.
Why am I still--for a month or so, every few years-- into Charlie's Angels? Maybe part of it is that my dad wouldn't let me stay up late to watch it during the first season (and this was long before videotape), leaving me to consider each episode like some magic out-of-reach Tiffany's gold ring. It was their picture on the cover of TV Guide and article, and in my dad's Time, that lit up three chakras in my 10 year-old self's spine up like an electric eel. But by Season Two the time slot changed and my parents pushed back my bedtime, so now every week we watched it together, however, my obsession dimmed just a bit as it lost its forbidden mystique (and became much less 'adult'); and when Kate Jackson left after season three, so did my last remnant of interest.But now, all these years later, CA is like a Rosebud just waiting for the right amount of sled-ready snow... for the first seasons still can grant me--and maybe you-- a warm prepubescent jouissance echo deep in a sacred place beyond the tediously conventional realm of post-pubescent hormonal desire sexuality and more towards a pre-differentiated self zone where romantic or courtly chaste devotion collides with a spiritual state of grace (1). Arron Spelling knew that the trick with 'the Angels' was to never ruin the spell for us by bringing some dumbass love interest, as they did in the movies (and the reboot), which totally missed that key point. Charlie = God; Angels = nuns; we the viewers = the holy ghost. Sex kicks the nuns out of their state of grace the way sunlight robs vampires of their shadow safety.
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| "Jousse" is for jouissance! |
(special thanks to Charlie'sAngels76-81.com, from whom I've borrowed many of these images - hey at least I'm not ripping them out of Teen Beat while the 7-11 camera is looking the other way, but man I used to - all through the initial run of season 1 especially - less so by season 2, when they came out on Topps trading cards)
Eps. 23-24: Angels in Paradise
Grade: A
Every so often Charlie/Spelling rewarded the girls/actresses and crew by bringing them outside the dingy studios of LA. and off to a place like Hawaii (a great excuse for tans, toned limbs, and lithe swimwear). There's plenty of lush hotel lobbies, sun-kissed white beaches, local celebrities, Asian characters ' This time, having perhaps the whole summer to make the season open right, and wanting to make us forget about the missing Fawcett as fast as possible, they really delivered. "Angels in Paradise" finally gives us what the pilot, with its high-end clients and ritzy expense accounts, had seemed to promise: expensive location shoots, white beaches, surfing, Don Ho, a full-on luau, big cast, yacht hijacking, a sassy massage parlor receptionist, and lots of beach running.
We also get our first introduction to Farrah's replacement, Cheryl Ladd as Kris Munroe (Jill's sister) and it's collective love at first sight, not just for the Angels... but for a hopeful nation. Looking adorably like she's going to her first day at my elementary school in the same 'windbreaker' (then a new term) we kids were all wearing at the time, she was sweet and accessible while also being drop dead sexy, confident and capable. Completely 'getting' the weird mix of approachable innocence and hormone-triggering casual sexuality needed to keep multiple generations happy, she won us with her first warm, inclusive smile and aw-shucks shoulder hang. When, during the big mobster yacht hijacking climax, we see her in a brown bathing suit, all wet from sneaking aboard, conking the helmsmen, and steering back out of international waters, we're so thoroughly agog we've forgotten all about Farrah. Here's a secret I gleaned fro Huysmans' À rebours --adapted for these two episodes: Rub a dab of some cocoanut suntan oil under your nose, angle the couch by the window so you catch some late afternoon rays on your face, lean back and let "Angels in Paradise" lift you unto to them. You'll start to feel the waves.
Pros: A complex plot finds Charlie kidnapped and then kidnapped from the kidnappers! First he's snatched mid-morning phone conference by the ice-cool surfer girl ruler of the Hawaii underworld, Queen Bee, who wants the Angels to bust her easy-going surfer husband out of jail in exchange for his return. But before that can happen, Charlie is stolen from her by a disgraced Italian mobster trying to take over the Honolulu rackets via his offshore yacht (beyond the three mile limit) which means going up against the Queen Bee, operating beyond the touch. The Angels have no jurisdiction even if they find hiim! So now, after the Angels break out the easygoing surfer husband, they hold him as a hostage, and so forth. Kelly and Kris are quite in alluring bikinis and Sabrina looks tan and relaxed. Lots of scenes go down on the beach, the wind rippling the palm trees, waves crashing, everything is very chill. Charlie even sips cocktails with his kidnappers at the pool, just as the queen bee's husband knocks back beers with Bosley!
Pros: A complex plot finds Charlie kidnapped and then kidnapped from the kidnappers! First he's snatched mid-morning phone conference by the ice-cool surfer girl ruler of the Hawaii underworld, Queen Bee, who wants the Angels to bust her easy-going surfer husband out of jail in exchange for his return. But before that can happen, Charlie is stolen from her by a disgraced Italian mobster trying to take over the Honolulu rackets via his offshore yacht (beyond the three mile limit) which means going up against the Queen Bee, operating beyond the touch. The Angels have no jurisdiction even if they find hiim! So now, after the Angels break out the easygoing surfer husband, they hold him as a hostage, and so forth. Kelly and Kris are quite in alluring bikinis and Sabrina looks tan and relaxed. Lots of scenes go down on the beach, the wind rippling the palm trees, waves crashing, everything is very chill. Charlie even sips cocktails with his kidnappers at the pool, just as the queen bee's husband knocks back beers with Bosley!
Cons: Sabrina refuses one of Don Ho's specially made frozen Pina Coladas, even though (and not because) they're virgin. After she watched him make it for her! Sabrina, that was very rude!
Ep. 25-26 Angels on Ice
Grade: B-
Pros: There's a great stretch where we follow Kelly, by herself, pursuing a lead. First, she hitches a ride on the back of Carlos Santana's chopper (!), to pursue a suspect, then disguises herself in a lime green bedlah and does a coy belly dance for some power lunching evil Arabs (one of whom is Timothy Carey!) at the local Middle Eastern eatery. If that's not enough, she then performs an awesome acrobatic escape from the women's room, reminding us that a lot of the show's appeal secretly comes from Jaclyn Smith--the only Angel who lasted all five seasons--whose curves could make young minds explode. "Angels on Ice" is is her two-parter --showing off her action skills, quick wit and lovely form in this extended solo jaunt-- just as "Angels in Paradise" was Ladd's. Now we see how all their skill sets and personas divide: Farrah's Jill was perky, athletic, fearless and quick-thinking; Kris is brave but ever cognizant of danger, warm and innocent, but no pushover; Sabrina is brainy, crafty, and a good shot but hesitant and second guessing; but it's Kelly, time and again, who rocks the show's demure sexual backbone. She can't convincingly belly dance but oh! Oh, that midriff. There's also some great sardonic dialogue from Jim Backus (!) as an old doofus coach. My favorite: "being human is a terminal illness. We all deserve what we get when we get it."
Cons: Sabrina's extended "uh.. uh" stall after stealing a vegetable truck and plowing it into a cop car while carrying a gun without a license--this after she lets a perp in a gorilla mask throw her in a closet, never thinking to fight. back. C'mon Sabrina. You'd have never got out of the Academy being this incompetent! Worse, she then takes the vagrant (hammed beyond endurance by Edward Andrews) to a restaurant to buy him wine or something, never considering the olfactory nerves of the diners or that his half-assed WC Fields is unacceptable. All of it pads out what is really an episode and a half, rather than two-parter. So much mugging and dumb back-and-forth hamming. Kate, it's beneath you!
Phil Silvers is also around, doing his part, bringing New York Jew moxy as their client. Andrews is such a ham, Silvers feels low-key by contrast/
Luckily there's that Kelly sequence. Thank god for Kelly! And timely Carlos! And Arab Carey!
27 -Pretty Angels all in a Row
Some good old boys from Texas are scaring away the strongest competitors at the "Miss Hyacinth Pageant" so that a rich oilman's little baton-twirlin' darlin' can win. Contestant Marki Bey gets a tarantula in her bed and freaks out (she's a long way from Sugar Hill). Soon no one wants to compete, and the host worries someone is out to attack this hallowed "national institution." The Angels flip coins to see who will have to go undercover as Hyacinth contestants, but it's already in Ms. Jackson's contract to be excused from bathing suit duty, so Kelly and Jill will share the dubious honor. They're both serious ringers, so you best believe it's going to take more than tarantulas to get them out of the running.
Cons The climactic televised public event is packed--as in all these episodes--with a woefully small audience of under-directed extras scattered around in front of tacky 70s wallpaper and wood panelling, i.e. the shoddy ambience so beloved of this show's fans and Spelling's wallet. On the podium for the 'personality' portion, Kelly says she wants to go into brain surgery, but "keep up my dancing, no matter what." Oh please do!
Pros: I always like it when the stakes are low, since I watch these shows to calm down, to sink into the orange shag carpet womb of the 70s easy lovin' mellow good natured feel-good nostalgia and not have worry about anyone enduring vicious sexual assaults, pervy ugliness, unpunished misogyny, high-stakes vivid intensity and downer vibes. This episode, the first stand-alone of the season, is a pretty good example of low-risk narrative immersion as far as that goes. The two main bad guys--the big Texas goons--aren't so bad that they'd actually harm a woman; they just lock the frontrunner Hyacinth Girls (and un-bribable judges) in an auto garage 'til their little Texas petunia takes the prize. But of course the Angels know how to escape.
As do I, it seems.
Angela--Sabrina's old college roommate--now works as an instructor at a stewardess school --and she's being terrorized via some black roses! Oh no! She's such a major cowerer--the total opposite of Sabrina--that you may root for the unseen caller/terrorizer, as if maybe forcing her to commit sabotage may help her stop her incessant cringing. Even after seeking the Angels' support she's still an easy victim of anyone with a dime and a bottle of black dye. Red herring comes in the form of a combative Asian-American stewardess student named Mai Ling (!) and a perverted building super. But the real enemy is Angela herself. She ends up trying to freeze the Angels out when the killer starts making direct threats -- even though the mysterious tape she receives orders her to kill the pilot on her next training exercise! It seems like she's less afraid to commit cold-blooded murder than she is to just hang up the phone or press the 'stop' button. You really just want Sabrina to slap the shit out of both Angela and--while she's at it--Angela's super snide sexist boyfriend --another herring! They deserve each other.
Would one could paint the whole episode black, grab one of those red herring and slap the shit out of everyone in it who's not an Angel.
Pros: Sabrina finally gets some time to chill out on the couch while mooning over Burt Reynolds in a (fake) Hollywood gossip magazine (there's some allusions to his then-infamous bear skin Playgirl 'spread.' Burt's not who we'd imagine Sabrina would go for, but Jackson really seems to shine best in these little bits of business, demonstrating her underused acting chops and gift for subtle comedy.
Cons: Alas she undoes any engendered good will by wearing an unflattering 80s-heralding cream colored blouse. I hate that blouse so much it prohibits me from posting a pic.
