First Impressions: Charlie’s Angels

(airs on ABC, Thursday nights at 8pm)

ABC, what the fuck were you thinking? Charlie’s Angels is a 43-minute exercise in absurdity. It’s a candy-coated action show in the vein of the Hawaii Five-O remake on CBS, and equally as terrible. It opens and closes with some techno pop hits, has a script probably written by a bored 10-year old, and absolutely no point for its existence, except as filler between commercials for bad movies and beer. I’m probably most disappointed to see good ol’ Renaldo (Ramon Rodriguez of The Wire) suffering through this melange of Cheese Whiz dialogue and predictable set pieces.

There’s no emotional core or coherent plot at the center of Charlie’s Angels: like most dramas on the big networks, it only exists to have pretty scenery, blatantly sexualized women who think they are representing a prime-time women’s movement, and an abundance of idiocy. The pilot plays out like a CSI episode (which is not a compliment), chasing down cryptic clues and learning about Eve (Minky Kelly, who is just awful), the soon-to-be angel (because seriously, who didn’t see it coming?) who is kind of good and kind of bad, all at the SAME TIME (how original!). After a badly staged climatic scene at a heaven and hell party (how fucking convenient), Charlie’s Angels ends with the same whimper it began with: some bubbly bullshit song and talks about family and good vibes. Let’s also not forget an important plot point changed from the 70s series: those Angels were women who were forced out of the police force for being women. These women are dirty cops and thieves, given a second chance by a man we (of course) will never know. It changes the show from being an empowering women’s crusade, into three play toys for a rich man.

What do you want me to say? Just like every other new (and most existing) dramas on television, Angels is to wrapped up in being a spectacle and being action and drama packed, instead of telling a compelling story about three women with the opportunity to start over (although I hardly think anyone would be giving a dirty cop a second chance in a trustworthy position). There is no plausibility for anybody’s actions or behaviors thanks to the absolute black hole of a story. Angels, like most other shows on television, is willing to throw away any consistencies in logic or morality to provide us with the lowest common denominator form of television. Save yourself 43 minutes of your life, and leave this shit pile alone. SKIP IT!