Reviews

Another enjoyable episode where the Angels con a grifter out of the money he stole from investment clients. Vincent Baggetta plays the rakish Dexter Harley, and he's pretty much note perfect.

Tiffany goes undercover as a senator's staffer who's looking for a payoff to make Harley's criminal charges disappear, Kris as a rich woman who has an identical Bentley to Dexter and uses this coincidence to get within his inner circle. And Kelly and Bosley are fake antiquities dealers who want Harley to purchase their worthless product to swindle him out of cash.

This was so obviously not an Edward J Lakso script, as it was well written and finely plotted, making for an entertaining and at times humorous ride. Some have compared this to season one's The Big Tap Out, and while there are similarities, it very much has its own feel. Season 4 may have been the strongest season of all.

This was a pretty good episode with an excellent cast, one of the best in recent memory. The Angels go undercover at a plastic surgery clinic in order to root out a man who skipped bail after fleecing millions of dollars.

French-born Louis Jordan (and Bond villain in Octopussy) plays the plastic surgeon, Tab Hunter plays his crooked patient, and Joanna Pettit plays an explosive expert who assassinates people by blowing up their car... just like the Corleone family.

Tiffany Welles goes undercover as a nurse, and she has one of her best performances of season 4. Bosley and Kris Munroe play a rich married couple, and Kelly Garrett is doing a magazine expose, which was what Kate Jackson's Sabrina used to do.

It's not often the Angels are confronted with a powerful female adversary, but Joanna Pettit plays her role to a T, and it would have been great just to see the Angels take her on solo under a different circumstance. Tab Hunter unfortunately doesn't do too much, spending a portion of the episode in bed awaiting his Pablo Escobar plastic surgery special.

It's interesting that every time the writers give Shelley Hack's Tiffany an important role, the episode is usually really good. Too bad there were not more of these episodes, this was a good one.

Another Edward Jay Lasko fiasco. Howard Duff plays hapless Detective Harrigan who teams with the Angels to bring down a burglary ring. Only problem is he's a drunk and pretty poor at his job.

The positives are, Howard Duff is at least likable in his role, and Cheryl Ladd's Kris gets along with him and shows an unexpected level of respect despite his overriding incompetence. She mentions that her own father was an alcoholic, a new bit of information, and it's probably why she took pity on him.

This is a typical Lasko script in the sense that there are four or five suspects and they're all pretty much guilty. Almost nothing surprising happens during the course of the episode, right down to the same old car chase that's featured in every single Lasko script. This is really becoming a pet peeve of mine. We'll see Kelly, Kris, or Tiffany driving along the Los Angeles grid being followed closely by a suspect... when suddenly the shot will transition to a canyon road off the beaten path.

It never makes any sense why one of the Angels drives to a remote location in the middle of an investigation, other than the fact that Lasko has written it that way. And it always seems to be the same roads up in Malibu somewhere.

Repetitive and dumb car chases.

Besides that, it features the same dumb Edward J Lasko villains, people willing to commit murder to cover up a lesser crime. It never ends.

The only other interesting note is that we get a glimpse of Robert Englund, who would go on to achieve fame as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Even if I didn't know Edward J Lakso wrote the script, it would have been easy to guess. The motivation for murder is so flimsy that it defies all belief. "He/she didn't like my music", would only be uttered by a complete psychopath. Most murderers are smart enough to not leave bodies lying around at their place of work. Psychopaths typically work on the edges of society among the down and out. But the characters in Dancing Angels are social beings, not outcasts. Murder would not be so casual an act.

So that's one strike. The second strike is the dance contest itself. It's advertised as a contest, but it's really just a marathon. You'll note there doesn't appear to be any judges, and all the couples are dancing at the same time, and for much of the episode the dancers seem to be hanging on each other in order to stay on their feet. That's not a dance contest, it's a test of endurance. Whether the contestants excelled at different types of dancing seemed to be irrelevant. They may all have been drunk, foxtrots and tangos were not on the menu.

The third strike is the reason given by the men running the dance contest for why they did what they did. Imagine being innocent of murder but moving a dead body to a different location because you were concerned about public relations? That's Ed Lakso logic in a nutshell.

On the plus side, the Angels looked good in their 30's and 40's costumes. On the downside, this being a Lakso script, he gave Shelly Hack almost nothing to do except dance with Bosley, and we barely saw any of that. Kelly and Kris got the bulk of character interactions.

There were some decent supporting actors in this one, Lindsey Bloom as the slain dancer Sally, Brad Maule, best known for being on General Hospital, played her brother Joe.

Cesar Romero as the band leader Eldon Mills is the biggest guest star, and it's interesting to watch him, looks like he could break into the Joker at any minute.

Norman Alden and Lee Delano play PJ Wilkes and Al Norman, tough guy owners of the dancehall with criminal records. Delano makes his third CA appearance after 'Angels on Ice' and 'Angels on Vacation', and Alden his 2nd (he was a Sammy Davis Jr kidnapper).

Jason Kincaid and Dawn Jeffory play Billy and Jenny, two young dance partners who want that $30,000 prize and will seemingly do anything to get it. Well, Billy at least, Jenny's underage.

Unfortunately the cast alone is not enough to elevate the material, there's really not much going on, and most of the important stuff, the murders, are awkwardly staged. On the plus side, I don't recall any saccharine and cloying Edward J Lakso tunes!

