The Best of Charlie's Angels (1976-81)
Film:
DVD:

Created by Ivan Goff & Ben Roberts
Starring Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Jaclyn Smith, David Doyle, John Forsythe

Features:

• Five episodes from the series
  

Released by Columbia-Tristar
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; episodes appear in their original 1.33:1 format

My Advice: Rent the full boxed set if you must.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Three lethally gorgeous and extremely capable women survived their respective educations and training with one goal in mind: becoming cops. However, they hit a glass ceiling that was somewhere around the altitude of their shins. Completely wasted as resources for justice, that's where Charlie (voiced without credit by Forsythe) stepped in. He brought them in to work for him as detectives, and they go all over the place fighting ne'er-do-wells and looking damn good doing it.

Okay, well, you know--it was the late 70s. Slack must be cut, to some degree. The series, ostensibly an excuse to put three beautiful women on television, is what it is: so cheesy that you somehow just have to love it. Like a big stupid dog that's just piddled on your area rug, it looks so lovable that you can't simply smack it away. And there's really not much else one can say about the show itself: the three leads do what's expected of them well enough--do some moderate to little action and look good.

This presentation contains five episodes, one of which is probably the most talked about piece, "Angels in Chains." After some consideration of the time that this show premiered, I've decided that it's so popular and hyped (notice the cover) because it had the three actresses in what amounted to a Chained Heat/Roger Corman type of scenario. Oooh--! The strip search (behind a partition)! And oooh--! Blackmail and prostitution (which...is never seen on screen)! It's fairly comical in retrospect. There are no features to go along with this particular edition, as it's merely an appetizer for the full Season One treatment.

If you really just need a taste of the show, then this is a solid rental for you. However, if you want to go, you might as well go all the way and rent the boxed set instead--but hey, only you can decide how much 70s goodness you can stand in one sitting.