"The Rockford Files"

Season 1, Episode 15: Aura Lee, Farewell
Original Air Date—3 January 1975

Lindsay Wagner returns as Sara Butler, the bikini store owner Rockford met earlier in the television movie 'The Rockford Files'. The movie was re-edited as a two-part episode entitled 'Backlash Of The Hunter' for the series' syndication run.

This time, an employee of her's, Aura Lee has been found dead of a heroin overdose. Sara believes Aura Lee was murdered and hires Jim Rockford to prove it.

There's a lot of good stuff in this episode. We get the first of five appearances on the "Files" of Robert Webber, who always made a great foil for Garner. We have another rare appearance of Jim's printing press. And "Lost in Space" star Billy Mumy makes his second appearance on the show as a hippy painter. Oddly enough, his other appearance was in the original movie as Sara Butler's brother. Even though Lindsay Wagner's back, this time the two are not related. Melissa Greene plays Aura Lee in her last professional appearance.

Somehow this episode never really takes off. Jackie Cooper's direction seems particularly plodding and slow, which brings the whole episode down. The mystery isn't that great, and its pretty obvious who the killer is. There's also a pretty bad scene in which Rockford tries to pass himself off as a cop--using his real name and dressed in a big sweater, looking for all the world like anything BUT a cop. Kinda dumb for someone as savvy as Jim Rockford. It's a mistake they would not make later in the series. In many ways this episode is a lot more "Mannix" than it is "Rockford".