The Angels are hired by a wealthy couple who had half a million dollars worth of jewelry stolen from their house. One of the suspects is Barry Kingsbrook, who runs Kingsbrook Realty, the real estate agent to the stars. Kingsbrook is played by Dick Gautier, a well-known comedic actor and game show guest.

His main squeeze at the agency is Tina Fuller, played by Sherry Jackson, best known for playing Danny Thomas's daughter on his sitcom and for playing the android Andrea on an episode of Star Trek ('What are Little Girls Made Of?').

Charlie gets Kris Monroe a job at the Kingsbrook Realty agency and it's there she has the misfortune of dealing with Gautier's pushy, lascivious character.

Tiffany goes undercover as a wealthy homeowner who hires the agency to sell her mansion. Bosley is a wealthy buyer of old letters from Miami who flies in to Los Angeles to purchase fake revolutionary war letters owned by Tiffany's character. Kelly plays a liaison between Bosley and Tiffany.

Essentially, the Angels are trying to entice Gautier's Kingsbrook to commit a crime by stealing the phony letters.

There are some light-hearted and comedic moments throughout this episode. Jaclyn Smith's dog makes its second appearance on Charlie's Angels when she visits a French caterer. Shelly Hack does a husky Kathleen Turner voice for her character. Cheryl Ladd's Kris breaks out another swimsuit, this time for a hot tub in a bomb shelter. And then there's the highly offensive caricature of an Asian butler.

I guess you could say the episode was not boring, though there were a few silly moments. Like why did Bosley, Kelly, and Tiffany have to wear the bug exterminator outfits when they went to Kingsbrook's mansion? Since they knew Kris was in trouble they just could have showed up as themselves and forced their way inside. Ah well, there's always a few nitpicks.

The Angels are hired by a sheriff in Tennessee to look for his nephew Seth, who'd traveled to LA to get in touch with his ex-fiancé, who to his chagrin had gotten involved in the adult industry.

In the opening scene, we see Seth, played by Robert Pierce, run over by a car driven by the henchman of the producer of the adult film. The producer, Joe Willis, is played by Gary Wood. For some strange reason Willis figured the best way to get rid of an ex-fiancé was to murder him, instead of, I don't know, threatening him, or just beating him up?

Gary Wood makes his third Charlie's Angels appearance, having previously appeared in season 2's 'Angels on a String', playing a kidnapper, and season 3's 'Angels in the Backfield', playing a would be thief. After playing a kidnapper and a thief, he graduates to murderer.

Elisa Leeds plays young starlet Bess Hemsdale, making dirty pictures under the name Sally Storm. She'd come to LA to be a country singer/actress, but ends up partaking in what she calls 'art films', but we know exactly what she's doing. With titles like Carnal Highway, this ain't the wonderful world of Disney.

This is Leeds second CA appearance, having appeared in 'Teen Angels' playing Cissy in season 3. Her most prominent feature is her airy, baby doll voice.

When one of the Angels is needed to go undercover as an aspiring adult film starlet, naturally Kris Monroe draws the assignment. She certainly has no problem filling out her gaudy pink spandex tights.

On a down note, Edward J. Lasko slips one of his musical compositions into the proceedings, an acoustic country song written and performed by Bess (the Angels hear it on tape), though the actual singing is done by Lynne Marta, who had previously sung for the Amy Waters character in 'Angel Blues'.

Overall the episode is entertaining, if predictable. Scenes of the adult film starring Sally Storm, AKA Bess, shot on a grass hillside, were rather risqué for its time, while simultaneously being highly amusing. The ending is every bit as unrealistic and overtly sentimental as one would expect from Edward J Lasko.

A pattern that I've noticed in season 4 are the episodes dedicated to just one of the Angels. It's starting to become a weakness, because one of the strengths of the show was the three Angels working together to solve a crime. This one features Cheryl Ladd, and her Kris is the lure used on a jewel thief who's jumped bail to Phoenix.

A really interesting note is that the jewel thief is played by Jonathan Goldsmith. He plays Vic Devlin as an amoral sociopath and pulls off the characterization with ease. What makes it fascinating all these years later is that Goldsmith is best known as the world's most interesting man in the dos Equis beer commercials. I would never have guessed that the guy who played Rick Devlin in Charlie's Angels in 1980 was the same man who became famous from the dos Equis beer commercials. He looks nothing like his younger self, although to be fair he started filming the commercials more than 35 years after the CA role.

The title is a bit misleading, mainly because Kris is only missing in the last 10 minutes of the episode. It's not the crux of the plot at all, Bosley and the others know that she's gone off to Phoenix to try and bring Devlin back.

The only other casting note is that Warren Berlinger makes his second Charlie's Angels appearance. Here he plays the morally ambiguous Fred Beck, a friend of Rick Devlin's. Berlinger had previously been in first season's Dirty Business, playing the director of dirty movies.

This is not a bad episode, but it's missing a little spark. In some ways I could see why the ratings for Charlie's Angels may have dipped in season 4, as they've drifted away from the original formula. And they've also tried to create more hard-hitting plots, rather than the glam and fun approach that they originally took in season 1 and successive seasons.

