Two Hundred A Day

We're back! We watch the 1969 movie Marlowe, starring James Garner, Rockford Files alums-to-be Rita Moreno and William Daniels as well as Carroll O'Connor and Bruce Lee. An adaptation of the Raymond Chandler story "Little Sister," contemporary reviewers seemed to find it lacking as compared to the classic Humphrey Bogart interpretation of Phillip Marlowe, but we really enjoyed it! Of course we are...

Well friends, here we are. Nathan and Eppy take a day trip with Jim to Parma, CA in the series finale episode. The sixth season of The Rockford Files was cut short by James Garner's medical needs, so this last episode was not intended to be a goodbye to the series. Thankfully, we found that it did feel like an appropriate way to bid adieu to Jim, the Firebird, and all of the Rockfordishness we lov...

In this Plus Expenses we talk about: **It’s the official “crossover” Plus Expenses, James Garner handing off a baton to a wizard, feelings about ending Two Hundred a Day (but Two Hundred a Day will remain!), actually ending a thing, starting a new podcast: Unwritten Earths Symposium , how Plus Expenses will fit into the new show, the early days of Dread, building our new Discord so it’s a place wh...

Nathan and Eppy start from the beginning with S1E1 The Kirkoff Case. Jim's client is a real slimeball who's been arraigned, but not prosecuted, for murdering his own parents. The money is too good for Jim to drop the case, and then it gets personal when he takes a beating from not a "goon", but a "labor organizer". This series premiere episode shows us that this PI gets beat up a lot, but he doesn...

Nathan and Eppy go to where it all began with the TV movie pilot for The Rockford Files: 1974's Backlash of the Hunter. It's a good excuse to talk about the roots of Rockfordishness, the greatness of the casting, and the changes to come for the main show. While we obviously can't watch it with fresh eyes, it is a solid Huggins story elevated with first looks at all of our favorite elements as well...

Nathan and Eppy bid a bittersweet farewell to Rita with the final Rockford Files TV Move: If It Bleeds... It Leads (1999). This was a hard one! Rita's husband, schoolteacher Ernie (Hal Linden) is falsely accused of a series of child sexual assaults, and while Jim helps to clear his name, it's not enough to prevent a series of tragedies. While this one has wonderful performances and some great spot...

It's a special episode! Nathan and Eppy are drafting elements from The Rockford Files to construct two pitches for Rockford Files episodes that never were. It's a great excuse to talk a little bit about our favorite bits of the show, and we have some great Patron suggestions to help us along. Show Notes : Here's the Archive.org link to the 1981 BBC Radio Lord of the Rings recording . Nathan's Epis...

Nathan and Eppy get re-acquainted with national treasure Rita Moreno in S6S8 No Fault Affair. After Jim's friend Rita, a sex worker, gets beat up badly by her pimp, he nurses her back to health - and she falls for him in the process. He has to navigate her emotions while she's trying to get out of her current life, but of course it's not going to be quick or easy. This is the last "regular" episod...

Nathan and Eppy take a little tour through Malibu in S6E1 Paradise Cove. Mariette Hartley joins James Garner in this final season premier episode as Althea, a court-appointed adjuster sent to audit Jim in the wake of a lawsuit he lost to fellow Cove resident C.C. Calloway. Calloway wants to get Jim, or at least his trailer, out of the way because of a 50-year search for literal buried treasure, an...

Nathan and Eppy revisit the first of our "lost episodes" with S4E11 Forced Retirement. An old college friend of Beth's is involved with a secretive undersea submersible project, and after Beth surprises an intruder in her apartment, Jim offers to look into it. He calls in his Jimmy Joe Meeker persona to pose as an investor, kangaroo-skin boots and all; but when the inventor's plane blows up, Jim a...

Nathan and Eppy close out Season Three with S3E18 New Life, Old Dragons. Jim is hired by a Vietnamese refugee to find her missing brother, but as he (reluctantly) pursues the case, it becomes clear that he doesn't know the whole story. When Rocky takes a beating, it turns personal, and Jim needs to figure out where the danger is coming from - the kidnappers, or his own client! Also, Rocky wants to...

Nathan and Eppy finish the main tour through the first season with the 90-minute S1E6 This Case Is Closed. Jim's client sends him to Newark to check up on a soon-to-be son-in-law, and Jim starts getting heat from the mob, the cops and the feds - and he doesn't know why! With an unconventional narrative structure, plenty of good car chases and lots of Cannell-written memorable dialogue, this Roy Hu...

Nathan and Eppy take a road trip in S1E9 In Pursuit of Carol Thorne. Jim is hired to keep an eye on a newly-released-from-prison Carol Thorne - but he's not the only one! Carol takes a hike and Jim pursues her to Nevada, only to find that he's being used by a conman to get Carol to find another member of his old gang who's sitting on a million-dollar score. Not really a con game episode, we enjoye...

