Appreciating Charlie's Angels

[ClassyCo]

I’m wondering what the contention between kate and Cheryl was. From what I read it stemmed back to them working on satans school for girls.

Kate Jackson has a reputation of being bossy and sometimes hard to get along with. Just as Snarky said, even Jaclyn Smith, who was her closet friend on the CHARLIE'S ANGELS set, has said she was sometimes hard to get along with.

Nolan Miller, the famed costume designer that went on to DYNASTY among other things, loathed working with her. He has spoken quite frequently about the difficulty of finding her a wardrobe she'd approve. Evidently she was constantly bickering about how she flat refused to wear clothes she felt were demeaning and undermined the importance of women working as private investigators.

On the flip side, Nolan Miller has often praised Jackson's replacement Shelley Hack, who he and apparently everyone in the wardrobe "fell in love with" right off the bat because she wore clothes beautifully. Shelley had been a model after all, and she was evidently comfortable in wearing the designer clothes Miller and his crew conjured up for her where Jackson fussed about everything.

Kate Jackson was on THE TONIGHT SHOW starring Joan Rivers in the mid-eighties where she spoke about her time on CHARLIE'S ANGELS. She said that none of trios of angels were as close as the first season Kate/Farrah/Jaclyn trio. Jackson also said that no one as close as her and "Jackie" -- as she called Jaclyn Smith -- and that she and Cheryl Ladd "had never been close". She didn't say that in a snotty way, but in a professionally brush-it-off kind of way that made it clear that the two weren't buddies, but not necessarily clawing at one another's throats all day.

I've never really been able to find the "root" of the distaste Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd seemed to have for one another. Apparently they got close briefly while on location and the three women were forced to share a trailer, but it was short-lived. Cheryl Ladd often said how out-of-the-clique she felt when Farrah would come back to guest star when Kate was still on the show. Kate, Farrah, and Jaclyn would slide back into their first season clique, and leave her hanging.

 

[Seaviewer]

So she didn't really conjure up the idea for CHARLIE'S ANGELS, but she certainly had her hand in tweaking it into what it became. She had been originally cast as Kelly Garrett, who was supposed to be the unofficial leader of the trio, but at last minute, she decided she wanted to play Sabrina Duncan instead. That's why the ninety-minute pilot movie focuses heavily on Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett because the change had come too late in production for there to be any changes to the script.

It was the implication that she had turned down a solo show in favour of having two co-stars that I found unlikely but if she found a concept that appealed to her then that makes sense. I don't really see what difference it would have made if her character had been called Kelly Garrett. Jackson's and Smith's personas would likely have been much the same.

 

[ClassyCo]

It was the implication that she had turned down a solo show in favour of having two co-stars that I found unlikely but if she found a concept that appealed to her then that makes sense. I don't really see what difference it would have made if her character had been called Kelly Garrett. Jackson's and Smith's personas would likely have been much the same.

Well, they had intended for Kelly to be the street-smart angel, which is why Kate was originally given that role. But Kate decided right before the pilot was shot to play Sabrina instead, and newcomer Jaclyn Smith was given the larger role (in the pilot movie). ABC was thrown into a panic because of Jaclyn's lack of experience, and feared it wouldn't sell because her performance, to them, was wooden and unconvincing.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Cheryl Ladd will always be my favorite Angel, despite the fact that she never answered any of my fan mail. I’m not bitter

 

[ClassyCo]

Cheryl Ladd will always be my favorite Angel, despite the fact that she never answered any of my fan mail. I’m not bitter

After Farrah, Cheryl is easily my second favorite. She may actually be my favorite overall, considering she was a part of the show longer.

 

[Toni]

I´m definitely a Jaclyn fan. And I must look that young
when I´m her age (in the distant future). Also definitely.​

 

[ClassyCo]

View attachment 23556
I´m definitely a Jaclyn fan. And I must look that young
when I´m her age (in the distant future). Also definitely.​

Jaclyn sometimes get the crown for being the most popular Angel, often just because she stayed on the show its entire five-year tenure. She was certainly beautiful, but her acting at the beginning was choppy. It was pretty bad in some spots, but she got better as it went along.

Personally, I've always liked Farrah the best from the first season, and then Cheryl once she came on. Maybe it's because I'm partial to blondes, or maybe it's because I liked how those ladies and their characters gelled in the show.

 

[rlr718]

With the recent passing of Tanya roberts I have started watching season 5. I’m only 2 episodes in (3 since the first episode is plot into 2 parts).
It’s too bad the show couldn’t pull itself up, Tanya was a good addition to the show in my opinion.

 

[ClassyCo]

With the recent passing of Tanya roberts I have started watching season 5. I’m only 2 episodes in (3 since the first episode is plot into 2 parts).
It’s too bad the show couldn’t pull itself up, Tanya was a good addition to the show in my opinion.