Charlie's Angels was at its best when it knew how to have fun. Angel's Child tried to tackle the serious subject matter of child abuse. It was neither a home run nor a big swing and miss. What it was for sure was an Edward J Lasko script; full of dumb criminal behavior, occasionally bad detective work, and ridiculous melodrama. At least he didn't try to slip one of his dopey songs in.

Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett does pretty well here from an acting standpoint. Most episodes she's not challenged all that much, but here she goes toe to toe with Simon Oakland's Sergeant Cates.

Kelly discovers that Cates' has been beating his son and she refuses to stay quiet about it. In a incredulous development, she's given temporary custody of the boy named Greg, played by Michael Herschewe.

The subplot revolves around a trio of criminals who have it in for Sgt. Cates because he arrested an accomplice of theirs. Naturally they decide the best course of action is to kidnap Kelly and the boy in order to force Cates to release their accomplice from prison. It's a stupid plan. After they accost Kelly and the boy at her home, they decide to stay there instead of taking their hostages to a safehouse. It's another CA example of criminals compounding their own criminal behavior and drawing more intention to themselves than they would have otherwise, and it always seems to happen in an Edward J Lasko script.

A few notes; for at least the third time they reuse the same location for Kelly Garrett's house, which was great continuity.

As for the guest cast, Michael Whitney returns for a second go-round, this time playing Stone, one of the criminals. He had previously played a menacing psycho who was stalking Kris when she had lost her memory in season 3. Rick Casorla makes his third appearance playing a criminal named Burke. He previously appeared in Antique Angels in season 2, and in Pom Pom Angels playing the repressed son of an L. A. football team's female owner.

Overall this is an episode that wanted to be great, that certainly sent a strong message about child abuse, and despite Smith's strong performance, the writing and directing didn't quite measure up.

I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I had any right to. The premise is a tad silly, with ghosts being part of the storyline. Charlie's Angels had on occasion drifted into the occult, season 1's The Seance, season 2's Haunted Angels, and season 3's Unidentified Flying Angels. Two of those episodes involve conmen scamming people out of their money, while alternately Haunted Angels featured a character with legitimate psychic ability. In this episode The ghosts are for real and Tiffany Welles acknowledges that from the beginning, first dreaming a premonition, and then later feeling the presence of a ghost.

The plot has Tiffany visiting a friend of hers who is now married to an older man (second marriage) and they live in this creepy house where there are some strange occurrences. Paul Burke plays Clifford Burke, and Robin Matson plays his young wife Erica. Matson is known for a lengthy run on the daytime soaps All My children & General Hospital.

We find out that Cliff Burke's previous wife died mysteriously, and Tiffany is concerned for her friend's safety. The episode is full of clichés and tropes but it doesn't bother me much. There's a Halloween-type costume party in which the Angels dress up, and who wouldn't want to see Kris Munroe in a sexy pirate costume?

This is an strong episode for Shelley Hack as Tiffany, and she appears to have a psychic ability that was not mentioned previously, and I don't think it's mentioned ever again. But she's very proactive throughout the course of events and that's why she stands out in this episode.

There's a plot hole or two, particularly when the car tries to run over Robin Matson, but that's overshadowed by secret passages, well-timed thunder, and windows that fly open whenever a jump scare is needed. As long as you disregard a few nits here and there, it's a strangely fun episode that I wouldn't mind watching again.

I'm not quite sure that this episode lives up to its reputation, it's not exactly the greatest written episode. If you view as a take on the 70s women in prison films, then I suppose it's more enjoyable on that level, something to savor in a low brow way.

There's not much to say about the plot, other than the Angels are hired to go undercover at a prison to discover what happened to the missing sister of their client. But their cover is only known by one guard and he's quickly taken out of the picture, so suddenly the Angels have to deal with the fact that they're just like any other prisoner. That includes showering and being deloused in front of female guards who shamelessly leer at them, and then later on being forced into a high-class call girl ring run by the warden. Yeah, it's that kind of episode.

While the plot is rather farfetched, the cast is great. Love Boat's Lauren Tewes plays Christine Hunter, the woman who hires the Angels to find out what happened to her sister. She doesn't look anything like her Love Boat character.

David Huddleston plays greasy Sheriff Clint, a cigar chomping, corrupt lawman who we've seen a thousand times before in stories just like this one. He's of course best known for playing The Big Lebowski himself, you know, not the Dude.

Kim Basinger plays a woman named Linda Oliver, an inmate who's been forced into the call girl ring. She's young enough to have a little bit of baby fat, and it's pretty apparent she's an inexperience actress. This being 1976, it would take another 21 years for her to go on and win an Oscar in LA Confidential. Interestingly enough, at the episode's end she's hired by Charlie Townsend to be the receptionist at the agency. Of course we never see her again.

Other supporting cast of note; Anthony James as Karl Stern, another guard with bad intent. Because of his devilish face, James played a lot of bad guys throughout his career, I particularly remember him from a Buck Rogers episode where he played a mutant.

Mary Woronov plays Maxine, a lascivious guard, and perfectly cast I might add. She's perhaps best known for being part of Andy Warhol's entourage and starring in some of his underground films.

Angels in Chains is certainly worth watching, Anything with Farrah in it is worth checking out. But in my estimation there are far better episodes than than this one.

