Saturday, October 22, 2011

TV: Charlie's Angels (2011, ep. 5)

As I noted last week, the axe fell on Charlie’s Angels with the network pulling the plug on production. No surprise really. From the debut episode with 8.76 million viewers, the show was down to 5.57 million viewers this week. It had lost another .34 million over the previous week.

Let's take a look at this week's episode entitled "Angels in Paradise" It was written by the same team that penned the first two episodes (Alfred Gough and Miles Millar) and directed by the same man as the first and fourth episodes (Marcos Siega).


The Angels get hired to rescue a family that has been kidnapped out on the high seas by pirates. Okay, sounds fair. Kate and Abby prepare to speed off to drop off the ransom while Bosley and Eve underwater scuba out to the boat. Wait? What? How did the later two swim out with flippers and tanks as fast as a speedboat got there? A little far of a stretch, gang. They save the day but the head pirate Mercer gets away. That's the first six minutes, folks.

So, the rest of the episode deals with tracking down the guy, and they plan to do it by tracking down a mother and son who might be Mercer's next targets. Lo and behold, Abby is familiar with this woman's past - her husband was part of the New York social circle her family moved in. Isn't that convenient? So now the Angels are going to protect them and hopefully snag the fish that got away.

The son is trying to get on a big polo team, so the Angels let him compete with Bosley sitting in on the team too. Abby and Kate follow a distraction, and Bosley gets cold-cocked from behind. Mercer snags the son but Eve shows she's got mad skills with shooting a gun while riding a horse. Is there anything she can't do? They manage to save the son this time.

Turns out Abby's father was connected to the husband/father and perhaps the mystery distraction too. Gee, time to explore yet another of the core character's pasts. I see they didn't break from the pattern. Turns out Abby's thieving started back when she was fourteen, to get noticed by her father. So, she visits her father in prison; he'll exchange assistance for regular visits by her. How much you want to bet his cryptic suggestion helps the Angels solve the case? I'm betting it will. How else will we get some meager character development with Abby?

I saw the revelation at the end of the fourth segment a mile away. And the "tension" that the fifth brought up wasn't that tense. With less than five minutes left in the episode, you know it's going to end way too conveniently. It does end interestingly though - with Abby's father proving he knows a lot more than he lets on, including an ominous teaser about the mysterious Charlie.

Will we see that story play out? I'm guessing no given the show's dead end in sight. And that's a shame. Despite the average aspects of many of the cases, there are hints of potential. That potential sadly won't be realized at this time.

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