She Spies Back As Charlie's Angels

"She Spies" was an NBC show that aired from September, 2004, through May, 2004. The show used a similar format to Aaron Spelling's 70's ABC series "Charlie's Angels".

Like "Charlie's Angels", "She Spies" featured three women with a male supervisor who battled evil doers.

There were three major differences. The "Spies" worked for a government spy agency rather than a private detective agency like the "Angels". The "Angels" had been "good girls" who had become bored with the job duties they had had as police officers. The "Spies" were bad girls who were let out of jail to work for the government. The "Angels" used their wits and feminine charms to outsmart the evil doers. The "Spies" used martial arts much like Emma Peel on the 60's series "The Avengers".

Oh, there is one other difference, at least to my eyes. The "Angels" were much better looking than the "Spies".

The new "Charlie's Angels" involves the Townsend Detective Agency like the original show and Charlie only communicates with his Angels by phone with a man named Bosley serving as their immediate supervisor. However, the new "Angels" resemble the "She Spies" more than the original "Angels".

The new "Angels" are bad girls like the "Spies". One had been a cop, but she was a "dirty cop". They are martial arts experts like the "Spies".

The first episodes of the two series have an interesting similarity. One of the "She Spies" was temporarily incapacited and they needed to bring in another "bad girl" from jail as a temporary replacement. On the new "Charlie's Angels" one of the "Angels" is murdered and they have to hire another bad girl, who was a friend of the woman who was killed, as a replacement.

The first episode begins with the Angels kicking in a door and assaulting the kidnappers to rescue a teen who has been kidnapped by sex traffickers. Then as they are leaving the area one of the Angels is blown up in her car.

The woman who becomes the new Angel is suspected by the Angels of killing their partner. When they go to her boat to ask her about it, the bad guys start firing at the boat with a machine gun from a helicopter. The show ends with them beating up the bad guy in charge of the kidnapping operation.

If the first episode indicates what the rest of the series will be like, ABC needs to switch the show to the last hour of prime time from the first hour. The show is too violent for that time period. The show time is strange considering that the nonviolent "Body of Proof" airs in the third hour of prime time.

The new "Charlie's Angels" isn't ABC's first venture with women who are experts in martial arts. ABC produced "the Avengers" and the short lived "Honey West" series in the 60's. Both series are available on DVD and would be a better choice for viewers even though "Honey West" was in black and white. The Diana Rigg (Emma Peel) episodes of "the Avengers" are particularly worth watching and not just because TV Guide picked Diana Rigg as the sexiest woman of the first 50 years of television. Even in black and white, Anne Francis is sexier than any of the new "Charlie's Angels"

Martial arts fans have an opportunity to see the original martial arts master, Bruce Lee, in action as Kato in reruns of "Green Hornet" on YOUTV.