This was a uneven episode from a tonal perspective. There's some light humor and hijinks when the three Angels are given access to a yacht Charlie's buying called 'The Wayward Angel'. Kelly almost crashes the yacht into the dock, and it's all more or less played for laughs. Contrast that with the smuggling subplot involving a Central American general and his violent henchman that commit two murders.

The general is robbed of gold bullion by a slick criminal named Ken Atamien, played by Peter Mark Richmond, who always seemed to play morally dubious or snobby characters.

In a repeat of a theme played out previously, John Bosley once again is done dirty by an age appropriate attractive female. This time it's Beverly Garland playing Pat Justice, the selling agent of the yacht Charlie is buying. As in previous eps, Pat's just playing poor Bosley for the fool, but that's kind of his fault, because he never learns from past experience that no woman is falling for his clumsy charm.

I kind of laughed during one scene where Kris is performing blood analysis on the yacht itself. Since when did she become a forensic specialist? Our gals seem to be having a fine time on the yacht when they bumble their way into finding the stolen gold, and then make almost zero effort to protect it. There's a line uttered by one of the Angels that Tiffany was at the boat watching over it. Haha.

This episode was far from their worst but nowhere near their best.

The Angels are enjoying an off day at the beach at Kris's house when a phone call from Charlie lures them to a Mexican island. Problem was that the call was fake. Kris was duped and she should have known better than to just demand they drop everything before checking in with Bosley. I like that they didn't gloss over the guilt she felt later on in the show.

A man named Wilson boats them to Diablo Island and quickly abandons them, taking their guns and other possessions. The Angels soon discover that the island is a game preserve full of dangerous big cats and that they are in for a fight to stay alive. They're also being hunted by humans, with an old enemy of Charlie's the mastermind.

Lloyd Bochner plays Malcom Case, someone Charlie had imprisoned years earlier. Bochner previously played a bad guy in season 3's Angels Belong in Heaven, and was best known for being Mr Colby on Dynasty. He's joined by LQ Jones as Case's henchman Burdette. Jones previously played an evil sergeant in season 1's Bullseye, and played a more sympathetic character in Angels in the Backfield. LQ just has one of those evil mustaches.

The majority of the episode is of the Angels figuring out how to survive without food, water, or weapons. The interpersonal scenes between them are well done, with new Angel Tiffany starting to bond with Kelly and Kris. There is an unbelievable moment or two, the biggest being when Kelly and Kris set traps for Case, Burdette, and Wilson. Kris claimed she learned this skill by watching TV shows, but of course that's absurd. And when they fell a tree onto Burdette and kill him, well, it defies all logic how a pair of 105lb Angels could have devised such a massively heavy and cumbersome snare. Despite the physics-defying feats, it's a fun adventure episode taking the Angels out of their L. A. comfort zone.

This is the first Charlie's Angels episode to prominently feature Shelley Hack as the key character. Female students have gone missing at Tiffany's alma mater, Whitley. In fact, two of the missing girls are from the same Kappa Omega Psi sorority she joined during her college days.

Tiffany returns to her old sorority house and meets the current members and the new pledges. The same house manager from when she had attended, Barbara Kay, is still there, and she's played by Jo Ann Pflug, an actress who worked throughout the 70's and 80's and appeared on quite a few game shows.

Gary Collins makes his second Angels appearance playing professor James Fairgate, a popular teacher with the female students, if you get my gist. His previous appearance was in season 3 episode Mother Angel, playing the villainous lover of botany, Victor Buckley. That was a Farrah return episode.

Kris Munroe plays a student tasked with auditing his class, and unsurprisingly catches Professor Fairgate's eye. Bosley has another awkward pseudo romance, this time with a college librarian named Willamena, played by the fetching Nita Talbot. Kelly does most of her work off campus, as Tiffany takes the lead, including taking part in a sorority volleyball contest. Naturally, in the locker room afterwards, she's left all alone, because how else should she be menaced and stalked? Especially after we've discovered there could be a white slavery ring operating on campus that's abducting sorority girls.

There are multiple suspects in the mix, including the obnoxious college football tight end, meat-stick Steve Fitzpatrick, played by Rick Hill, who has no qualms about lighting off fireworks on the sorority house porch to frighten the girls. There's also the older boyfriend of one of the abducted women, Richard, played by Roger Waters look-alike David Hayward. It's amusing to hear one of the girls refer to Richard as a 60's relic, seeing how the show is to almost into the 1980's now, it's an interesting cultural comment.

Paul Cavonis returns for his third CA go-round, this time playing Otis, a driver/thug for hire of Fairgate's. Cavonis always plays a villain on Charlie's Angels so that can't be a good sign. He previously appeared in Little Angels of the Night as Roman Vale, the creepy restaurant owner, and in Counterfeit Angels as the mobbed up wise guy, Asher.

There's a cringe scene where the lights go out in the sorority house and the girls scream, and Tiffany's like, calm down girls, calm down, it's only the darkness. She goes outside to find the fuse box turned off. Not sure how many houses would have their fuse box exposed on the outside of the house like that... but okay.

The denouement to this one is over the top, with Tiffany practically saving the day single-handedly. But I liked the episode and I'm starting to warm to Tiffany Welles as a character. It showcased both her vivacious personality and her serious crime fighting side.