29. Circus of Terror
Terror? This barely even has a circus, more like some offscreen animal and calliope noises in the background mix, and a cast of about five suspects ambling around in a shady plot to make the circus go bust or sell out. The circus is conveyed via untrampled grass (why there's no sawdust or even some sand instead is a mystery) and some shiny new tents that look like they were borrowed from the set's catering company. I don't think we see a single rube, or elephant, or acrobat. Bosley does get some woo pitched his way by a lady little person. And the sad-eyed "big in Eastern Europe" mime does tired Chaplin pathos; and a 'new' kind of gypsy romances Sabrina in a big top annex. Such a half-assed attempt to conjure a circus wouldn't be bad in itself (I can't bear seeing unhappy animals) except for the mime element. Thanks to the momentary popularity of the TV variety show Shields and Yarnell --mimes were almost cool. Lou Reed even played one on his Coney Island Baby cover. I'm not afraid of clowns or enraged by mimes like some people but I am also no fan of either, nor any of the twee quirks or inevitable turns pathos. Meanwhile someone has it in for the Angels. The other big thing is a plan to shoot Kelly mid-cycle jump (she's undercover as a daredevil cyclst, and kill Sabrina with a sword that's supposed to be made of rubber during her mime act;
Cons include the worst pun ever (a weirdly half-assed attempt to counter TV critics' sexism charges, the Angels accuse Charlie of having a one-track mind when they hear he's learning engineering from a female engine driver-- KILL ME NOW). Thanks to his inane bawdy entendres, no one notices that Charlie keeps hiring young women to do all these professional jobs and services usually ascribed to men. He's a real man, unthreatened by women in a position of power, trusting in their ability to do male-associated jobs better than he can. Yet he's decried as sexist for it thanks to his lame puns. Oh Charlie....
Cons- The home invasion thing is pretty cliche and the opposite of what I come to the show for, i.e. to calm down and rest my jets with groovy clothes, childhood '70s babysitter fixation' crushes, and a complete absence of real tension or sexual abuse; the idea that a hospital would just admit a guy who was shot in the back and not alert the police, then allow him to escape without even seeing his I.D. is offensive.
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Dan O'Herlihy (the druid mask designer in Halloween III) is Freddy the Fox, a dapper jewel thief trying to go straight ala Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. But instead of traipsing around the gorgeous Riviera, the Angels head to 'the Caribbean' to steal a big gem from a rich Arab. I hear "'the Caribbean' is great this time of year." Better hurry! The blackjack dealer and hot water cop from "The Big Tap-Out" are after Freddy (they think he has the gem--he doesn't - so the Angels need to steal it to prove it, or something).
Pros: Sid Haig! There's a black maid too -- Bosley (posing as a butler) dines with her to share recipes and slyly solicit gossip.
Cons: Sabrina's pathetic attempt to pass undercover as a snob involves donning a terrible satin bow-tie blouse and speaking in a horribly fake posh accent (when she remembers). Bosley too seems like he's just hamming it up hoping to wear us down, hoping we change the channel so he can trundle off to bed; his posh accent is amongst the worst in small screen herstory. They all seem like bad actors playing characters who think they're able to assume all sorts of disguises but can't even play themselves with anything but cocktail conviction. O'Herlihy is up for the challenge but his Freddy the Fox makes lame jokes like "they didn't call me Freddy the Fox because of my fox-trot." Kill me.
The angels make some dumb, dumb, dumb blunders like giving up their real identity because Kris likes some boy (in a plot twist as regular on ABC as could be, having been used on the Bionic Woman over and over), and wearing all black when stealing a jewel in broad daylight. You might as well wear striped pajamas and a black eye mask. Once again there's the idea that not only does real life experience not matter in the writer's pool, but neither does art direction for the producer. It was a hit show but none of the money is onscreen, except in the Ferrari dept, which I suspect is the kind of thing Spelling and Goldberg were buying for themselves with advertising revenue, and then ordering the writers to factor them into the show so they could get a tax deduction. The rest of the time, as in the supposedly rich Arab's pad, everything is just the same lame backyard LA smog. These rich Arabs don't even have a fucking pool! "He's not exactly handsome," notes Kris of their Arab suspect "you can even say he's ugly." She doesn't mention she knows about race cars due to her sister Jill which would be good writing (did the writers even see earlier seasons?).
Pros - Kelly busts "judo" on some opposing dyke fullback named Grinelda. "Julia Smith, with a Y" (Patch Mackenzie) is the rival team owner (in the "same sorority" as Grinelda) who makes a thinly veiled come-on to Sabrina in the form of paying her triple price to switch to the Panthers. Sabrina may have 'switched' awhile ago, according to my favorite new piece on the subliminal lesbian relationship between Kelly and Sabrina but she's still got integrity. "She's a tough lady," notes Gary Wood, the hobbled ex-player suspect flirting with Kelly. She likes winning; she drives a motorcycle (a pair of them threatens one of the Ducks during scrimmage); and she's won everything she ever tried. She dresses well and has a rockin' haircut like my fifth grade teacher. Why do I always have massive crushes on lesbian team owners?
Cons - Some pretty stupid stuff going on, not least of which is Kelly letting herself get intimidated by two idiots trying to kick her in the shins while racing past on motorcycles with their legs sticking out. It's about the easiest thing in the world to dodge a motorcycle, just turn around like a bullfighter, and or grab one of them by the arm when they ride past and let centrifugal force unthrone them. Kelly jumps up on a car and shakes back her tresses like she's ready to drop kick, but then doesn't do shit. The idea of an exhibition game for female football played at 'the Coliseum' is kind of dopey, especially since inside it's just that same Spelling LA scrub high school track field. (We learn it was "donated") And it doesn't help the cause of women's lib that this women's football team is totally ridiculous - why do they bother having a girl named Pokey, ultra clumsy and dyslexic as she is, as a halfback? Is this second string junior varsity or what? It's a disgrace to women's football everywhere!
On the other hand we do learn about dyslexia, which in 1978 was not a household word.
L.Q. Jones is Dan Jarvis, the older ex-NFL guy with ever-present beer as token of his masculinity who treats his team-captain daughter with sighs of embarrassment, playing the same character he played in "Bullseye" last season. It's a groaningly cliche type of dated macho, even for Spelling. "These girls ought to be spending their time in the kitchen," he actually declares. Gary Wood is another type, less sexist but more self-pitying, sulking that he's less than a man because of his old football injury Kelly infers he's a quitter and that it's not true he's not still a man. "It's true if I say it is, I I feel it" he says. Wow. What woman could resist? And how can even the weakest of kicks fail to knock over such easy targets even as they're being lured into complacency. At least the Angels seem to have things under control when they're not cowering from bikers or dyke fullbacks. "Mr. Jarvis -- you don't need any help making a fool of yourself," Sabrina tells the dad.
In short, there's way more than a welcome shred of tough love, here, and platitudes about equal playing fields seem wrong coming from a stunning girl like Kelly, with her perfect hair, flawless make-up and spoon feeding obvious psychological answers to damaged macho types.
Still, that was the 70s, after all. People were in touch with their feelings for the first time, maybe ever, maybe never again. And the Angels once again proved they could mix all three- excelling at any sport, foiling the bad guys, and teaching homespun shitheels a thing or two about caring and then almost undo it all by lapsing into gender norms by using Charlie's admiration and concern for their bruises into an excuse for an agency-funded shopping trip.
I know right? So much crap this season. But then episodes like this come along which remind me why I started this episode guide in the first place. This time the angels move briskly in an elaborate taxi tail that leads them to all the shady cokeheads that an Amy Winehouse-Janet Joplin-but-country-rock type (or thereabouts) visited the night she was killed (just feet away from her waiting intervention) via the old 'hot shot'. The bad guys are sleazy--"any guy with some coke or smack who tells her what she wants to hear," and "she picked up tabs for a lot of guys like me, know what I mean?" There's wood panelling and lots of cool 70s cars (peep the 'Sambo's' sign!). Not only does Kelly notice her tail (a rarity in the lamer episodes) she does some aggressive driving and gets behind him, and changes cars and everything! Like real detectives! Damn! Why can't every episode be this badass?
The best aspect is the short time period: the whole thing goes down in one long afternoon of tailing, being tailed, getting shot at and pulling weird scams to get the truth out of sleazy cokeheads and syndicate-connected music publishing rights stealers. Amy's song is called "Tripping to the Morning" and it's funny the Angels pretend to love it while condemning the drugs no doubt used to deliver it. Even weirder, dig the hand-painted record cover her manager has. It looks like it's still wet! The script by Edward Lakso shows he could still deliver if he was in the mood. "What a waste," notes Kelly of Amy's death. They only have on real song of hers to listen to, but whatever: "she really only used cocaine, Charlie, not heroin." So 70s to think that's somehow better.
Cons: It's hard to believe Charlie would be that big of a fan of one lame ersatz country song that was "his favorite singer's" entire oeuvre. The grieving dad does some good acting but Bess Gatewood as Amy is even better. She's almost too good, too raw. She brings so much teary, beat-up pain that you're like wait, this isn't fun! Then she's dead, though, so it's okay. She's at peace.
To think the angels could still be this adult, sophisticated, smart, cool, and able to best dudes in hand-to-hand combat--believably--then make them lie down face first in the mud while doing freezes of their stash to identify if its heroin, coke, or laundry detergent, when next week they'd be dressing up like Mother Goose characters -- is to want to weep.
The inside job 'crazy toy company sabotage' plot is an old hat trick of the British series The Avengers, and Spelling's old show Honey West but whatever, if it ain't broke, re-gift it to some new needy youngster. Shh - toyz-iss like ze peeple!!!1
Pros: I like that "Mother" Goose is a guy. That he's not called that because he's a den mother to a family of drag queens is too bad, but to forgive? Divine. As is a crazy toy designer who wants to make tiny guillotines and a game where kids run over pedestrians for points ("They actually get rid of their little aggressions this way."). Even so, a mobster and his 'fake Richard Harris' Brit wiretapper steal the show prettily handily and have a scene that looks like it was filmed in a real English pub as opposed to the usual wood panelling and tawdry chairs. "Don't bandy names around, Luv." Sabrina has a cute sweater poncho and a sexy slit-skirt silver silk dress. She's supposed to be a Hong Kong heiress. Kris gets to play mannequin as a Pippi Longstocking frozen in place at night to watch the goings-on. She rocks it!
In other words it's a relaxing go-round, the Angel's safety and competence are never in doubt. It's a nice touch that they bug the bugger. That's Bobbie Jordan not Marg Helgenberger as the girl who makes trouble for Kelly, though you coulda fooled me.
