Charlie's Angels

Hard to believe now that this middling TV Movie/Pilot, with a needlessly convoluted plot, would spark a phenomenon. Caught this on Starz Mystery Channel on satellite.

Seeing it for the first time in nearly 30 years, a few retrospective thoughts:

1. Interesting that Jaclyn Smith was front and center for the first act since she had the least amount of acting experience going in. Apparently, Kate Jackson (who was promised the lead) switched roles with her. Farrah is the 3rd banana here - history changed that.

2. It isn't surprising that the David Ogden Stiers character was dropped after the pilot. Originally added so that there would be a man who could "bail out" the Angels, he was really too stuffy for the show's fluff. David Doyle hit the notes perfectly.

3. I liked the jazzier sounding "main theme" as played in the movie. The rest of the score is typical 70's TV waka waka electronics.

4. Aside from a brief shot of Jacklyn Smith in a bikini and the requisite "Charlie Girl" snippets, there was little of the cheesy T&A exploitation that the show became known for (particularly in its first season).

And to think that this was hot stuff at the time. sigh.

You must wonder about the intelligence of TV viewers during the seventies when this gibberish was on top. I saw my first episode last week and was totally amazed at the amateur hour presented therein. A sixth grade dialogue, extremely emaciated plot, downright silly action scenes as the "girls" took on ruthless drug lords with their pipsqueak snubbies, absolutely pathetic performances, and the list goes on and on. But who could give a good performance when asked to do mindless garbage like this? No wonder I prefer books to television.

First there was Police Woman. Two years later, there are a trio of women who are sick and tired doing menial tasks as police women.

To their rescue comes the mysterious Charlie (John Forsythe.) He runs his own assignments where he weeds out nasties.

This mission has Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith) pretending to be Janet, the long lost daughter and the legitimate heiress of a vintner who has also vanished.

Standing in her way is Rachel LeMaire (Diana Muldaur) the stepmother and her squeeze Beau Creel (Bo Hopkins) who fixes things. It looks like he has also fixed Rachel's husband.

Later Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson) shows up as a true heir and then a plan is hatched with Jill Munroe (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) to extract money from Rachel and Beau over some undiscovered oil in some swampland.

Along for the ride is Tommy Lee Jones as Aram, an old friend who can't seem to drive his pick up properly. He needed to put on a seat belt on his dog.

Serving as a pilot to the television series. The thin story is stretched. It looks cheap with all that blue screen. The incidental music gets tiring from overuse of the same notes.

The series returned with more glam and two of the main cast showing off more of their assets.

I loved this show so much as a young girl. The Angels were role models to me. Everyone talks about the show as if it was meaningless and all about jiggling breasts and blowdried hair and perfect teth. Well, to me it represented women who had it all. Perfect looks and brains and courage to fight crime. I'll always love this show.

I was only 10 yrs old when this came on and I was mesmerized, lol. I grew up wayyyy in the country down a dirt road with only 2 neighbors in about 7 miles. I solved a lot of crime in those woods!! I was 30 when I became a rookie cop. Now mind you there was only 1 other female in the history of our sheriffs office and she was not on the road. After 2 yrs I made Detective, which I did for 8 yrs before going back to the road. I was the only female allowed on the road for over 16 yrs. I was a LT for the last 13 yrs. I had an uphill battle in my career a lot of times. I say all this to say this, these were women a little 10 yr old girl could look up to. So it will always have a special place in my heart. I just retired a couple of years ago after 25 yrs because of medical issues and that was the hard. I know my family say I overshare, lol.