This episode was a bit of harmless fun. A prince from one of those faux European countries instantly falls for Jill Munroe in an L. A. store. Farrah Fawcett seems more relaxed compared to her earlier returns, and her performance compliments the light atmosphere, despite the fact that someone's trying to kill the prince she's hanging out with.

Leonard Mann plays Prince Eric, and he pretty much hits all the right notes, being slightly awkward yet at the same time a little debonair and handsome enough. Farrah flashes her megawatt smile more than usual and you don't mind seeing these two spending time together.

Most of the assassination attempts are horribly staged, as they often are in Edward J Lasko scripts. As a writer he simply does not know how to craft realistic suspense. It's the same thing every time, an assassin shoots at a human target from afar using a pistol (never a sniper). All it ever accomplishes is to announce "Hey, someone's trying to kill you and they're not very good at it!"

There are some lovely scenes between Jill and her sister Kris, as well as Kelly, something that's been missing in Farrah's previous returns. But the low-key nature of this episode allows for the characters to have breathing room. Kelly and Farrah had planned a lunch date that is cancelled when Farrah meets Eric. And Kris is ever protective of her big sister, like in previous episodes where Jill finds trouble.

There's an interesting 'high speed' chase through a rich neighborhood while Eric clumsily drives an expensive convertible with Farrah as a his passenger. He probably should have let the professional race car driver take the wheel to escape their pursuer, it would have been a nice character moment for Jill to show off her road skills. And later the two share a yacht cruise in the harbor, then afterwards a horse ride in the country. It's not exactly high octane stuff but it's still nice to watch Farrah be her charming self no matter what she's doing.

The episode is framed around Charlie's birthday celebration. The Angels hope to see him in person and are disappointed when he grabs his presents and a slice of birthday cake before the Angels can return to the office. They should have known better. Regardless, it's nice to see the Angels laugh and have a good time.

This is the third episode of season 4 that follows a B-movie plot. The Angels are hired by the father of a music school owner (played by Ford Rainey) whose daughter is beaten and harassed by a mysterious stranger. The school is located in a sketchy part of LA, populated by pimps and prostitutes, and the Angels have to get down and dirty to solve the case.

When the father's check bounces, Bosley and the Angels decide to stay on the case after they encounter a pimp played by Richard Lynch. Lynch was known for villainous roles in B-movies and TV appearances. Here he plays Freddy Jefferson, the pimp who controls the streets where the music school is located. Lynch does his awful best, you really hate his character and want to see him be brought to justice.

Amy Johnston plays the daughter of the music school owner. She's best known for being in the Buddy Holly film opposite Gary Busey. Johnston's role is a dual one, playing Judy Harkins, a young woman with musical and singing talent, and an alter ego named Rose, who works as a prostitute under Freddie Jefferson's influence. The Angels at first don't realize she's two different characters because she wears a wig, harsh makeup, and sleazy outfits.

Kris tries to befriend her at the music school but Judy is quiet and withdrawn. Kelly and Tiffany go undercover as, you guessed it, prostitutes. And not the high class kind of call girls but street hookers.

Nancy Fox plays Sunny, a naïve prostitute under Freddie Jefferson's spell. To date this is her second Angel's appearance, her first being season 2's Angels in the Backfield, where she played Amy Jarvis, the owner and player on a lady's football team. She would go on to make two more guest appearances on the show.

Madlyn Rhue plays Georgia, a waitress at a cheap diner on the strip, who acts as a snitch and look out for Freddy Jefferson. She's known for playing Lt Marla MacGyver on Star Trek's 'Space Seed' episode opposite Ricardo Montalban's Khan.

Without Lynch's venomous performance this might be a bit of a dud, it's honestly kind of silly and mostly beyond belief.

As for the hooker costumes, they don't flatter Jacklyn Smith and Shelly Hack, who are too glamorous and high cheek-boned to ever be taken seriously as a street hooker. To me they're dressed for Halloween.

It's an Edward J Lasko script and somehow he manages to slip one of his second rate songs into the proceedings. The tune is not any different from other Edward J Lasko song, and by that I mean the quality is off off off Broadway. And like a lot of Lasko scripts, this one ends in treacle, with Judy promised she'll get the help she needs. It's a thin melodrama but thankfully Richard Lynch takes the edge off.

This is the sixth episode of season 4 and the second one that has followed a B-movie plot. Unlike the first season semi-classic "Angels in Chains", "Caged Angel" takes a slightly more serious approach to the women in prison theme. "Angels in Chains" was deliberately provocative and seem to revel in the sleaze factor. Caged Angel goes out of its way to show a less glamorous view.

The Angels are hired by the father of a deceased young woman who was killed robbing a business. The girl was in prison at the time and it's unclear how she was able to get out to partake in a robbery. Kris Munroe is the Angel chosen to be planted within the same prison. Both Kelly and Tiffany have much smaller parts in this episode. Cheryl Ladd is very much the centerpiece of this one.

The supporting cast is pretty solid, led by Louise Sorel as prison administrator Lily Burton, and Lynn Carlin as Warden Ingram.

Sally Kirkland, a future Oscar nominee, plays Lonnie, a weightlifting inmate who has a run in with Kris but who later befriends her. And Shirley Stoler plays big Aggie Kemp, a menacing leader of a prison gang who's the one behind the robbery ring as well.