Cons: The pizza restaurant owner has a terrible toupee, and the whole goombah thing leaves a bad taste; pizza always photographs terribly under 70s analog TV lighting. The Angels are supposed to be monitoring the building as security, but with Lakso's pen contriving situations, no woman is safe. Kelly holds her gun like it's a condom she just found on the beach, preferring to cowers in the corner when the killer runs past her in the stairwell. A shrink comes to the pool and offers 'misplaced aggression' as a possible motive. "Is there any chance this killer might get tired of killing and quit?" they ask. I'm as feminist as they come but even I want to reach in and so bitch-slapping over that one.
And then they talk one of the girls, Bonnie, into staying in the building, as if she'd be safer under their protection. Why? Because no killer can survive all your cowering and lack of cohesive strategy? More idiocy: The flimsiest of excuses brings Kris--looking mad gorgeous in an orange bikini--out to a yacht bobbing around in the dock, alone.. knowing less than a ten year-old about the importance of leaving a note.
B
Some good old boys from Texas are scaring away the strongest competitors at the "Miss Hyacinth Pageant" so that a rich oilman's little baton-twirlin' darlin' can win. Contestant Marki Bey gets a tarantula in her bed and freaks out (she's a long way from Sugar Hill). Soon no one wants to compete, and the host worries someone is out to attack this hallowed "national institution." The Angels flip coins to see who will have to go undercover as Hyacinth contestants, but it's already in Ms. Jackson's contract to be excused from bathing suit duty, so Kelly and Jill will share the dubious honor. They're both serious ringers, so you best believe it's going to take more than tarantulas to get them out of the running.
Cons The climactic televised public event is packed--as in all these episodes--with a woefully small audience of under-directed extras scattered around in front of tacky 70s wallpaper and wood panelling, i.e. the shoddy ambience so beloved of this show's fans and Spelling's wallet. On the podium for the 'personality' portion, Kelly says she wants to go into brain surgery, but "keep up my dancing, no matter what." Oh please do!
Pros: I always like it when the stakes are low, since I watch these shows to calm down, to sink into the orange shag carpet womb of the 70s easy lovin' mellow good natured feel-good nostalgia and not have worry about anyone enduring vicious sexual assaults, pervy ugliness, unpunished misogyny, high-stakes vivid intensity and downer vibes. This episode, the first stand-alone of the season, is a pretty good example of low-risk narrative immersion as far as that goes. The two main bad guys--the big Texas goons--aren't so bad that they'd actually harm a woman; they just lock the frontrunner Hyacinth Girls (and un-bribable judges) in an auto garage 'til their little Texas petunia takes the prize. But of course the Angels know how to escape.
As do I, it seems.
28- Angel Flight
C
Would one could paint the whole episode black, grab one of those red herring and slap the shit out of everyone in it who's not an Angel.
Pros: Sabrina finally gets some time to chill out on the couch while mooning over Burt Reynolds in a (fake) Hollywood gossip magazine (there's some allusions to his then-infamous bear skin Playgirl 'spread.' Burt's not who we'd imagine Sabrina would go for, but Jackson really seems to shine best in these little bits of business, demonstrating her underused acting chops and gift for subtle comedy.
Cons: Alas she undoes any engendered good will by wearing an unflattering 80s-heralding cream colored blouse. I hate that blouse so much it prohibits me from posting a pic.
B-
Terror? This barely even has a circus, more like some offscreen animal and calliope noises in the background mix, and a cast of about five suspects ambling around in a shady plot to make the circus go bust or sell out. The circus is conveyed via untrampled grass (why there's no sawdust or even some sand instead is a mystery) and some shiny new tents that look like they were borrowed from the set's catering company. I don't think we see a single rube, or elephant, or acrobat. Bosley does get some woo pitched his way by a lady little person. And the sad-eyed "big in Eastern Europe" mime does tired Chaplin pathos; and a 'new' kind of gypsy romances Sabrina in a big top annex. Such a half-assed attempt to conjure a circus wouldn't be bad in itself (I can't bear seeing unhappy animals) except for the mime element. Thanks to the momentary popularity of the TV variety show Shields and Yarnell --mimes were almost cool. Lou Reed even played one on his Coney Island Baby cover. I'm not afraid of clowns or enraged by mimes like some people but I am also no fan of either, nor any of the twee quirks or inevitable turns pathos. Meanwhile someone has it in for the Angels. The other big thing is a plan to shoot Kelly mid-cycle jump (she's undercover as a daredevil cyclst, and kill Sabrina with a sword that's supposed to be made of rubber during her mime act;
Cons include the worst pun ever (a weirdly half-assed attempt to counter TV critics' sexism charges, the Angels accuse Charlie of having a one-track mind when they hear he's learning engineering from a female engine driver-- KILL ME NOW). Thanks to his inane bawdy entendres, no one notices that Charlie keeps hiring young women to do all these professional jobs and services usually ascribed to men. He's a real man, unthreatened by women in a position of power, trusting in their ability to do male-associated jobs better than he can. Yet he's decried as sexist for it thanks to his lame puns. Oh Charlie....
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| part of the mime explosion of '76 |
Cons: Sabrina says she's wanted to be a clown since she was a little girl! Skeevy! Why didn't she say anything about it when poor Kris had to put on that dumb clown nose for the ice show a few weeks ago? Naturally Sabrina learns the ropes from a "master" mime (Charles Tyner) who--when he laughs--comes off like the nightmare reflection of Alan Alda.
Pros. Kelly poses as an uppity motorcycle daredevil and looks smashing in a sexy olive green jumpsuit (above); Kris has knives thrown at her by a German suspect with a dueling scar. Sabrina does end up looking kind of CBGBs cool in her mime finery (like Lou Reed on the cover of his 1976 album Coney Island Baby - left) and Jackson does a great job of always seeming in the driver's seat during her dinner date with the handsome client, a younger generation of gypsy butting heads with his traditionalist father about circus-running ways (and things like hiring lady detectives, or cooking for one on a date) and the idea of a kind of underground railroad of Eastern European circus defectors is interestingly etched into the margins. Surprisingly, Sabrina ends up holding hands with the younger circus guy at the end, and it not needing to be commented on as central to the plot in any way.
Pros. Kelly poses as an uppity motorcycle daredevil and looks smashing in a sexy olive green jumpsuit (above); Kris has knives thrown at her by a German suspect with a dueling scar. Sabrina does end up looking kind of CBGBs cool in her mime finery (like Lou Reed on the cover of his 1976 album Coney Island Baby - left) and Jackson does a great job of always seeming in the driver's seat during her dinner date with the handsome client, a younger generation of gypsy butting heads with his traditionalist father about circus-running ways (and things like hiring lady detectives, or cooking for one on a date) and the idea of a kind of underground railroad of Eastern European circus defectors is interestingly etched into the margins. Surprisingly, Sabrina ends up holding hands with the younger circus guy at the end, and it not needing to be commented on as central to the plot in any way.
30. Angel in Love
B-
Sabrina, how could you fall in love with a shaggy D.B. Cooper clone? Ah well, Jackson takes it as a chance to do some real acting for a change as her character struggles to not let her newfound gooey feelings cloud her keen investigatory judgement. The Angels are investigating why so many people are dying (literally) while trying to find something hidden in a certain cabin at "Utopia West" - a very California encounter group-style sanctuary. Turns out it's just the kind of place where a guy like Sabrina's new lover, Doug, might stash some stolen millions under a cabin's floorboards. That's why you're there, Sabrina, to find the killer and recover the cash, not to get emotionally involved with a suspect!
For their covers: Kris teaches tai chi; Kelly drives the shuttle bus and Sabrina does her investigating journalist routine (an excuse to ask prying questions). Touching Doug's hand in a meditation exercise leads her to unexpected and unprofessional feelings!
Lucky for we smitten ten year-olds, all Angel romances end in death or arrest by the end of the episode. That's one of the key things Spelling does right (but the films and reboot do wrong): our Angels are chaste; they love no man but Charlie - and we're never jealous of him because we can't see his face, neither can they, therefore he becomes a figure unique in viewing psychology: he's not the viewer (there's no point of identification), but at the same time he's not-not the viewer either (we don''t see him as a rival). For us prepubescent boys, terrified of sex's mystery yet drawn to it like an irresistible magnet, the Angel's' weird sense of suspended chastity, assisted by their Eunuch Bosley and guided by their unseen power, comes as a sweet stay of sexual awareness execution, like a big window right in the middle of our father's head.
Pros: It's fitting and right that Sabrina would be the one to fall in love and resist the sketchy truth. The brainy are often neophytes when it comes to love. But it's clear she is making a concerted effort to maintain her objectivity (and Jackson the actress clearly relishes the chance to work on her 'antithetical interiority.').
It's also always fun seeing the Angels get into some then-relatively unknown California trends like meditation and yoga. The 70s encounter group stuff isn't presented in too much of a satiric context ("It's all right to touch after all, isn't it?" notes the encounter group teacher rather sweetly at the end of an exercise --an elegant mantra that nicely sums up my favorite decade.)
Cons: Bosely gets stuck at fat camp, and ends up sneaking in all sorts of meats and other gross things to pig out on after lights out. The Angels find a masked creep hiding in their closet, but they fight him like kids. Kris jumps on his back and Kelly swings ineffectual little girl punches. All that police academy training out the window! Two minutes later Kris is teaching tai chi! So, Kris, let me get this straight; you know tai chi--you've had extensive self defense and police training--and you couldn't have used some masked dork's own force against him in an off-the-hip flip? Or at the very least stomped on hi instep or kicked out his kneecap? Or was Spelling worried that might mean hiring a stunt woman? Or running out of things to do?
Here, of course, he ends up arrested.
Pros: Kelly gets a real chance to shine, literally, as a silver-suited Venusian, in order to play havoc with the nerves of a jittery ectomorph cult member. And then later, she calmly straps herself in after her pilot lover-instructor saws through her seatbelt in the open air cockpit before doing long barrel rolls, then makes him land with a gun to the back of her head. "You just don't have the courage, Jim," Kelly tells him, calm and cool. "You never did." The tense, interesting, weird finale wraps the culprits up in many overlapping ways. The mundanity of actual detective work gets a nod with the crew flipping a coin to see who tails who. Bosley works two cons in one day. "Am I still in banking?" No, Kris answers with a kiss, "sugar-daddy." I always like it when the Angels use their seductive beauty to throw men off their game (guys naturally want to impress them, so talk big, and let slip shit they shouldn't), why else do they need to be so hot? When the writers remember to use what makes them different from other detective agencies, suddenly, the show makes sense.
Cons: Some of the above, but not all, helps compensate for the Angels' inability to fight well, or ever think to just shoot a perp in the leg if said perp lunges for their gun. Like her sister, Kris has a soft spot for dweeby guys. Kelly gets to fly in a Red Baron-type biplane with the astronaut, and be dined over cocktails... until he realizes who she is and tries to drop her out of her seat in a mid-flight loop-de-loop. If it all seems like a lot of work and expense when a simple dog walk could have solved the case in five minutes, well, that's show biz. And to reiterate: the idea of killing a wealthy member for having Astronomy 101 facts at her fingertips is also really stupid... even for this show.
