- Title: Charlie’s Angels – Angels in the Wings
- wiki: link
Throwback Thursday takes us back to the tale of three beautiful former police officers turned private detectives working for a faceless boss known as Charlie. “Angels in the Wings” is an unusual episode as much of the time is set aside for song and dance numbers (which are actually quite good) rather than mystery solving. The Angels are called in to investigate a cursed theater after an actress (Shani Wallis) is almost killed by the latest accident on-stage. While there are subplots offered in terms of her estranged son (Nicolas Beauvy) and her ex-husband’s (Gene Barry) gambling debts and unwillingness to do the show, there’s not much of a mystery and much of the Angels’ investigation takes place off-camera.
“Angels in the Wings” is definitely a Kris (Cheryl Ladd) episode as Ladd’s character is given the opportunity to sing and dance in many of the rehearsal scenes for the show and gets the primary investigative piece in befriending and learning about the gambling problems of Barry’s character. Ladd does her own singing for the episode which sets up a backstory for Kris’ experience in the theater (which also gets her a role in the production, although by that point all of the key characters already know she’s also a detective so you could argue there’s no undercover work at all in this episode). There’s so much rehearsing here, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn if scenes more central to advancing the plot were cut in favor of some of the singing numbers.
Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) gets into the act at the end in a recreation to lure out the man (Nehemiah Persoff) responsible for the attacks, and over the course of the episode she offers some information about the other accidents in the theater’s history (which, for the most part, involve the group sitting down to watch film). It’s an episode without a true villain, as the person responsible for the accidents is discovered to be a tortured soul rather than a malicious or unscrupulous villain and the violence over gambling debts is taken care off off-screen as well without anyone being brought to justice. Sabrina (Kate Jackson) definitely draws the short straw here with her only real interaction being with the actors’ son in a subplot that never quite works.