One of my big issues with the teleplay is that the character of Kris, the one that had been established in seasons 2 and 3 of Charlie's Angels, was put aside, turning her into a sobbing girl her first night in prison. Granted, big Aggie Kemp was an intimidating character for sure, but Kris Munroe should have known how to handle herself and maintain her cool.

My second issue are the usual plot holes. When Kris gets caught up in the robbery ring, all it would have taken to end her dangerous situation was to lock the prison gang robbers in a safe room. Then call the cops, interrogate the prisoners as to who in the prison is giving them access to the outside world, case over. Naturally that doesn't happen, because you need a big finale in the prison itself. It is what it is, which is Charlie's Angels after all.

Final note; both prison themed episodes of Charlie's Angels featured actresses that would go on to be Oscar-nominated. The aforementioned Sally Kirkland would be nominated for best actress in Anna in 1988, and in 'Angels in Chains' a young Kim Basinger would go on to win an Oscar 20 years later in LA Confidential.

This was a good one, Farrah's 4th return to Charlie's Angels and out of the four this was the most complete. Being cast opposite Timothy Dalton didn't hurt.

He plays an international playboy who moonlights as a jewel thief, although it would be more accurate to say he daylights as a jewel thief, as for some reason he only operates during the day. I suppose they could have called this episode 'The Living Daylights', or maybe even 'The Thieving Daylights'.

I love the way Jill Munroe is introduced in this episode, if you didn't know ahead of time it was going to be a Farrah return, the surprise would have been well done.

The Angels are hired by the rich boyfriend of an opera singer who'll be performing in Los Angeles while wearing a very well-known diamond, and he wants the Angels to protect the diamond from theft.

Naturally, Timothy Dalton's character of Damien Roth plans on stealing it. Each of the Angels makes an attempt to get to know him, first Kris pretends to be a buyer of a condo in a building he manages. Roth doesn't bite. Then Kelly pretends to be a journalist (how many times have we seen that cover?), but her pitch to Roth is vehemently opposed as he is publicity shy. Finally the little used Tiffany Welles meets him at a fancy auto garage and pesters him about getting turbocharged, he politely suggests she talk to a mechanic.

But Jaclyn Smith's Kelly Garrett doesn't give up and follows him to a martial arts dojo where she discovers why he's been so resistant to the charm of the three Angels; he's dating Farrah's Jill Munroe.

This leads to tense scenes between Jill Monroe and her sister Kris, and then later with Kelly Garrett. I thought these scenes were very well acted, communicating Jill's anger that she was being followed by people she considered friends, and how both Kelly and Kris were upset and disappointed that Jill would associate with a known criminal. Most of Farrah's previous appearances since she had left were more like reunions, where the Angels were all happy to see each other. Not so much here, which brought an extra level of realism to the plot.

Without engaging in spoilers, it should be noted that the cinematography was extremely well done, particularly the shots of Dalton's character scaling down the sides of buildings. The camera gave the viewer a bird's-eye view of Los Angeles and what it looked like to rappel down a building from the roof.

Another interesting note was how Charlie himself, when describing Damian Roth to the Angels, referred to him as a James Bond-type person. Little did Charlie know that the actor playing Roth, Timothy Dalton, was just eight short years away from becoming the fourth James Bond. And it does make me wonder if the producers of the Bond films had watched this episode, because Dalton was at his dashing and debonair best.

There's even one completely preposterous James Bond-type scene where the jewel is guarded by a deadly cobra. Roth seems to use some sort of Tai chi on the cobra to lull it into helplessness. A silly scene only compounded by the fact that the Cobra looked completely fake. And I haven't yet mentioned the rooftop martial arts battle that looked more like a new age dance. Still, from a dramatic sense, it's a pretty good episode and Farrah's best of her guest appearances.

Angels at the Altar continues season 4's hot streak of quality episodes. The plot is far from perfect, having the usual holes, but the entertainment value makes up for what's missing. The episode has a strong guest cast, with at least four past guest performers returning to play new roles.

But let's start with Kim Cattrall. She plays Sharon Kellerman, a good friend of Kelly Garrett from high school who's getting married. Sharon's family happens to be super rich. We know from Kelly's previous mentioned background that she grew up in an orphanage, so it's curious how she made friends with a rich socialite like Sharon Kellerman. No matter, she hires the Angels to find out who's been trying to kill her soon to be husband.

An interesting side note is that Kim Cattrall was 23 years old at the time of filming, while Jaclyn Smith was 32, and Cattrall's character definitely comes across as 25 tops. So I'm not sure how realistic it was that they were high school friends.

John David Carson plays Sharon Kellerman's would be groom, Scott Miller, an ex skiing champ. This is his second Charlie's Angels appearance, his first being season 3's 'Angels in the Stretch', where he played the duplicitous stable hand Kevin Ryan. In that episode he famously battled Sabrina.

Robert Walker Jr plays Scott Miller's friend Burt Marshall, and we find out early that he's up to no good. As Scott, Sharon, and Kelly are walking along the street, Burt tries to run Scott down with his car. No one gets a look at the driver's face. Walker was known for playing Charlie X in the same named episode of Star Trek.