Someone's trying to kill a lady reporter on an all-news radio station. The Angels take over a variety of undercover jobs, including the reporter's (since the suspects only know her by voice). This leads to a nice variety of suspects, lots of deranged listeners out there! So the Angels go off on their own a lot, exploring various avenues of Southern California fringe living, and it leads to a pretty solid climax.
Pros: Kelly gets ready to give a nice slapdown to "that wife-beater Quinlan"--who threatened the reporter in the past-- but he's already dead; she should slap down the hulking patriarchal bully of a Catholic priest who interrupts their sisterly support staring contest instead. There are two unusually interesting 70s-style macho dudes as suspects: Dwayne Hansen-- rabbit-huntin' hippie commune leader ("it's cosmic!"); and old Buck (Taylor Latcher), the Vietnam vet news chopper pilot who used to do the weather by himself and is now jealous they gave that plum to Sabrina (shades of Burgundy!). Now he just flies the plane while she talks (he drives crazily and tries to make her throw up - a less fatal version of a similar ride taken by Kelly last episode). Whatever happened to shit-heels like ole Buck? There used to be so many. Now the street poles look like Stretch Armstrong crucifixions. Not, admittedly, without good reason.
Cons: Sabrina should have taken some massive revenge against the macho shit-heel (with his fake Burt Reynolds laugh) but doesn't. On the other hand, he'll tell you this, lady, "after what I saw in 'Nam, I live and I let live."
Police Quiz: Here's a question for Kelly: a perp is chasing you in his car. After lots of cop show funk and K-turns, your car smashes up in the middle of a field. His car is still coming at you. Do you a) lean out the window and shoot at him? b) stay in the car and phone for back-up? c) leave the gun in the car and get out and go run across the open field so he can barrel right towards you?
Guess what Kelly does? It's as if the writers don't know how to write scenes where women rescue themselves instead of praying for a Kojack machina. Did the writer forget she was the detective, not the client? Why take the place of an endangered reporter if you're not even going defend yourself from attack? Even though she does chase down the perp in the end via a cross-track field race, she could have nabbed him right here and be done with it.
Overall, though, strong stuff, especially with two of the male suspects being such male chauvinist shitheels. As the pilot, Latcher's pretty good, like he's angling for the TV B-version of Burt Reynolds and Paul Newman (about 50/50). And Kris has got a recipe for rabbit stew that would curl Dwayne Hansen's toes ("I'm a blood-boilin' man and yer settin' my karma on fire!") After one of his jealous main babes unmasks her, though, he shouts: "you're a big disappointment, Matilda, or whatever your name is! That hog yer ridin' is rented! RENTED!"
A juvenile delinquent turned soldier--whom Kelly rehabilitated while working her old rookie beat-- gets in hot water when he goes AWOL to find out what happened to his missing girlfriend. He calls Kelly for help, and the trail leads to a mysterious rest home / clinic for unwed mothers (secretly a black market / high-end adoption agency). Sabrina goes undercover as a bitchy rich woman shopping for the right expecting mother; Kris Munroe gets a few big, great scenes as one of the undercover mothers. She shoots her very first suspect! It's one of the show's truest, best moments! I likw how the Ultimate Charlie's Angels Guide puts it:
Pros: Kris is pretty on the ball this time around, using her intentionally lame mind-reading act as an excuse for reading some shady audience member's driver's license; Sabrina snoops effectively (but then lets herself get tied up too easy just so she can have a hair-raising Peril of Pauline rescue); Kelly uses her wiles to solicit trade secrets from a terrible magician with an even worse toupee. There's some footage shot at LA's premiere conjuring spot, The Magic Castle.
Cons: The rest of the action occurs on the same lame, half-finished, wood-paneled sets it always does. Sabrina uses a terrible French accent in her fashion designer disguise --a new low. Bosley poses as a magician and he, too, clowns without pity. Kelly pretends to know some mystical Paradol chamber secret and people buy into it waayy too easily. The concept underlying the big crime trick (how the arsonist can start fires when not even in the same town) relies on a lot of wild assumptions, like that you could break in and swap someone's phone out of their office and they wouldn't notice, and then no one would call them on it for weeks or days until you're safely away with an alibi, and that no fire investigato would come ever to investigate any strange freak blaze after it happened ever because if he did he'd notice within seconds where the fire originated and how it was triggered. The funny thing is, it's not dissimilar to how Iraq insurgents use cell phones to activate bombs today (as in Hurt Locker) only reverse direction. So the writers had a prescient idea, they just didn't deign to think it through, as usual.
A kidnapper pretends to be drunk so he can spill water on Sammy. Sammy splits to the men's room to dab himself down. It's a trap! Masked thugs attack Sammy! A real drunk thinks Sammy's Flip Wilson. The drunk doesn't notice the kidnappers but shoos them away anyway. Sammy's there for the 'hospital fund" because they "need all the help they can get." He thinks having Kris as a bodyguard is "groovy, man." Yeah, but she's barely taller than you are, Sammy! And she proves pretty conclusively she's also incompetent. Not to mention all three of them together are pretty ineffectual against a van full of gigantic black men. Why not try some mace or something, ladies? Just this once? It's either guns --which they don't use-- or dumb luck, when it comes to protecting clients. What confidence they must instill!
Pros: "98 pounds of police-trained dynamite," notes Sammy of Kelly, though she doesn't exactly earn that description. Whatever training she had, she must have passed just because she's so hot her instructor just mindlessly gave her an A. There's no real need for anything on the kidnappers' part, they're just there cuz a bad guy is needed, but one must applaud their idea of repeating their attempt. "No one in their right mind would expect anyone to bungle a kidnapping so bad and then try again," says the ringleader. And adds "if there are security people, waste 'em." Tough talk makes it extra worrisome the Angels are so unarmed and incompetent. Meanwhile there's a cat named Brubaker, a professional Sammy lookalike (played by Mr. Davis Jr.) way more interesting than the original. Brubaker comes to drive one of Sammy's cars: "I don't need no Irish person to help me drive this car!" - Oh we know.
Cons: Sammy Davis Jr. has a drawn-out, weird acting style that seems to play up his natural confusion when not onstage before a devoted crowd. There's about a minute of dead air in the amount of empty beats between his sentences. His 'cocoa-brown beauty' of a wife (real life wife Altovese) seems to appear largely to stress her non-whiteness (and reminds us that Davis was briefly kidnapped by Sammy Cohn to scare him off his dating Kim Novak- an allusion that hangs like a fetid cloth over the proceedings). Bosley is a certified idiot here as the chauffeur, completely unaware there's a Sammy imitator around (at a lookalike contest no less). As I say, it's a lot of contrivance to make a dopey idea work. Why not start with a good idea and make that work? Don't say it's never been done neither!
Bosley on horseback is the comedy aspect (he mugs horrendously - a major low in the series) and we learn how far the Angels have fallen when Charlie gives Bosley shit for expensing an $85 rolfing session after getting rider's cramps ("I told you to get a soft horse!" declares Charlie). Not only that but Charlie stops them from being about to go on a beach vacation--they're in their bathing suits and everything--to send them to some middle-of-nowhere dude ranch. How you get to this swanky tourist spot? First you fly in to a dinky airport and then its an all-night drive to the ranch. What the hell? Where is this place, Patagonia?
Pros: Cheryl Ladd is on her A-game, and seems alive to the limitless potential of her face: gazing at Bosley with a beaming motherly glow; gazing at her quarry with the unstoppable momentum of an Atlantic City call girl coming onto a sloshed high roller; and gazing at the bad guys with an inflexible 'hear-no-bullshit' kind of tough love. Perennial sniper James B. Sikking is a mysterious figure around whom much intrigue goeth; Kelly rocks a sexually liberated woman schtick but no one's buying it---not this time--and we learn why when her inner prude comes out, making sure a key mob moll witness knows she's "no lady," Most of all, the Angels get to ride, boldly ride....
Cons: It's disheartening that bad guys get the drop on Sabrina again, and she doesn't exactly seize any of her chances to escape. As my dad never tired of telling me while watching westerns, it's nearly impossible to hit your target from atop a galloping horse, so just ride off in a different direction and be free. Bosley's mugging (it's like he's trying to do bad so they don't use the footage) is terrifyingly broad --cross-eyed, tongue-out, the works.
... Otherwise, it's a diverting mix of fad (country and western must have been 'in' at the moment) and sleuthing, where they cut through acres of potential crap dialogue by just leveling with their suspects early on, and where even a remote dude ranch looks identical to everywhere else the Angels visit in their 'travels' -- a divine fusion of LA desert scrub, stables, wood-paneled bungalows, and a parking lot. Who wouldn't fly to a remote airport and then drive all night to be at a place like this?
I would not change it.
The game: women's tennis. The death: caused maybe by a Bobby Riggs-type mad at a Billie Jean King type (thanks to the at-the-time notorious battle of the sexes tennis match - this show kept its finger on the pop culture pulse!). In high California style, the crowds at the prestigious 'Hermosa Cup' tournament range anywhere from five to seven extras milling around in collapsable bleachers. For the #1 show in America, Spelling spared no expense... as in none of the expenses associated with a real show -- sparing Spelling's wallet. And the same goes for Bosley, who's too cheap with the Angels' budget to even buy Kelly a decent tennis racket, even going on and on about how everything has to be returned. Oh Bos, that's sooo fun. Still, she and Kris both look damn good in those high-riding lame gym shorts, the type all the girls wore at the time at the gym in the 70s, accentuating their pubic crest and turning boys into men with every jump shot.
Pros: The celestial Tiffany Bolling shows up as a spiritual yogi/feminist on the circuit (she'd have made a dynamite Angel! If only...) who advises Kelly about being 'off-pose' and that the key to promoting your inner self is 'the asanas' (it may be a lesbian come on). She's a suspect until she gets a rattlesnake in her bag, but still blames the Angels for the bad vibes. It's funny that meditation and yoga were still 'fringe' and 'eccentric' back then, especially in LA. But at least it's being mentioned and shown to have effective medical value. It illuminates the way that most new things are first held up to open ridicule, then as signs of flakiness, then healthy holistic alternative, then medical fact, and finally enforced by law. That last part is still decades away, until yoga and meditation are mandatory class subjects in high school, and mushrooms ubiquitous in hospices. I can't wait. Good tense final talk down work from Sabrina. Gotta love there's finally a balding suspects who doesn't wear a toupee (he's got that long fringe), a sign of things to come. The 'female jock' motif is always welcome, showing a real reason for the Angels to exist in the first place and to examine changes in the country and its media as women's lib runs headlong into the craze for cheerleaders and 'Monday Night Football.' There's also some extempore banter re: Bosley's date with an ugly-sexy singles suspect, jettisoned during the initial investigation but not forgotten!
