thomas James," Huggins was newly partnered with 33-year-old Cannell, a veteran of Jack Webb's prolific Mark VII operation. "Rockford" was the first in a long, diverse string of hit crime dramas Cannell would create, a string that would include "The Greatest American Hero," "Ten-Speed and Brownshoe," "The A-Team," "The Commish," "21 Jump Street" and "Wiseguy."

“Rockford,” I’ve been reflecting lately, shares a lot of the same qualities evidenced by “Veronica Mars”: an emphasis on characterization and comedy, brainy but beleaguered private eyes, undertones of social commentary, and a large cast of entertaining recurring players.

The third season gratifyingly returns cowardly con-man Evelyn “Angel” Martin (Stuart Margolin, who won two Emmys for the role) and Rockford’s fabulous lawyer-babe (and sometime girlfriend?) Beth Davenport (the fabulous Gretchen Corbett). Rockford’s friendship with police sergeant Dennis Becker continued to solidify, but season three saw Rockford’s chief police nemesis changed from Lt. Diehl (Tom Atkins) to Lt. Chapman (James Luisi). Season three guest stars included a 30-year-old pre-“Cagney” Sharon Gless (who looked a little like Busy Phillips in those days), Robert Walden, Robert Loggia, William Daniels, Gerald McRaney, Ned Beatty, Ron Rifkin, Steve Landesberg, Jack Riley, Cleavon Little, Louis Gossett Jr., Isaac Hayes, Charles Napier, and future Hill Street regulars Veronica Hamel, James B. Sikkng, Jon Cypher and George Wyner.

Regular writers on season three included Cannell (the hilarious Steve Landesberg-Jack Riley episode “There’s One In Every Port” and the equally hilarious Louis Gossett-Isaac Hayes episode “Just Another Polish Wedding”) and “Sopranos” creator David Chase (the two-parter “To Protect and Serve”).

While a $170 “Secret Agent AKA Danger Man” megaset has been available since 2003, the new Secret Agent AKA Danger Man Complete Collection Megaset 2007, arrives this week with a retail price of only $99.99. Not only is the new set way cheaper, it also contains the 39 season-one episodes the earlier set does not, so you get 86 episodes in all.

Britain’s "Danger Man" spy series has one of the most convoluted histories in TV. Season one consisted of 33 half-hours broadcast in the United Kingdom between September 1960 and June 1961, and six more straggling along between December 1961 and January 1962. Several of these episodes were broadcast on CBS. Season one’s John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) was an Irish-American operative of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The first season was titled “Danger Man” on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the show's second season, which didn’t happen along until October 1964, Drake suddenly grew an English accent (McGoohan himself was raised in Ireland and England), and worked for the fictional British intelligence agency M9. The show also switched at the start of season two to hourlong episodes. CBS, which did poorly with the first season of “Danger Man,” retitled the second season “Secret Agent” and added the famously infectious Johnny Rivers rockabilly classic “Secret Agent Man” (sort of combining both titles) to a new title sequence.

Seasons two (1964-1965) and three (1965-1966) consisted of 22 and 23 hourlong episodes, respectively.

Season four, the first shot in color, only lasted two episodes, and didn’t see air until January 1968.

Just as “The Prisoner’s” Number Six abruptly quit his agency, so did McGoohan abruptly quit "Danger Man" to create and star in "The Prisoner."

"Danger Man" apparently grew so popular in the United Kingdom that producer Lew Grade gave McGoohan complete creative control over “The Prisoner,” which was in 1967 the most expensive British TV series of all time.

(Note that the two season-four episodes of “Danger Man” were finally broadcast only just as the last few “Prisoner” episodes were airing.)

McGoohan has persistently denied that the unnamed “Prisoner” protagonist is actually John Drake, but these denials may have been issued only because McGoohan did not control the rights to the Drake character, and remains keen to avoid an expensive lawsuit.

The first season of “Danger Man,” spread over the new set’s first five discs, follows the original broadcast order; the second and third seasons discs on the 13 other discs, for reasons unexplained, do not.

All of the episodes on the new set are the British versions, with the jazzy “Danger Man” title credits. The American “Secret Agent” opening is conveniently available as an extra on each of the latter 13 discs.

Watching the American Drake beside the British Drake offers a fascinating glimpse into McGoohan’s early artistic evolution. (And it was early: the first-season credits read “Introducing Patrick McGoohan.”) American Drake is crafty and charismatic, but also terse and functional. British Drake, by contrast, embodies disdainful wit – he’s all about smirks, sly glances and irony-underscoring pauses. During the long hiatus, McGoohan – an Orson Welles protégé during the 1950s - did more than stop biting down on his “r”s; he created an entirely new spy. I’d argue that British Drake had a good deal less to do with American Drake than British Drake had to do with Number Six.

To put it another way, when season-one Drake speaks, we’re watching McGoohan playing a part with which most of us are unfamiliar - but when season-two Drake speaks, we feel like we’re watching the character from “The Prisoner.”

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