I must disagree with your opinion a little. CHARLIE'S ANGELS had practically driven itself into the ground by its fifth season. Shelley Hack had been wrongly accused of the ratings decline that fourth season, even though the primary issue with her and her character, Tiffany Welles, was the decision made by the writers to write her into a corner for the first dozen or so episodes.

While Tanya Roberts was attractive, albeit in that cartoonish sort of way, her acting was bad. She's wooden and she hasn't any chemistry with the other Angels, although she and David Doyle seem to gel well enough. I think Doyle was probably more receptive to Roberts coming in, while Cheryl Ladd seemed to think that the writers could've "fixed" Tiffany Welles because it "certainly wasn't all Shelley's fault".

The main issue was that, by that fifth year, CHARLIE'S ANGELS had gotten stale. The show was really past its prime and it was surviving on life support. I won't say that the audience was completely shocked or angry that there was another new Angel, but I don't think it really helped the growing issues, either. That 1980/81 season was riddled with writer strikes, time slot changes, and bad writing. We can all agree that CHARLIE'S ANGELS was never Shakespeare, but that final season just lacked heart. Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd seemed disconnected and the show itself had quite simply lost its spark. The sizzle was gone, and the staleness took its place.

About the only episode I really like from the final season is "Angel on a Line". That's the one where they are hired to find out who is stalking women over a telephone at a nightclub and then killing them in the parking lot. It was kind of innovative at the time, too. The villain ended up being a cross-dresser. That one was unique. There were a few other episodes that sparked me as interesting, too, now that I think of it. There's one where they're Broadway chorus girls, and those a Western-themed one also, isn't there? Those are decent ones. But that's about it. Creativity was thrown out the door.

Season five was really the worst season. Those opening episodes were drab and very hard for me to get into. I never re-watch that last season. Hardly ever anyway.

 

[Seaviewer]

I guess the idea of making her a former crook rather than a former cop was to shake things up a bit, but it never quite seemed to gel, in my opinion.

 

[ClassyCo]

I guess the idea of making her a former crook rather than a former cop was to shake things up a bit, but it never quite seemed to gel, in my opinion.

Well, the opening credits didn't even make sense anymore. It had always been three girls that had studied at the police academy, but know only Kelly and Kris were police academy graduates and Julie was a former model. They all "reaped the awards of their exciting careers". What? That took the core of it away. Julie had never been to the police academy, and doesn't she get her P.I. license on credit or something? I think there was some mentioning of her still having to take some exam for it to be "official" or whatever, but they never brought that up again.

It was a mess all around. And I'm disappointing every single time I've seen that final episode. In my own make-believe world, Jill, Sabrina, and Tiffany would've came back for a two-hour, crime-fighting mystery that been a good swan song to one of TV's most popular hits.

​

 

[rlr718]

I must disagree with your opinion a little. CHARLIE'S ANGELS had practically driven itself into the ground by its fifth season. Shelley Hack had been wrongly accused of the ratings decline that fourth season, even though the primary issue with her and her character, Tiffany Welles, was the decision made by the writers to write her into a corner for the first dozen or so episodes.

While Tanya Roberts was attractive, albeit in that cartoonish sort of way, her acting was bad. She's wooden and she hasn't any chemistry with the other Angels, although she and David Doyle seem to gel well enough. I think Doyle was probably more receptive to Roberts coming in, while Cheryl Ladd seemed to think that the writers could've "fixed" Tiffany Welles because it "certainly wasn't all Shelley's fault".

The main issue was that, by that fifth year, CHARLIE'S ANGELS had gotten stale. The show was really past its prime and it was surviving on life support. I won't say that the audience was completely shocked or angry that there was another new Angel, but I don't think it really helped the growing issues, either. That 1980/81 season was riddled with writer strikes, time slot changes, and bad writing. We can all agree that CHARLIE'S ANGELS was never Shakespeare, but that final season just lacked heart. Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd seemed disconnected and the show itself had quite simply lost its spark. The sizzle was gone, and the staleness took its place.

About the only episode I really like from the final season is "Angel on a Line". That's the one where they are hired to find out who is stalking women over a telephone at a nightclub and then killing them in the parking lot. It was kind of innovative at the time, too. The villain ended up being a cross-dresser. That one was unique. There were a few other episodes that sparked me as interesting, too, now that I think of it. There's one where they're Broadway chorus girls, and those a Western-themed one also, isn't there? Those are decent ones. But that's about it. Creativity was thrown out the door.

Season five was really the worst season. Those opening episodes were drab and very hard for me to get into. I never re-watch that last season. Hardly ever anyway.

I finished the “Hawaii” episodes last night and after reading your post and realizing I hadn’t actually seen these episodes in well a very long time (at least 30 years) I have to agree with you.
I think I thought she was a good addition because the first episodes focused on Julie. Except for the one where Kris was kidnapped.
Cheryl and jaclyn seemed to be phoning it in.
Although by the end of the Hawaii episodes I felt there was more of an angel bond.