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Pros - some nicly twisty synthesizer suspense music in addition to the usual echo-driven flutes and oboe sustains. An interesting climax with Sabrina diving into a cold pond and then--as she has in the past--getting lots of attention from the other Angels as she sit with her feet in a hot tub by the office fireplace. I must wonder if it's her tendency towards this kind of covert lesbian attention-mongering that made me so enamored of sick days
For their covers: Kris teaches tai chi; Kelly drives the shuttle bus and Sabrina does her investigating journalist routine (an excuse to ask prying questions). Touching Doug's hand in a meditation exercise leads her to unexpected and unprofessional feelings!
Lucky for we smitten ten year-olds, all Angel romances end in death or arrest by the end of the episode. That's one of the key things Spelling does right (but the films and reboot do wrong): our Angels are chaste; they love no man but Charlie - and we're never jealous of him because we can't see his face, neither can they, therefore he becomes a figure unique in viewing psychology: he's not the viewer (there's no point of identification), but at the same time he's not-not the viewer either (we don''t see him as a rival). For us prepubescent boys, terrified of sex's mystery yet drawn to it like an irresistible magnet, the Angel's' weird sense of suspended chastity, assisted by their Eunuch Bosley and guided by their unseen power, comes as a sweet stay of sexual awareness execution, like a big window right in the middle of our father's head.
Pros: It's fitting and right that Sabrina would be the one to fall in love and resist the sketchy truth. The brainy are often neophytes when it comes to love. But it's clear she is making a concerted effort to maintain her objectivity (and Jackson the actress clearly relishes the chance to work on her 'antithetical interiority.').
It's also always fun seeing the Angels get into some then-relatively unknown California trends like meditation and yoga. The 70s encounter group stuff isn't presented in too much of a satiric context ("It's all right to touch after all, isn't it?" notes the encounter group teacher rather sweetly at the end of an exercise --an elegant mantra that nicely sums up my favorite decade.)
Cons: Bosely gets stuck at fat camp, and ends up sneaking in all sorts of meats and other gross things to pig out on after lights out. The Angels find a masked creep hiding in their closet, but they fight him like kids. Kris jumps on his back and Kelly swings ineffectual little girl punches. All that police academy training out the window! Two minutes later Kris is teaching tai chi! So, Kris, let me get this straight; you know tai chi--you've had extensive self defense and police training--and you couldn't have used some masked dork's own force against him in an off-the-hip flip? Or at the very least stomped on hi instep or kicked out his kneecap? Or was Spelling worried that might mean hiring a stunt woman? Or running out of things to do?
31. Unidentified Flying Angels
B-
Ross "The Fake Oscar Levant" Martin (Wild Wild West) is Dr. Perine, a bunco UFO cult leader who's supposed to have spirited a rich old lady away to Venus. He really killed her because she dared point out it's too hot on Venus for a saucer to land. Jeeze, are all rich people so dumb that it's a killable offense to mention facts straight off the back of Quisp box? The UFOs (they show up outside the window on 'special evenings') are clearly effects process shots from Forbidden Planet. I bet you someone found the old reels in a box somewhere and quietly stole them. TV guest shot mainstay Dennis Cole is a corrupted astronaut with a checkered past. Dr. Perine uses him as a paid spokesperson and sometimes henchman. Kelly falls for him - in real life they ended up getting married!Here, of course, he ends up arrested.
Pros: Kelly gets a real chance to shine, literally, as a silver-suited Venusian, in order to play havoc with the nerves of a jittery ectomorph cult member. And then later, she calmly straps herself in after her pilot lover-instructor saws through her seatbelt in the open air cockpit before doing long barrel rolls, then makes him land with a gun to the back of her head. "You just don't have the courage, Jim," Kelly tells him, calm and cool. "You never did." The tense, interesting, weird finale wraps the culprits up in many overlapping ways. The mundanity of actual detective work gets a nod with the crew flipping a coin to see who tails who. Bosley works two cons in one day. "Am I still in banking?" No, Kris answers with a kiss, "sugar-daddy." I always like it when the Angels use their seductive beauty to throw men off their game (guys naturally want to impress them, so talk big, and let slip shit they shouldn't), why else do they need to be so hot? When the writers remember to use what makes them different from other detective agencies, suddenly, the show makes sense.
Cons: Some of the above, but not all, helps compensate for the Angels' inability to fight well, or ever think to just shoot a perp in the leg if said perp lunges for their gun. Like her sister, Kris has a soft spot for dweeby guys. Kelly gets to fly in a Red Baron-type biplane with the astronaut, and be dined over cocktails... until he realizes who she is and tries to drop her out of her seat in a mid-flight loop-de-loop. If it all seems like a lot of work and expense when a simple dog walk could have solved the case in five minutes, well, that's show biz. And to reiterate: the idea of killing a wealthy member for having Astronomy 101 facts at her fingertips is also really stupid... even for this show.
32. Angels on the Air
B
Pros: Kelly gets ready to give a nice slapdown to "that wife-beater Quinlan"--who threatened the reporter in the past-- but he's already dead; she should slap down the hulking patriarchal bully of a Catholic priest who interrupts their sisterly support staring contest instead. There are two unusually interesting 70s-style macho dudes as suspects: Dwayne Hansen-- rabbit-huntin' hippie commune leader ("it's cosmic!"); and old Buck (Taylor Latcher), the Vietnam vet news chopper pilot who used to do the weather by himself and is now jealous they gave that plum to Sabrina (shades of Burgundy!). Now he just flies the plane while she talks (he drives crazily and tries to make her throw up - a less fatal version of a similar ride taken by Kelly last episode). Whatever happened to shit-heels like ole Buck? There used to be so many. Now the street poles look like Stretch Armstrong crucifixions. Not, admittedly, without good reason.
Cons: Sabrina should have taken some massive revenge against the macho shit-heel (with his fake Burt Reynolds laugh) but doesn't. On the other hand, he'll tell you this, lady, "after what I saw in 'Nam, I live and I let live."
Police Quiz: Here's a question for Kelly: a perp is chasing you in his car. After lots of cop show funk and K-turns, your car smashes up in the middle of a field. His car is still coming at you. Do you a) lean out the window and shoot at him? b) stay in the car and phone for back-up? c) leave the gun in the car and get out and go run across the open field so he can barrel right towards you?
Guess what Kelly does? It's as if the writers don't know how to write scenes where women rescue themselves instead of praying for a Kojack machina. Did the writer forget she was the detective, not the client? Why take the place of an endangered reporter if you're not even going defend yourself from attack? Even though she does chase down the perp in the end via a cross-track field race, she could have nabbed him right here and be done with it.
Overall, though, strong stuff, especially with two of the male suspects being such male chauvinist shitheels. As the pilot, Latcher's pretty good, like he's angling for the TV B-version of Burt Reynolds and Paul Newman (about 50/50). And Kris has got a recipe for rabbit stew that would curl Dwayne Hansen's toes ("I'm a blood-boilin' man and yer settin' my karma on fire!") After one of his jealous main babes unmasks her, though, he shouts: "you're a big disappointment, Matilda, or whatever your name is! That hog yer ridin' is rented! RENTED!"
33. Angel Baby
A
Rookie Kris faces her first “line of fire” situation: a dramatic shootout with a cold-blooded killer. Though Kris wins the showdown, the shock of realizing she had to shoot someone to do her job overwhelms her, to the point where she has to be comforted by Sabrina. It’s a sensitive moment very well done, and made all the more effective by the element of surprise. “Instead of making it a light, Angel moment, they made it a real moment” said Cheryl Ladd.I also like the line where she's meant to breed with a stud Nordic swinger (to produce blonde babies, which have a higher resale value), and he says, once they're alone in their hotel room and the champagne is getting cold, 'it's not like I should feel cheap. If I just met you, I'd be up here for free, right?" and Kris gives him a very confident look and says, "Don't you believe it." It's beautifully said, a line that could mean many things but with Ladd's unyielding stare it's obvious she's sized this guy up as a good guy easily confused by the need for money and the impetus of 70s 'swinging'. Oh if I'd have only understood what she meant, or seen this episode, before I went on my own unpaid one-night stand rampage back in 1990 (and then again in '09). Even Tommy (Edward Winter) gives a nice performance, and Jean Allison is subtly devastating as a previous pregnant victim's grieving mom.
34. Angels in the Wings
D
A 'jinxed' movie musical in rehearsal hires the Angels before anything 'worse' happens. There's a fake Julie Andrews reviving a never-finished film version of a musical she wrote years back with her ex-husband, a chronic gambler songwriter/producer who calls the idea of a musical about a formerly married couple who are still fighting, starring a formerly married couple who are still fighting, "juvenile." Don't you mean "meta," chummmmmp? It's always about 'puttin' on a show' in a life imitates art kinda way, isn't it, Lylah? Not that the rehersal is going well to begin with, but there's something strange about this one song, sung on this one staircase, that seems to trigger a half-baked Phantom of the Opera composite in the wings to strike... and again. But oh, man, does he take his time. Suspects include: the bickering couple's long-suffering son (he worries they'll kill each other if they get back together); and a loan shark out to get paid or break legs.
Pros: The two hilarious hired legbreakers hanging around the set play things somewhere between Spats Colombo's thugs from Some Like it Hot and Lee Marvin and Clu Gallagher in The Killers. And Cheryl Ladd can actually sing.
Cons: This is one of those where the Angels don't do much. Vast stretches of time are eaten up with tacky songs and interminable stretches of what we in the Vaudeville trade (and this is before your time, sweetheart), what we in the Vaudeville trade (and we've been in the trade such a very long time, you and I, haven't we, sweetheart?), call... well, what you--or even I.... baby.... on some rainy night... if I couldn't find a hat or rubbers--could I, I mean would you, I mean, sweetheart? Yes, this is what we might call "patter" in the show business, baby. You know what patter is, don't you, baby? It's slowing your lines down, adding pauses, repeating lines in different ways, and stretching words out for as much screen time as you can grab. It's a lazy way to pad running times and turn a one-line walk-on into a bid for Oscar glory. Usually it means either the script ran way too short or the director didn't have the heart to yell cut.
Con-Cons: Showing how dumb she can be about the screen trade--especially for someone who supposedly lives and works in LA--Kelly thinks it's genuinely macabre that the cinematographer kept the camera rolling during, and after, the fatal 'accident' (a real detective would think it suspect if they didn't). No matter what happens or doesn't happen, the torch ballads keep coming, with lyrics like "you plus me/ now one's a lonely number / must we be?" The Angels all dance around in spangly 20s-30s costumes and the irritable yawns come like rain upon anyone not enamored of slow-tempo show biz 'standards' scraped out of the bottom of cobwebbed filing cabinets by old timer Brill Building hacks.
