by Jason Daniel Baker

Created on: March 18, 2010   Last Updated: April 20, 2010

Charlie's Angels

The series pilot was broadcast on March 21, 1976 but Charlie's Angels, produced by the incredibly successful team of Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, would launch as a regular show in September of that year with scenes used in the opening credits of the show taken from the pilot/TV movie.

Premiering on ABC TV in Fall 1976 (Up against The Quest on CBS and Gemini Man on NBC), Charlie's Angels was a massive hit not only because it happened to feature women who were extremely attractive in ways male audiences would most readily appreciate but because the characters they played personified ideals of what modern women could be.

These were ideals that women (particularly very young ones), and many men wanted to see, even merely as part of a fictional construct. The way 1970s television defined feminism was to show women of action triumphing in fields dominated by men which was truthful to the spirit of feminism up to a point.

Thursday nights on ABC for five seasons the exploits of three female private detectives in the service of an old school gumshoe and former military operative named Charles Townsend captivated viewers.

Charlie having gone into hiding in 1969 to avoid the backlash of those he had put behind bars and to enjoy the good life i.e. discreet encounters with numerous women would never be seen during the series run.

Some still detected a sexist tone not merely in the John Forsythe narration at the beginning of each episode that refered to the Angels as "three little girls" and the rumoured working title for the production "The Alley Cats".

With television being the aestethic medium that it is, beautiful young actresses like Farrah Fawcett (As Jill Munroe), Jaclyn Smith (As Kelly Garrett) and Kate Jackson (As Sabrina Duncan) won the roles of the Angels, and the physical beauty of each was continually alluded to by male characters in line with the swinging 1970's heterosexual lifestyle.

The characters were many things including feminist icons and male fantasies. Some have even speculated that their adventures were the product of a lesbian narrative construct. One thing is clear and that is that the women had wide appeal which crossed over and lured in many different demographics beyond the young audiences ABC TV coveted most.

The production was geared toward a younger audience (14 to 18 demographic with some of the 18 to 24). It was not a comic book adaptation for TV and the realism of 1970s cop/detective shows was prevalent.

The Angels

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