Another alumni of CA is Joseph Hacker as Randy Todd, a former boyfriend of Sharon's who ends up being hired as the wedding photographer. Hacker made two previous Charlie's Angels appearances, the first being Antique Angels, where he played one of the car owners, the second being Haunted Angels, where he played a psychic who briefly had an admiration for Kris. In this episode, his Randy Todd has fallen on hard times after returning from Vietnam.

Walter Brooke plays Sharon's father. He appeared in season 3's Marathon Angels as the big promoter of the marathon, Twilliger. And Marie Windsor plays Gloria Kellerman, the mother of the bride. She also was in a season 3 episode called Angels in Springtime, playing the murdered actress Eve Le Deux. Windsor was known as the Queen of the B's in the 40's and 50's. Her best known role was probably in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing".

Rounding out the cast is Adrienne Larussa as Claudia Harper, one of Sharon's bridesmaids who may or may not be as good a friend as she claims. In real life she was once married to Steven Seagal.

As for the Angels themselves, Kelly Garrett doesn't go undercover as she's a bridesmaid in the wedding. But Tiffany joins the wedding band, as she apparently can play the violin. This wasn't much of an episode for Tiffany, overall still playing minor roles in the cases. After investigating Scott Miller's background, Kris finally arrives at the Kellerman estate in Colorado where the wedding is due to take place. She works undercover as a maid, as there's no better position to snoop through guests belongings. And Bosley being Bosley, always given menial tasks, is of course the bartender.

The only real silliness are the clumsy attempts by Robert Walker's character to 'kill' the groom. It's not a spoiler since we know from the opening scene that he's the one doing it, we just don't know why. By making attempts on the the groom's life at the estate, he only draws attention to himself (and to others), narrowing the list of suspects. An additional note, when Kris snoops around dressed as a maid, she find part of a sniper weapon in Burt's room, yet earlier Burt had used a pistol. The stupidest part of the whole plot was for Burt to shoot at the groom while he was with Claudia in the woods. Just bizarre and indicative that these three might have been the stupidest conspirators in Charlie's Angels history.

The wedding was a dramatic moment, ending exactly the way you think it will. But that never stops it from being fun. There's no indication from this episode that Kim Cattrall will go on to bigger things, her performance is a bit raw and her character over earnest. But the final scene back at the Townsend Agency has a certain romanticism to it that almost makes you believe in the power of... love.

Jaclyn Smith gives one of her better performances in the show. An ex-con, just out of jail, targets Kelly for revenge for being the one to send him to prison.

Cameron Mitchell plays ex-con-Frank Desmond, and he has a plan to hook Kelly on heroin as he was once himself a heroin addict and it was a drug deal gone bad that got him sent to prison.

Desmond and his sidekick Eddie get jobs at the very diner Kelly visits in order to spike her coffee. It works to sedate her and they break into her house at night and inject her with heroin. Let's just say that this is much darker than your typical Charlie's Angels plot.

Steve Kanaly, best known as Ray Krebs on Dallas, plays a sleazy lawyer who wants to know what happened to all the extra kilos of heroin in the Frank Desmond case. Him and his drug dealing client have been tailing Frank Desmond and when they see him at Kelly's house they assume that the two are working together.

One thing of note is the continuity from season 3, Kelly's house is the exact same one used in "Angels Belong in Heaven".

Kris and Tiffany spend some of the episode tailing two bad guys but this is pretty much a Kelly Garrett episode. Even though she only received two injections of heroin they make it seem like she's hungering for her next fix. Still it's a good performance by Smith and her scenes with Cameron Mitchell are well played by both. And unlike most Charlie's Angels episodes there was no light-hearted ending, fitting, considering the serious subject matter.

This was more enjoyable than it had any right to be. If the people responsible for Burt Reynolds movie career during the '70s decided to write and direct a Charlie's Angels episode, "Angels go Trucking" would be it.

The Angels are hired by Maggie Brill, played by Joanne Linville, best known for playing a Romulan commander on Star Trek, to investigate who stole her load of pharmaceuticals worth a million dollars.

While Kelly goes undercover as a truck stop waitress, Kris and Angel newcomer Tiffany become lady truckers after practicing in an empty lot. Some high standards there.

Kelly and Tiffany are given an identical pharmaceutical load with instructions to deliver it along the same route in which the first cargo load was stolen.

Along the way we meet Royce Applegate as Bingo, Mickey Jones as Bo Mackey, and James Crittenden as Bobby Lee, standard issue rednecks who got a ton of similar roles throughout the 70s and 80s.

The Angels put on the best country western accent they could muster, which at this point in the series is old hand for someone like Cheryl Ladd, who breaks out her southern drawl every chance she gets. It's mostly played for fun, being one of those plots that doesn't bear up under any type of scrutiny.

One sub-plot revolves around a stranded motorist who Kris and Tiffany help out. For some reason he's running bootleg moonshine (which he calls white lightning). Seeing how this was the 1970s and not during the prohibition era, you wonder why he'd go to all the hassle.

Another strange aspect was the pharma cargo. It was small enough where they could run it in a large van instead of using an 18-wheeler. No matter, there's hardly ever been a CA episode that didn't have at least two or three nitpicks.

This being only the second episode featuring Shelley Hack as Tiffany Welles, I was pleasantly surprised by the chemistry she displayed acting alongside Cheryl Ladd. They seemed very sisterly together and made for a fun duo.