Con-Cons: Showing how dumb she can be about the screen trade--especially for someone who supposedly lives and works in LA--Kelly thinks it's genuinely macabre that the cinematographer kept the camera rolling during, and after, the fatal 'accident' (a real detective would think it suspect if they didn't). No matter what happens or doesn't happen, the torch ballads keep coming, with lyrics like "you plus me/ now one's a lonely number / must we be?" The Angels all dance around in spangly 20s-30s costumes and the irritable yawns come like rain upon anyone not enamored of slow-tempo show biz 'standards' scraped out of the bottom of cobwebbed filing cabinets by old timer Brill Building hacks.
35. Magic Fire
C-
A dangerous serial arsonist is striking along the same theatrical circuit as a couple of magicians, one of whom uses fire tricks in his act. What are the odds? Kris is menaced (as above) with a fiery shower. Soo scary! She was almost nowhere near it, but I can imagine the idea would go over big when discussed at fourth grade recess (a lot of us weren't sold on the idea of the shower vs. the bath (the knobs being too high) but would have been all over the idea of Ladd, in terrible danger and a towel, looking for a brave boy to turn off a faucet).Pros: Kris is pretty on the ball this time around, using her intentionally lame mind-reading act as an excuse for reading some shady audience member's driver's license; Sabrina snoops effectively (but then lets herself get tied up too easy just so she can have a hair-raising Peril of Pauline rescue); Kelly uses her wiles to solicit trade secrets from a terrible magician with an even worse toupee. There's some footage shot at LA's premiere conjuring spot, The Magic Castle.
Cons: The rest of the action occurs on the same lame, half-finished, wood-paneled sets it always does. Sabrina uses a terrible French accent in her fashion designer disguise --a new low. Bosley poses as a magician and he, too, clowns without pity. Kelly pretends to know some mystical Paradol chamber secret and people buy into it waayy too easily. The concept underlying the big crime trick (how the arsonist can start fires when not even in the same town) relies on a lot of wild assumptions, like that you could break in and swap someone's phone out of their office and they wouldn't notice, and then no one would call them on it for weeks or days until you're safely away with an alibi, and that no fire investigato would come ever to investigate any strange freak blaze after it happened ever because if he did he'd notice within seconds where the fire originated and how it was triggered. The funny thing is, it's not dissimilar to how Iraq insurgents use cell phones to activate bombs today (as in Hurt Locker) only reverse direction. So the writers had a prescient idea, they just didn't deign to think it through, as usual.
36. Sammy Davis Jr. Kidnap Caper
C+
A kidnapper pretends to be drunk so he can spill water on Sammy. Sammy splits to the men's room to dab himself down. It's a trap! Masked thugs attack Sammy! A real drunk thinks Sammy's Flip Wilson. The drunk doesn't notice the kidnappers but shoos them away anyway. Sammy's there for the 'hospital fund" because they "need all the help they can get." He thinks having Kris as a bodyguard is "groovy, man." Yeah, but she's barely taller than you are, Sammy! And she proves pretty conclusively she's also incompetent. Not to mention all three of them together are pretty ineffectual against a van full of gigantic black men. Why not try some mace or something, ladies? Just this once? It's either guns --which they don't use-- or dumb luck, when it comes to protecting clients. What confidence they must instill!Pros: "98 pounds of police-trained dynamite," notes Sammy of Kelly, though she doesn't exactly earn that description. Whatever training she had, she must have passed just because she's so hot her instructor just mindlessly gave her an A. There's no real need for anything on the kidnappers' part, they're just there cuz a bad guy is needed, but one must applaud their idea of repeating their attempt. "No one in their right mind would expect anyone to bungle a kidnapping so bad and then try again," says the ringleader. And adds "if there are security people, waste 'em." Tough talk makes it extra worrisome the Angels are so unarmed and incompetent. Meanwhile there's a cat named Brubaker, a professional Sammy lookalike (played by Mr. Davis Jr.) way more interesting than the original. Brubaker comes to drive one of Sammy's cars: "I don't need no Irish person to help me drive this car!" - Oh we know.
Cons: Sammy Davis Jr. has a drawn-out, weird acting style that seems to play up his natural confusion when not onstage before a devoted crowd. There's about a minute of dead air in the amount of empty beats between his sentences. His 'cocoa-brown beauty' of a wife (real life wife Altovese) seems to appear largely to stress her non-whiteness (and reminds us that Davis was briefly kidnapped by Sammy Cohn to scare him off his dating Kim Novak- an allusion that hangs like a fetid cloth over the proceedings). Bosley is a certified idiot here as the chauffeur, completely unaware there's a Sammy imitator around (at a lookalike contest no less). As I say, it's a lot of contrivance to make a dopey idea work. Why not start with a good idea and make that work? Don't say it's never been done neither!
37. Angels on Horseback
B
Pros: Cheryl Ladd is on her A-game, and seems alive to the limitless potential of her face: gazing at Bosley with a beaming motherly glow; gazing at her quarry with the unstoppable momentum of an Atlantic City call girl coming onto a sloshed high roller; and gazing at the bad guys with an inflexible 'hear-no-bullshit' kind of tough love. Perennial sniper James B. Sikking is a mysterious figure around whom much intrigue goeth; Kelly rocks a sexually liberated woman schtick but no one's buying it---not this time--and we learn why when her inner prude comes out, making sure a key mob moll witness knows she's "no lady," Most of all, the Angels get to ride, boldly ride....
Cons: It's disheartening that bad guys get the drop on Sabrina again, and she doesn't exactly seize any of her chances to escape. As my dad never tired of telling me while watching westerns, it's nearly impossible to hit your target from atop a galloping horse, so just ride off in a different direction and be free. Bosley's mugging (it's like he's trying to do bad so they don't use the footage) is terrifyingly broad --cross-eyed, tongue-out, the works.
... Otherwise, it's a diverting mix of fad (country and western must have been 'in' at the moment) and sleuthing, where they cut through acres of potential crap dialogue by just leveling with their suspects early on, and where even a remote dude ranch looks identical to everywhere else the Angels visit in their 'travels' -- a divine fusion of LA desert scrub, stables, wood-paneled bungalows, and a parking lot. Who wouldn't fly to a remote airport and then drive all night to be at a place like this?
I would not change it.
38. Game, Set, Death
B+
39. Hours of Desperation
B-
Sabrina wears a high explosive belt that a sleazy guy will set off if Kris and Kelly don't recover his stolen loot. Wait, why? Suspenseful in a tradition I don't particularly care for, I still respect it as an interesting 'one-off' in a kind of Suddenly key.Pros - some nicly twisty synthesizer suspense music in addition to the usual echo-driven flutes and oboe sustains. An interesting climax with Sabrina diving into a cold pond and then--as she has in the past--getting lots of attention from the other Angels as she sit with her feet in a hot tub by the office fireplace. I must wonder if it's her tendency towards this kind of covert lesbian attention-mongering that made me so enamored of sick days
Cons- The home invasion thing is pretty cliche and the opposite of what I come to the show for, i.e. to calm down and rest my jets with groovy clothes, childhood '70s babysitter fixation' crushes, and a complete absence of real tension or sexual abuse; the idea that a hospital would just admit a guy who was shot in the back and not alert the police, then allow him to escape without even seeing his I.D. is offensive.
40 - Diamond in the Rough
D-
Dan O'Herlihy (the druid mask designer in Halloween III) is Freddy the Fox, a dapper jewel thief trying to go straight ala Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. But instead of traipsing around the gorgeous Riviera, the Angels head to 'the Caribbean' to steal a big gem from a rich Arab. I hear "'the Caribbean' is great this time of year." Better hurry! The blackjack dealer and hot water cop from "The Big Tap-Out" are after Freddy (they think he has the gem--he doesn't - so the Angels need to steal it to prove it, or something).Pros: Sid Haig! There's a black maid too -- Bosley (posing as a butler) dines with her to share recipes and slyly solicit gossip.
Cons: Sabrina's pathetic attempt to pass undercover as a snob involves donning a terrible satin bow-tie blouse and speaking in a horribly fake posh accent (when she remembers). Bosley too seems like he's just hamming it up hoping to wear us down, hoping we change the channel so he can trundle off to bed; his posh accent is amongst the worst in small screen herstory. They all seem like bad actors playing characters who think they're able to assume all sorts of disguises but can't even play themselves with anything but cocktail conviction. O'Herlihy is up for the challenge but his Freddy the Fox makes lame jokes like "they didn't call me Freddy the Fox because of my fox-trot." Kill me.
The angels make some dumb, dumb, dumb blunders like giving up their real identity because Kris likes some boy (in a plot twist as regular on ABC as could be, having been used on the Bionic Woman over and over), and wearing all black when stealing a jewel in broad daylight. You might as well wear striped pajamas and a black eye mask. Once again there's the idea that not only does real life experience not matter in the writer's pool, but neither does art direction for the producer. It was a hit show but none of the money is onscreen, except in the Ferrari dept, which I suspect is the kind of thing Spelling and Goldberg were buying for themselves with advertising revenue, and then ordering the writers to factor them into the show so they could get a tax deduction. The rest of the time, as in the supposedly rich Arab's pad, everything is just the same lame backyard LA smog. These rich Arabs don't even have a fucking pool! "He's not exactly handsome," notes Kris of their Arab suspect "you can even say he's ugly." She doesn't mention she knows about race cars due to her sister Jill which would be good writing (did the writers even see earlier seasons?).
41-Angels in the Backfield
C
This is the one with the female football teams. I remember seeing it during it's original airing, way back when I was too young (11-12) to be judgmental. The 'Ducks' hire the Angels because, though they totally suck, someone is trying to sabotage the team. But why? Why is the better team cheating eight ways to Sunday? Is there gambling going on? Heaven forfend.Pros - Kelly busts "judo" on some opposing dyke fullback named Grinelda. "Julia Smith, with a Y" (Patch Mackenzie) is the rival team owner (in the "same sorority" as Grinelda) who makes a thinly veiled come-on to Sabrina in the form of paying her triple price to switch to the Panthers. Sabrina may have 'switched' awhile ago, according to my favorite new piece on the subliminal lesbian relationship between Kelly and Sabrina but she's still got integrity. "She's a tough lady," notes Gary Wood, the hobbled ex-player suspect flirting with Kelly. She likes winning; she drives a motorcycle (a pair of them threatens one of the Ducks during scrimmage); and she's won everything she ever tried. She dresses well and has a rockin' haircut like my fifth grade teacher. Why do I always have massive crushes on lesbian team owners?
