Charlie's Angels (TV Series): The Complete 4th Season (DVD)

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I did a double-take when I looked at the cast on the box of the newest release of the old "Charlie's Angels" TV series and saw "The Complete Fourth Season." I'd forgotten that in four years, the show had gone through three sets of "Angels."

The original trio of beauties who worked largely undercover as private detectives for the Charles Townsend Agency was Kate Jackson (as Sabrina Duncan), Jaclyn Smith (as Kelly Garrett), and Farrah Fawcett (as Jill Munroe). Then, when Fawcett quit after the first year after becoming America's favorite pin-up, she was replaced by her "sister," Kris (Cheryl Ladd). The fourth season, after Jackson dropped out she was replaced by Shelley Hack (as Tiffany Welles, daughter of a police-chief friend of Charlie's). A year later Hack would be gone, and Tanya Roberts would appear as a more street-savvy Julie Rogers.

The bottom line for this show was titillation, and apparently not just anybody's you-know-whats would do the trick. When it first aired, this Aaron Spelling-Leonard Goldberg series was denounced by religious groups and the term "jiggle TV" was born as a way of describing and deriding the often braless (and running) Angels. "Massage parlor television" was another phrase thrown out there to describe some of the "bad touch" contact the Angels had to do while undercover. Of course, by today's standards everything is tame except the Eighties' hair.

The first season of the series was solid, and the next two years produced mostly strong episodes with a handful of duds. If you can get past Hack's Bozo-like hairdo and David Doyle's perv-looking open-mouth stares as he plays John Bosley, the lone male who works with the Angels (since boss Charlie, voiced by John Forsyth, is never seen on-camera), So how does Season 4 fare? Surprisingly, it's actually more consistently entertaining than the second and third ones, and (sorry, Shelley), it has nothing to do with Hack. The writers apparently got their second wind, or else one of the higher-ups read them the riot act and told them that the show had slipped from Number 4 its second year to Number 12 its third, and that was unacceptable. The plots are as candy-coated as ever, played with a thin veneer of camp, but they're fun for the most part. Yet the show's slide continued, with "Charlie's Angels" finishing at number 20 this year, three spots ahead of another Spelling show that also had slipped: "The Love Boat."

Season Four is probably most notable for the opening double crossover episode, "Love Boat Angels," which introduced Hack as the new Angel and shipped the three women off on the Pacific Princess with Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod) and his cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes). But the two of them only have brief cameos. It's the ship itself and "The Love Boat" theme that get more air time.

The Angels also get on a Big Rig this season as they try to help an all-female trucking company solve its hijacking problem, but they also go undercover as prisoners, hookers, coeds, and roller dancers. They investigate the porn scene, insurance scams, missing persons, dead witnesses, and a racketeer's scam. And the season bookends with another double-episode, this time based on the past of Kelly, who was orphaned and now might be exposed as the daughter of a hotel magnate.

"Charlie's Angels" was never serious drama. It was always light drama, jiggle TV, and it's STILL light entertainment . . . but with a 1979-80 time-capsule feel.

Here's a rundown on the 26 episodes that are contained on six single-sided discs and housed in three slim clear-plastic keep-cases in a sturdy cardboard slipcase:

1-2) "Love Boat Angels" Pts. 1&2. The Angels go undercover to try to recover $5 million in missing museum antiques. Besides MacLeod and Tewes, look for Bo Hopkins ("Dynasty"), game-show host Bert Convy, and Dick Sargent ("Bewitched").

3) "Angels Go Truckin'." Charlie is into female operations. He also owns the Venus Trucking Company, and in this classic episode the Angels go undercover to try to find out how a million bucks worth of drugs was hijacked.

4) "Avenging Angel." A paroled junkie seeks revenge on the person who sent him to prison, and that person happens to be Kelly. But things get complicated when he tries to make her an addict and drug dealers mistake them for a couple.

5) "Angels at the Altar." Kim Catrall ("Sex and the City") guests in this episode about a friend of Kelly's who hires the Angels to investigate near-miss accidents that are plaguing her fiancé. Check out this episode clip from Sony Pictures.

6) "Fallen Angel." Diamonds aren't a girl's best friend in this episode, in which Farrah Fawcett fulfills her agreement to guest star. Timothy Dalton ("License to Kill") also appears, and naturally it's a Bond-like story involving an international jewel thief. And Fawcett is the "fallen Angel."

7) "Caged Angel." When a young female inmate is shot and killed, Kris goes undercover as a prisoner to investigate. Sally Kirkland guests in one of the season's best episodes. Sony Pictures has provided a campy little episode clip.