Some of the episode was shot on location in Valencia California, which oddly enough was supposed to be doubling for Oklahoma, which is hilarious when you think about it. But when you populate Valencia with some Bingos, Bobby Lees, and Bo Mackeys, it all seems to work.

This was the third time that CA opened their season with a two-parter and it ended up being an enjoyable adventure. The Angels are hired by an insurance investigator to find out what happened to stolen artwork. Bert Convy plays Paul Hollister, the morally ambiguous thief who romances Kris Munroe during the case's duration. He's shockingly good in the role. As an aside, he'd worked with Cheryl Ladd previously as the host of TattleTales, when she appeared on the game show with her first husband David Ladd.

Bo Hopkins returns for his second CA go round as Convy's partner in crime Wes Anderson. As an actor, Hopkins always carries around an element of danger. This is his first CA appearance since the very first TV movie that gave birth to the series, where he played bad guy Beau Creel. Here, he's just as morally ambiguous as Convy's character, perhaps more so, at one point encouraging Hollister to kill Kris because of the 'she knows too much' trope.

Dick Sargent makes his 3rd CA guest appearance, after 1st season's Angels on Wheels, and 3rd season's Angels in Vegas. Here he plays Avery, the insurance investigator, and he always brings a level of slimy untrustworthiness to whatever character he plays.

The episode was shot on location in the US Virgin Islands and is a crossover with the TV show Love Boat. Each main player from Love Boat has a brief cameo. In reality, the Pacific Princess would never actually sail to the Caribbean so that part lacks truth but it doesn't hamper the story's entertainment value. The location shots are pretty good, not quite as dramatic as season 2's Hawaii episode, but still plenty of scenery to gaze upon.

Others guest stars include Sandy McPeak, who reminds me of Vic Morrow, doing his best tough guy act. Lee Travis plays Eleanor Case, an art dealer who occupies some of Bosley's time, though thankfully with no awkward romantic angle. Character actor Barry Sullivan plays Mr. Demargeran, the senior bad guy pulling the strings from afar. Also, Judy Landers makes her 2nd CA appearance, once again in a comedic role, as the Angels mistake her for Sabrina's replacement, and she does her ditzy bubbly blonde best.

Speaking of Sabrina's replacement, we get a brief mention at the beginning of the episode that Sabrina has gotten married and is going to give birth. Honestly, I thought this was a copout. Sabrina never gave any indication that she was the domestic type, a better story would have her joining Interpol or the FBI. But the writers/producers went against the character they'd established.

This episode was the introduction of Shelley Hack as Tiffany Welles. She certainly come across as perky and full of megawatt smiles, but they don't give her too much to do. She even shows a little hesitancy at being accepted into the Angel fold, and has a decent scene with Bosley where he convinces her otherwise.

Hack was famous for being the spokeswoman for Charlie, the popular 70's perfume, so it's a bit of synergistic casting to make her an Angel. Her debut is okay, perhaps muted by the fact that this is a heavy Cheryl Ladd episode due to her involvement with the main protagonist.

Overall this was a highly enjoyable adventure that thankfully wasn't overwhelmed by Love Boat cheese. I'll be interested in seeing how Shelley Hack grows into her role.

This doesn't deserve a proper rating or review. It's a silly clip show, which was not an uncommon thing to see in the 70's and 80's. It's a poor sendoff for Kate Jackson, who would soon leave the show.

The one thing they got right during this episode was when Charlie, the Angels, and Bosley were reminiscing about their 3 year anniversary. Kris points out that it was only two years for her. Continuity is important!

Unless you enjoy watching the Angels drink champagne while old clips from the first few seasons play (with no Farrah in sight!) then it's best to skip this one.

This was an interesting episode and a nice showcase for Cheryl Ladd. The Angels are hired to find out who murdered a gangster's wife 40 years prior. The gangster, Jake Garfield, is well played by Ramon Bieri, who's making his second CA appearance, having played Yanos Barzak in Season 2 episode Circus of Terror.

Garfield's nephew, Tim Stone (played by Michael Shannon, no, not THAT Michael Shannon), recognizes that Kris has an uncanny resemblance to Garfield's long dead wife Rosemary, and when Kris starts living in Garfield's California mansion, the old gangster seems to lose his grip on reality, regressing back to the 1930's. He even insists Kris wear his long dead wife's dresses.

They recreate a party from decades earlier in order to try and dislodge long lost clues from Garfield's brain. Ramon Bieri uses aging makeup to play the same character 40 years apart. Ladd plays Rosemary, the long dead wife in flashbacks, employing a New York accent.

When she first arrives at the mansion, Kris has an unintentionally funny scene after hearing some swing music, she suddenly starts dancing a jig by herself in a big empty ballroom. I chuckled at how dorky it was. The other Angels and Bosley are more in the background in this one, though they are the ones investigating the past, interviewing still surviving witnesses, trying to uncover what happened.

Making his second CA appearance, Gilbert Green plays Lawrence Renaldi, a fellow 30's gangster to Garfield. He played Tony Phelan in season 3's Mother Goose is Running for Her LIfe.

This episode reveals more than any other why Kate Jackson might have left the show, as Cheryl Ladd was getting all the juicy parts. The show has a melancholy feel and it's a strong dramatic showing from Cheryl Ladd. Well worth it.