Cons - Some pretty stupid stuff going on, not least of which is Kelly letting herself get intimidated by two idiots trying to kick her in the shins while racing past on motorcycles with their legs sticking out. It's about the easiest thing in the world to dodge a motorcycle, just turn around like a bullfighter, and or grab one of them by the arm when they ride past and let centrifugal force unthrone them. Kelly jumps up on a car and shakes back her tresses like she's ready to drop kick, but then doesn't do shit. The idea of an exhibition game for female football played at 'the Coliseum' is kind of dopey, especially since inside it's just that same Spelling LA scrub high school track field. (We learn it was "donated") And it doesn't help the cause of women's lib that this women's football team is totally ridiculous - why do they bother having a girl named Pokey, ultra clumsy and dyslexic as she is, as a halfback? Is this second string junior varsity or what? It's a disgrace to women's football everywhere!
On the other hand we do learn about dyslexia, which in 1978 was not a household word.
L.Q. Jones is Dan Jarvis, the older ex-NFL guy with ever-present beer as token of his masculinity who treats his team-captain daughter with sighs of embarrassment, playing the same character he played in "Bullseye" last season. It's a groaningly cliche type of dated macho, even for Spelling. "These girls ought to be spending their time in the kitchen," he actually declares. Gary Wood is another type, less sexist but more self-pitying, sulking that he's less than a man because of his old football injury Kelly infers he's a quitter and that it's not true he's not still a man. "It's true if I say it is, I I feel it" he says. Wow. What woman could resist? And how can even the weakest of kicks fail to knock over such easy targets even as they're being lured into complacency. At least the Angels seem to have things under control when they're not cowering from bikers or dyke fullbacks. "Mr. Jarvis -- you don't need any help making a fool of yourself," Sabrina tells the dad.
In short, there's way more than a welcome shred of tough love, here, and platitudes about equal playing fields seem wrong coming from a stunning girl like Kelly, with her perfect hair, flawless make-up and spoon feeding obvious psychological answers to damaged macho types.
Still, that was the 70s, after all. People were in touch with their feelings for the first time, maybe ever, maybe never again. And the Angels once again proved they could mix all three- excelling at any sport, foiling the bad guys, and teaching homespun shitheels a thing or two about caring and then almost undo it all by lapsing into gender norms by using Charlie's admiration and concern for their bruises into an excuse for an agency-funded shopping trip.
42 - Sandcastle Murders
B
A beachside strangler stalks women around the beach where Kris lives (Jill's old apartment). Our old friend Steve Sandor is a well-muscled guy with binoculars who peeps at hotties on the beach. "I thought you were gonna come by and sell me those cosmetics," says Kris to Betsy (Melody Thomas Scott), a shaky ex-junkie Kris helped go straight back when Kris was a rookie cop on a beat. The waves go crash and the next day Betsy's dead in a sandcastle and we know we've crossed a line in Angel town, things are a touch darker than usual. A cross-eyed towhead lifeguard sends Kris and Kelly up the beach to a swanky high rise of a Janet Starlin-style cosmetics mogul (Melissa Converse). Her sleazy boyfriend, Larry Fallon (the peerless Jason Evers!) is another sleazy suspect. Alan Feinstein is back from playing a corrupt D.A. last season, this time he's Dave, the rent-a-cop on patrol (His boss, the condescending sheriff, hates Charlie Townsend for his success -they used to work a beat together) but there's a catch with him seducing Kris; he can't stop lamenting how little cash he earns being a beach security officer. He has to live above a merry-go-round, for god's sake! The indignity! The successful cosmetic's line owned by that woman in the high rise seems to mock him. . Call it "angel instinct," Charlie, but he's not the guy. Oh No?
Pros: Sabrina disguises herself as a limping homeless lady to case the merry-go-round; she's on her A-game figuring out the complicated (if familiar) motive behind the murders. And what a cast of sleazy suspects! Sandor of the Bonnie's Kids, Evers of the The Thing that Couldn't Die, and Alan Feinstein of evoking Wayne Rogers and Anthony Franciosa at the same time. When the Angels suggest to Converse she might be next, she dismisses them as lunatics and there's a great little bit of actorly modulation as she starts making apologies for her estranged husband's violent outbursts. TV movies of the Week were not strangers to the world of spousal abuse, but the way Converse tries to rationalize it all away is still startling and well done.
Cons: The Angels arrange an easy trap for the killer but fail Police Strategy 101, preferring to all pop out from the same source of cover at the key moment, shouting "freeze!" rather than closing in on all sides, blocking each exit, like even we kids knew how to do when playing backyard war. I mean, come on -a little imagination and you could still have a decent chase. Also -why do the Angels feel slighted for not getting police protection for Kris? She's supposed to be a detective. She's got a gun, for god's sake! What she needs is a dog. Living on the beach is frickin' no day at the... frickin'... circus. A dog would ripped off Sandor's hand when he tried to break in, like Col. Kane done did in in Ninth Configuration!
But the worst thing of all, maybe even in the whole series, is the sickeningly jovial merry-go-round coda. Good gracious. I've nothing against merry-go-rounds sitting around on rather forlorn looking California piers (Santa Monica before the earthquake?) but this kind of treacle offended us even as children.
Cons: The Angels arrange an easy trap for the killer but fail Police Strategy 101, preferring to all pop out from the same source of cover at the key moment, shouting "freeze!" rather than closing in on all sides, blocking each exit, like even we kids knew how to do when playing backyard war. I mean, come on -a little imagination and you could still have a decent chase. Also -why do the Angels feel slighted for not getting police protection for Kris? She's supposed to be a detective. She's got a gun, for god's sake! What she needs is a dog. Living on the beach is frickin' no day at the... frickin'... circus. A dog would ripped off Sandor's hand when he tried to break in, like Col. Kane done did in in Ninth Configuration!
But the worst thing of all, maybe even in the whole series, is the sickeningly jovial merry-go-round coda. Good gracious. I've nothing against merry-go-rounds sitting around on rather forlorn looking California piers (Santa Monica before the earthquake?) but this kind of treacle offended us even as children.
43. Angel Blues
A
I know right? So much crap this season. But then episodes like this come along which remind me why I started this episode guide in the first place. This time the angels move briskly in an elaborate taxi tail that leads them to all the shady cokeheads that an Amy Winehouse-Janet Joplin-but-country-rock type (or thereabouts) visited the night she was killed (just feet away from her waiting intervention) via the old 'hot shot'. The bad guys are sleazy--"any guy with some coke or smack who tells her what she wants to hear," and "she picked up tabs for a lot of guys like me, know what I mean?" There's wood panelling and lots of cool 70s cars (peep the 'Sambo's' sign!). Not only does Kelly notice her tail (a rarity in the lamer episodes) she does some aggressive driving and gets behind him, and changes cars and everything! Like real detectives! Damn! Why can't every episode be this badass?
The best aspect is the short time period: the whole thing goes down in one long afternoon of tailing, being tailed, getting shot at and pulling weird scams to get the truth out of sleazy cokeheads and syndicate-connected music publishing rights stealers. Amy's song is called "Tripping to the Morning" and it's funny the Angels pretend to love it while condemning the drugs no doubt used to deliver it. Even weirder, dig the hand-painted record cover her manager has. It looks like it's still wet! The script by Edward Lakso shows he could still deliver if he was in the mood. "What a waste," notes Kelly of Amy's death. They only have on real song of hers to listen to, but whatever: "she really only used cocaine, Charlie, not heroin." So 70s to think that's somehow better.
Cons: It's hard to believe Charlie would be that big of a fan of one lame ersatz country song that was "his favorite singer's" entire oeuvre. The grieving dad does some good acting but Bess Gatewood as Amy is even better. She's almost too good, too raw. She brings so much teary, beat-up pain that you're like wait, this isn't fun! Then she's dead, though, so it's okay. She's at peace.
To think the angels could still be this adult, sophisticated, smart, cool, and able to best dudes in hand-to-hand combat--believably--then make them lie down face first in the mud while doing freezes of their stash to identify if its heroin, coke, or laundry detergent, when next week they'd be dressing up like Mother Goose characters -- is to want to weep.
44. Mother Goose is Running for His Life
B+
The inside job 'crazy toy company sabotage' plot is an old hat trick of the British series The Avengers, and Spelling's old show Honey West but whatever, if it ain't broke, re-gift it to some new needy youngster. Shh - toyz-iss like ze peeple!!!1
Pros: I like that "Mother" Goose is a guy. That he's not called that because he's a den mother to a family of drag queens is too bad, but to forgive? Divine. As is a crazy toy designer who wants to make tiny guillotines and a game where kids run over pedestrians for points ("They actually get rid of their little aggressions this way."). Even so, a mobster and his 'fake Richard Harris' Brit wiretapper steal the show prettily handily and have a scene that looks like it was filmed in a real English pub as opposed to the usual wood panelling and tawdry chairs. "Don't bandy names around, Luv." Sabrina has a cute sweater poncho and a sexy slit-skirt silver silk dress. She's supposed to be a Hong Kong heiress. Kris gets to play mannequin as a Pippi Longstocking frozen in place at night to watch the goings-on. She rocks it!
In other words it's a relaxing go-round, the Angel's safety and competence are never in doubt. It's a nice touch that they bug the bugger. That's Bobbie Jordan not Marg Helgenberger as the girl who makes trouble for Kelly, though you coulda fooled me.
45- Little Angels of the Night
D
About as far thematically from the Goose as you can get, this has the girls all move into a single women-only apartment complex occupied mostly by prostitutes; a little guido pizza guy, Freddie, harasses them when he makes deliveries (isn't there any place else they can call?) At the same time a strangler of prostitutes is loose in the area. He's already killed two in the same building. Coincidence? Someone in the writing department certainly was asleep, or awake on too much cocaine (but it's okay Charlie, it's not heroin), either way - it's pretty adult for a series that was by now veering all over the place as far as those themes were concerned (junkie country stars one week, Mother Goose the next, strangled hookers after that). Going undercover as hookers and moving into the building provides challenges, as the Angels are unduly sexy, they could drive down the prices of the merely human competition, and it's funny to hear the three of them come up with excuses why they can't service clients: "darn, it's a shame [they] have to miss it." The whole pizza guy thing is a little too porn movie on-the-nose to not cause a little R-ratings nervousness. "Relax, I ain't gonna bite you," Freddie says. Right.Cons: The pizza restaurant owner has a terrible toupee, and the whole goombah thing leaves a bad taste; pizza always photographs terribly under 70s analog TV lighting. The Angels are supposed to be monitoring the building as security, but with Lakso's pen contriving situations, no woman is safe. Kelly holds her gun like it's a condom she just found on the beach, preferring to cowers in the corner when the killer runs past her in the stairwell. A shrink comes to the pool and offers 'misplaced aggression' as a possible motive. "Is there any chance this killer might get tired of killing and quit?" they ask. I'm as feminist as they come but even I want to reach in and so bitch-slapping over that one.