 

[ClassyCo]

I finished the “Hawaii” episodes last night and after reading your post and realizing I hadn’t actually seen these episodes in well a very long time (at least 30 years) I have to agree with you.
I think I thought she was a good addition because the first episodes focused on Julie. Except for the one where Kris was kidnapped.
Cheryl and jaclyn seemed to be phoning it in.
Although by the end of the Hawaii episodes I felt there was more of an angel bond.

The writing is the primary issue. They seemed so determined to make Tanya Roberts and her Julie Rogers "fit" with the rest of the crew that they skidded over some of the finer details. Had they done it for Shelley Hack a year earlier, then we wouldn't have been discussing this mess that is season five.

I don't think the chemistry between Kelly, Kris, and Julie is all that strong. Kelly and Kris don't even seem to be as close as they once were. It's obvious Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd just weren't interested in the show anymore. They wanted to move on and apparently neither of them were going to return for a sixth season had ABC wanted renewed the series in 1981.

 

[Seaviewer]

It's obvious Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd just weren't interested in the show anymore. They wanted to move on and apparently neither of them were going to return for a sixth season had ABC wanted renewed the series in 1981.

Oh that they could have convinced Kate Jackson and Shelley Hack to come back for a sixth season.

 

[ClassyCo]

Oh that they could have convinced Kate Jackson and Shelley Hack to come back for a sixth season.

It would've been amazing had Kate Jackson and Shelley Hack came back for one final outing. It would've been next-to-impossible to get Farrah Fawcett to come back at the time, considering her film career was stabilizing and she wished to rid herself of the show in general.

In all reality it would've been hard to get any of them to return. Kate had tired of the show and its decreasing quality, Shelley was apparently irked at how the producers treated her so shabbily, and Farrah would've probably refused just simply to say no.

 

[ClassyCo]

My wife and I watched "Dancing in the Dark" a few nights ago (Season 1, Episode 19). It's always been one of my favorite episodes from that inaugural season, and I wanted to share that experience with her.

Well... let's just say my wife found the episode cheesy... very cheesy. I won't say she didn't like it, because she herself never voiced that, but she did echo many times how "corny" she thought the episode itself was. She's liked other episodes of CHARLIE'S ANGELS we've watched in the past, but this go-round she just didn't "get it" like she had before.

The plot of the episode is quite simple: A dance studio masquerades as a way to scheme wealthy women out of their money. Alexander Cruz (guest star John Van Dreelen) is the owner of the studio, Tony (guest star Dennis Cole) is the womanizing dance instructor, and Schaeffer (guest star Logan Ramsey) is the photographer employed to take indecent pictures of the women the other two men try to sell for profit. A woman comes to Charlie for assistance (guest star Jean Allison), and the Angels and Bosley go undercover to help her get her money back. Kelly replaces Schaeffer as the photographer, Jill gets a job at the dance studio, and Sabrina pretends to be a wacky heiress that will fall victim to the next scheme. Of course, all ends happily as the Angels save the day yet again.

It's a typical plot for CHARLIE'S ANGELS, a show quite dependent on its weekly formula. This episode was filled with a lot of cheesiness, which was topped off by Jill's bowling down the bad guy at the bowling alley used as a hideout. My wife laughed out loud when she saw Farrah go for the bowling ball... she knew what was coming.

This is what I like about the show: the cheesiness. Sure, I know it's not everyone's cup 'o tea, but it's mine and I love it. The show never pretended to be anything it wasn't. What it is, however, is a glossy P.I. cheesecake show about three women working for a reclusive billionaire and solving crimes while undercover. Nothing more.
​

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[Chris2]

Any time Dennis Cole appears, the cheese factor doubles. He’s lucky he had his wife Jaclyn Smith to help boost his “career”.

 

[ClassyCo]

Any time Dennis Cole appears, the cheese factor doubles. He’s lucky he had his wife Jaclyn Smith to help boost his “career”.

Wow... And I claim to be an ANGELS enthusiast (albeit a lazy one). I didn't even know Jaclyn Smith and Dennis Cole were married.​

 

[rlr718]

This is a riot

 

[AndyB2008]

NBC did a 2004 TV movie about Charlie's Angels called Behind The Camera, which mainly concentrated on the originals, if you can remember it. Sky Movies showed it a bit.

Christina Chambers (Maria from Sunset Beach, a Spelling show) played Jaclyn Smith, Tricia Helfer of Battlestar Galactica and being the Tyra Banks of Canada, played Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and Dan Castellaneta played Aaron Spelling. Orson Bean from Dr Quinn played John Forsythe.

Dynasty had a similar film made too with Melora Hardin, Alice Krige and Bartholomew John.