Charlie’s Angels 1:5 “Target: Angels”

Airdate: 10/27/76

No assignment; instead the angels find themselves clients when an assassin attempts to kill Kelly, followed immediately by an attempt on Jill (after her coaching assignment of a girl’s basketball team), and then… Sabrina, marking the first time ever a hit man used bottled water delivery for explosives. A few red herrings here and there – such as a religious pendant left behind to make Kelly think it has something to do with the Catholic orphanage where she was raised – do not thwart the trio from discovering the real culprit: a disgruntled embezzler sent to prison by Charlie. In the end, the Angels go directly to their boss’s home as cover but wind up saving his life when his nemesis decides to take the Man out himself.

This one’s a bit of a head scratcher, made needlessly complicated by umpteen plot twists and turns that obfuscate rather than intrigue. And there’s a pervasive illogic that leaves the viewer ultimately unsatisfied. Why does the hit man keep going when he knows he’s missed his targets? His boss is the embezzler, but why is there a mercenary “agent” introduced, who ostensibly lands jobs for these guys, mostly coming from war torn nations in Africa? Needless clutter.

I’d have much preferred more time allotted to the Angels’ private lives, which we see for the duration of the episode’s first half. Kelly can’t commit to a baffled Tom Selleck due to her job and its current constraints. Jill’s coaching job (braless, of course) is interesting too, as is Sabrina’s pretty-cozy relationship with her ex-husband, a police detective who wants to take care of the hit-man matter himself (we also get a touching scene with her father). These may be recurring characters – I hope so, The success of any serialized drama hinges on the investment an audience has for its characters, and the more we know about them, and their respective histories, the better.

Not a bad story, but too much silly plot excess, a trend for this otherwise fun, high-spirited drama.

Trivia: In this episode Charlie’s address is 674 Vinewood Lane (but he changes it at the end for secrecy).

Client: None really, just the Angels themselves, unofficially.

Plot Difficulty Level: 7

Rating: **