And then they talk one of the girls, Bonnie, into staying in the building, as if she'd be safer under their protection. Why? Because no killer can survive all your cowering and lack of cohesive strategy? More idiocy: The flimsiest of excuses brings Kris--looking mad gorgeous in an orange bikini--out to a yacht bobbing around in the dock, alone.. knowing less than a ten year-old about the importance of leaving a note.
Unless you're a stone cold idiot you may climb the walls wondering why there seems to be only one restaurant in all of Los Angeles, so that even an ex-lover of the owner has no choice but to bring her dates there just because it's 'on her way home.' Or why these dopey girls keep ordering pizza from these schmucky little rapist delivery guy and then being surprised when he keeps trying to rape them. Or why the Angels keep letting him get away without lifting a finger to stop him, and almost refusing to believe it's him - even after he's ID-ed and then refusing to do even the most rudimentary of police work, or exhibiting an idea what that might be. It's kind of embarrassing how helpless they've gotten, how paltry the budget -or how little we get to see them at the pool.
Pros: There's a pool - although only one scene at it, Kelly is pretty foxy in a bikini; and then later Kris is very fond of those super sexy runner's shorts so popular in the 70s, which show off her dynamite tan, which helps compensate for her diminutive size and total inability to fight or think straight.
Pros: There's a pool - although only one scene at it, Kelly is pretty foxy in a bikini; and then later Kris is very fond of those super sexy runner's shorts so popular in the 70s, which show off her dynamite tan, which helps compensate for her diminutive size and total inability to fight or think straight.
Too bad the paltriness of the sets and ugliness of the pizza give it all a dime store porno vibe that makes the objectification of her nubile body almost aggressively tawdry. There's a moment when they realize the real killer made a slip, but two seconds later they're leaving him alone with the only blonde in their group (and it's not part of a trap). Any normal detective would lose all credibility and probably their license, which would be for the good of any future client dumb enough to trust them.
Dirk Benedict (Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica) returns (he was a corrupt vice cop shaking down massage parlors in Season One)! This time he's a gigolo romancing a rich middle-aged widow. When she tries to dump him, he shoots her (she promised him a boat!). A dapper jewel thief ("old wealth" whose money faded when the patriarch died and the brokerage went bust)in the next room overhears the shot. Dirk frames him for the murder. His elderly security exchange-working mom needs the Angels to clear him as he's no killer, just a harmless jewel thief who only targets rich, insured old ladies his mom scopes out in advance (she works for the safe maker). It all goes down at the redundantly-named SeaWave, an older rich folks-catering coast-side hotel, which--if you can't guess--looks a lot like all the other dumpy sets in the series, with more plastic flowers, wicker chairs, nautical accents, and an older class of traipsing extras.
Pros: In case you can't tell, this is the Tennessee Williams episode of the season -- young rough trade and the older queens who lurve them! I like the idea of a debauched mom (Lureen Tuttle!) of old money pimping her eye candy jewel thief son (Barry Bostwick!) outm in order to commit robberies (all insured and rich) and saying lines like "would you consider me too Freudian if I dragged my son away?"); add the sulky rentboy nonsense of Dirk's boat bum and the rent boy decadence of it all comes through real fine. There's a nice literal cliffhanger with Sabrina all in black scaling down the building and evil Dirk cutting the line thinking it's the guy who witnessed his murder (Dirk's wild eyes as he cuts the line are what ABC prime time cop shows is all about).
Cons: Kelly and Kris each sport terribly hammy accents - Kris's is Swedish, in the vein of the Swedish Chef drunkenly reading for Anna Christie. Kelly's is a Southern kahnnned-ness of strAYngers type. Oof. \ A shamelessly hammy Bosley as a jade auctioneer (or 'yade' as Kris calls it) outdoes them both. It's pretty stupid they need a whole jade auction to set the 'trap' and that Bosley would lose track of things in the heat of the moment and sell the McGuffin to some third party. A totally lame bit with Charlie hiring an English maid and not sure about dunking his cruller or whatever, is so misplaced and insipid we feel sorry for everyone involved.
Cons; It can't be a good sign when the "Lasko Trio" is playing at the cocktail lounge. Why would the cops let a guy step out of his car with a package under his arm when the reason they stopped his car is they're looking for a guy with a package? Bosley grumbles about paperwork to Charlie during a work call then belabors every line of half-baked schtick with a bubbling chicken delivery lady who got his order wrong ("breasts!" "it says legs here!") while Charlie is on the phone ("I am talking to Mrs. Chicken.") Good lord, they should all be embarrassed. (the girl--played by Judy Landers--is cute but gave her breasts to "The cobbler on Pico boulevard" she actually does a better acting job with this trite shit than Doyle, that's for sure. Even Cantrell has to utter shitty lines like "when he pulls stuff like that I don't know whether to spank him or make love to him." There's some bad news signs of the 80s fashion in the terrible uniform pastel lavender leisure suit Sabrina wears and the pink sweater worn by Kelly, and the godawful 1982 beach condo decorated by your mom-style decor.
You take what you can get. There may be dumb jokes with Charlie at the end, but there's a sitar playing. Shit like that...
And it's nowhere near as bad as this next one... the last in the season. God almighty...
46. The Jade Trap
B-
Pros: In case you can't tell, this is the Tennessee Williams episode of the season -- young rough trade and the older queens who lurve them! I like the idea of a debauched mom (Lureen Tuttle!) of old money pimping her eye candy jewel thief son (Barry Bostwick!) outm in order to commit robberies (all insured and rich) and saying lines like "would you consider me too Freudian if I dragged my son away?"); add the sulky rentboy nonsense of Dirk's boat bum and the rent boy decadence of it all comes through real fine. There's a nice literal cliffhanger with Sabrina all in black scaling down the building and evil Dirk cutting the line thinking it's the guy who witnessed his murder (Dirk's wild eyes as he cuts the line are what ABC prime time cop shows is all about).
Cons: Kelly and Kris each sport terribly hammy accents - Kris's is Swedish, in the vein of the Swedish Chef drunkenly reading for Anna Christie. Kelly's is a Southern kahnnned-ness of strAYngers type. Oof. \ A shamelessly hammy Bosley as a jade auctioneer (or 'yade' as Kris calls it) outdoes them both. It's pretty stupid they need a whole jade auction to set the 'trap' and that Bosley would lose track of things in the heat of the moment and sell the McGuffin to some third party. A totally lame bit with Charlie hiring an English maid and not sure about dunking his cruller or whatever, is so misplaced and insipid we feel sorry for everyone involved.
47. Angels on the Run
C
Ed Lasko and his wife wrote this, and by now you know I think of Lasko as uneven, overextended, but not always a hack. When his name's attached to something that's actually good, though, you have to wonder if he's just recycling some old Mod Squad script of his, you know, from back when he gave a damn and maybe didn't have to come up with a script a week? This time he's basing things off his wife's story about a diner waitress who sees shady guy throw a package into the back of a truck. The truck's driver is the husband of a country singer named Laura Cantrell (Belinda Balaski). The crooks abduct the driver because I guess their package went missing. How dare you not have the package we tossed in the back of your trailer without you noticing!? Lots of McGuffin nonsense--suspenseful at times but not memorable--as everyone scrambles after that box. Whose got it? Whooose got it? Maybe it' you! Cons; It can't be a good sign when the "Lasko Trio" is playing at the cocktail lounge. Why would the cops let a guy step out of his car with a package under his arm when the reason they stopped his car is they're looking for a guy with a package? Bosley grumbles about paperwork to Charlie during a work call then belabors every line of half-baked schtick with a bubbling chicken delivery lady who got his order wrong ("breasts!" "it says legs here!") while Charlie is on the phone ("I am talking to Mrs. Chicken.") Good lord, they should all be embarrassed. (the girl--played by Judy Landers--is cute but gave her breasts to "The cobbler on Pico boulevard" she actually does a better acting job with this trite shit than Doyle, that's for sure. Even Cantrell has to utter shitty lines like "when he pulls stuff like that I don't know whether to spank him or make love to him." There's some bad news signs of the 80s fashion in the terrible uniform pastel lavender leisure suit Sabrina wears and the pink sweater worn by Kelly, and the godawful 1982 beach condo decorated by your mom-style decor.
Ugh - even Sabrina's grasshopper and Kelly's performance dress are depressing 80s mom pastels. It's depressing to think of the ease in which a trio of thugs can kidnap a detective right out from under the nose of the three detective friends and they instantly lose them in pursuit. The bartender at least remembers one of them had a limp. Dude, Kelly is doomed. The show is almost over and it's only just dawning on them that maybe the package was something that had been stolen. Big progress! Charlie, I've been thinking, maybe the package was some kind of box, or parcel!
Pros: The crooks are cool and mean: Alex Courtney, talking through clenched teeth with a thousand yard stare; a young Bill Duke (Predator) in shades (above, carrying Kelly); and Craig T. Nelson! There are cool witnesses/suspects too: Maurice Sneed plays a mining machine repairman who lays down a decent gambling reference-bedecked line of patter as we watch the system in action. Cantrell's husband likes to satisfy his married women's topsoil demands with extra topping; Elaine Joyce--stunning in jean shorts-- is one of the satisfied ladies, and threatens Sabrina with a tractor claw. The climax has the whole gang whipping out guns and judo chops and Sabrina rubs one of the bad guy faces in the dirt while looking like a scarecrow.
Pros: The crooks are cool and mean: Alex Courtney, talking through clenched teeth with a thousand yard stare; a young Bill Duke (Predator) in shades (above, carrying Kelly); and Craig T. Nelson! There are cool witnesses/suspects too: Maurice Sneed plays a mining machine repairman who lays down a decent gambling reference-bedecked line of patter as we watch the system in action. Cantrell's husband likes to satisfy his married women's topsoil demands with extra topping; Elaine Joyce--stunning in jean shorts-- is one of the satisfied ladies, and threatens Sabrina with a tractor claw. The climax has the whole gang whipping out guns and judo chops and Sabrina rubs one of the bad guy faces in the dirt while looking like a scarecrow.
You take what you can get. There may be dumb jokes with Charlie at the end, but there's a sitar playing. Shit like that...
And it's nowhere near as bad as this next one... the last in the season. God almighty...
48. Antique Angels
F
Ugh... an excuse for a bunch of antique cars to get a good dusting, and to hear some lame royalty-free Dixieland. Include me out. They'd have been better wrapping up with a 'clips' episode. Instead this almost feels like a special where Sabrina might auction antique car rides where you pretend to chase the Keystone cops for local charities.
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| Oh... why Tanya.. did they wait until season 5 to bring you in? ONWARDS to SEASON 3 (1978-9) or BACKWARDS to SEASON 1 (1976-7) 1. NOTES PS - Rereading this years later I realized this descripton could match California itself (The CA initial threw me). |
The theme music was like a drug, decades later I still hear it.
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