Nathan and Eppy join Jim for one of his most unique challenges in S1E8 Find Me If You Can. His client has hired Jim to find... her. While the money is good, the mystery surrounding why Barbara (Joan Van Arc) is trying to stay un-discoverable concerns Jim, and his search for answers takes him to the mob boss of Denver, played by Paul Michael Glaser. Jim needs to navigate some complicated emotions a...

Welcome to Twenty Dollars a Day, the podcast where we explore our favorite holodeck adventures in the Star Trek universe! Nathan and Eppy are bidding a fond farewell to this podcast with our final episode: the second Next Generation movie, First Contact. Look, it has a Dixon Hill holodeck appearance, so it counts enough for us to talk about it - and it's a great movie! Thanks for trekking through...

Nathan and Eppy hit the gym in S3E10 Piece Work. Jim's insurance investigation gig happens to intersect with flashy dresser Murray Rosner (Michael Lerner), a freelancer for the feds who's getting a gun buy together. After a series of paranoid assumptions, Jim takes a beating from the gun-running goons, uncovers the scheme and brings in Dennis for a bust that doesn't happen. Between Chapman threate...

Nathan and Eppy make a trip to the dump in S3E8 Rattlers' Class of '63. Angel is getting married! Jim is surprised but supportive - until he learns that it's Angel's way of ducking the fallout from a "Red Barn" con gone wrong. His new brothers-in-law are trying to sell a landfill, but once one of them is found dead, Angel and Jim look good for the murder. They need to find the real killer before C...

Nathan and Eppy hit the streets of LA for the penultimate 90s TV Movie, Murder and Misdemeanors. A fellow ex-con-turned-PI, Booker Hutch (John Amos), cons Jim into taking his remaining caseload - and before he can even look over the files, Jim's fielding police harassment. There's an investigation into potentially dirty cops, a reporter hungry for a story (Isabel Glasser), some great goons, and An...

Nathan and Eppy hit the runway in S5E12 With the French Heel Back, Can the Nehru Jacket Be Far Behind? After a discussion of the very interesting life of director Ivan Dixon, we join Jim as he investigates the death of a model friend who called him for help. This quickly brings him to fellow-(former)-model Alta (Erin Gray) and then avant-garde designer Masters (Rene Auberjonois). Jim seems to be t...

Nathan and Eppy join Jim as he faces off with a neurotic playboy, a real estate slimeball and Arabic culture clash in S5E7 Three Day Affair with a Thirty Day Escrow. Rousted out of bed by an angry Arabic patriarch to answer for a recent gig where Jim was looking for his daughter, Jim wants to get to the bottom of the situation. After tracking down his former client Sean, the two of them stumble ov...

Nathan and Eppy head back to school in S4E20 The Prisoner of Rosemont Hall. Jim has a friend whose son is going to Rosemont College, and who seemed to come to him for help... and then denies that anything is wrong. Jim wants to get to the bottom of it, placing him in a mysterious situation involving a fraternity, a hard-nosed campus security chief, an adjust professor of journalism and middle east...

Nathan and Eppy don fireproof outfits for the explosive S4E3 The Battle of Canoga Park. Jim's stolen gun is used to murder a man he doesn't even know! While figuring out how to prove he didn't do it, he uncovers a paramilitary militia. From grenades to truckloads of dynamite, this romp of an episode manages to keep the stakes high without undercutting the fun of viewing, and gives us a strong dose...

Nathan and Eppy say goodbye to Jackie Cooper (as a director) in S1E14 Aura Lee, Farewell. Jim is asked by sometime-girlfriend-and-previous-client Sara to look into the so-called overdose death of her friend Aura Lee. Once his investigation turns up a State Senator and a slick bunko artist, things get really intense. This is a tight episode with lots of our favs (Robert Webber! Dennis getting mad!...

Nathan and Eppy join Jim as he travels to the morgue, the dentist and Seattle in S1E18 Say Goodbye to Jennifer. Hector Elizondo guest stars as Mitch, a Korean War buddy of Jim. It looks like the woman he's infatuated with, Jennifer, died in a car accident, and Jim has little patience for Mitch's insistence that she's alive. But once a mobster starts threatening him for sniffing around, he takes up...

Nathan and Eppy end our Summer of Wiard by rewinding back through the entire Wiard Rockford Filesography. This excuse gives us a good way to chat about some of the show's most standout episodes, and we assemble a Recommended Viewing list of our 6 most recommended Wiard-directed episodes, one from each season. A fun conversation! We also go to our answering machine to field questions and comments f...