Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman November 21, 2019

Mill Creek has released the entirety of the original 'Charlie's Angels' television show to Blu-ray in a twenty-disc set, which also includes the short-lived 2011 remake. Technical specifications include original aspect ratio video and two-channel lossless audio for the original series and 1.78:1 video and 5.1 lossless audio for the 2011 show. No supplemental features are included, but as always the studio has priced the set somewhat aggressively for the content and quality of presentation.

ABC's Charlie's Angels debuted on September 22, 1976 to positive audience and critical response, gaining momentum through its first season, only to decline soon thereafter, the dip attributable to a number of factors. The first season stars Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett, and Kate Jackson as the collective title characters, playing Kelly Garrett, Jill Munroe, and Sabrina Duncan, respectively, all three graduates of the Los Angeles Police Department but assigned menial tasks despite their obvious physical and mental qualifications. The show follows a repetitive procedural structure in which the Angels, who have ditched their day jobs for the LAPD and taken work as private investigators for the Charles Townsend Agency, receive an assignment from Charlie's speakerphone and proceed to go undercover to solve the crime and save the day. The Angels are aided by John Bosley (David Doyle) but in Charlie's Angels it's primarily a woman's crimefighting world.

Season one is a fun if not fully frivolous romp through various episodes that afford the Angels opportunity to demonstrate their skills as investigators and experts in various methods of action and coercion and, of course, to get them in various states of titillating attire and undress. Each episode is unquestionably built around the girls, not the crime, and placing them in enticing situations to capitalize on sex appeal. "Jiggle TV" is the historical term associated with it, and there are few examples that more aptly define the term (Baywatch being one of them). But the show does work to find balance to the core hormonal allure, depicting the women in positions of power, in empowerment and in control, and more than capable of handling themselves in any and every situation, fighting fearsome foes, and facing difficult or impossible odds. They do not back down but rather rise to the challenge of the week, using every weapon at their disposal to win the day and gratify the audience beyond the essential scope of any given episode's storyline.

The Charlie's Angels story would shift away from the characters and to the cast with the end of season one when Farrah Fawcett would break her contract to leave the show, resulting in a well publicized legal battle that eventually saw the star remain off the show, replaced by Cheryl Ladd playing a character billed to be Jill Munroe's sister Kris, a San Francisco PD vet joining the team in her sister's stead. Ladd would remain with the show show for the following four seasons. Season two's ratings remained relatively strong despite the switch-a-roo, but subsequent seasons saw declining and eventually sharp dips in ratings. Fawcett's departure was certainly the catalyst for the show's downturn, and by the end of season three Charlie's Angels would lose another original act member, Kate Jackson, replaced by Shelley Hack portraying Tiffany Welles. Hack would last only a single season, and one in a ratings free fall. Her replacement, Tanya Roberts portraying Julie Rogers, would work alongside Ladd and series stalwart Jaclyn Smith -- the only Angel to survive the entire run -- through to the show's conclusion on June 24, 1981.

Losing two-thirds of the main cast over the span of just a few seasons, and then turning around even some of the replacements, is certainly recipe for disaster for a show, and Charlie's Angels' steady decline is apparent in later seasons. The show ardently sticks to formula no matter which face is in front of the camera but it struggles to hold continuity even as it's essentially a repeat of formula week in and week out. The show finds identity in its core structure and style but the repetition wears thin, particularly as in later seasons the show lacks opportunity to more fully explore its characters, many of whom are in a state of constant flux. Rather than identify with its characters, then, Charlie's Angels asks audience to identify with procedure, with the exotic locales and flashy costumes, all well and good in the moment but to the detriment of the characters filling the space and the show's larger scope and value. It's not long before the show's identity falls squarely on the "how" instead of the "who," on the look rather than the feel, and any procedural television program of any value knows one cannot thrive without the other.

Through the cast turmoil and failing ratings the show's conclusion probably came too late, but it has left behind a legacy of both on-screen titillation and off-screen drama. The name is synonymous with sex appeal and the idea of three gorgeous, athletic women fighting crime with more than a little sexual suggestion has proven too enticing a combination to let go, even considering the original show's struggles to catch on after catching fire in its debut season. Three feature films would follow in the decades to come after cancelation, and ABC even ordered a remake in 2011 that took a more high tech approach and fizzled, airing seven episodes with an eighth shot but never aired in the United States. Mill Creek has included this short-run series on disc 20 of this set, and it includes that final unaired episode.

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: The video score above reflects only the original series. See the end of the review below for an individual score for the brief 2011 series.

Mill Creek delivers Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series to Blu-ray with a largely satisfying, though certainly imperfect, 1080p transfer. First, to get the problems out of the way. The image suffers from a fairly regular barrage of heavy splotching, a massive field of yellow blots that pop in here and there. See the beginning of season one's final episode, the 7:15 mark of season two's first episode, and again at the 10-minute mark of that same episode for just a few examples. These are not the only occurrences in these episodes or through the series, just a couple of reference points for the problem. This represents the most severe blemish to be found. Others include the odd spot and speckle that are rarely intrusive but dense enough to take notice. Compression is handled remarkably well all things considered. This image is not free of macroblocking but rarely does the image appear on the verge of digital degradation, either. It maintains a fairly sturdy appearance without digital artifacts plaguing backgrounds.

The series is presented on Blu-ray at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, preserving the original broadcast parameters, resulting in vertical "black bars" on either side of the 1.78:1 HD display. The picture is largely attractive, with grain that is maintained if imperfectly manicured. It fluctuates in density from time to time but never does the image appear scrubbed down or the grain so dense as to overwhelm the screen. The picture reveals quality detail that compliments the film-based source. It's relatively sharp and visually appealing, showcasing character skin, hair, and clothes with impressive visibility and fairly intimate detail. The show is always in a state of visual flux, meaning attire and locations frequently switch out, so there's always something new and exciting to explore. Mill Creek's Blu-ray is more than capable of revealing the entirety of the Charlie's Angels visual spectrum to satisfaction.

Colors are pleasing, showing positive saturation and depth across the board. While contrast could probably stand a little tweaking, the core palette impresses through the series' varied costumes and locations. Consistency is one of the highlights; the show maintains a good, positive feel for tonal accuracy within its visual parameters, never straying from its established appearance. Tones are never gaudy, and even bright reds don't bleed or appear garish. Skin tones appear fairly true and black levels never stray too far from accurate, occasionally looking a little flat but never veering too deeply to crush. By the end of the run, the show is looking terrific. It's not a leap over early seasons but offers a bit more solidification to clarity and color. Mill Creek has done a good-to-great job here.

The 2011 show fares much worse, despite being much newer. It was shot on video and presents at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, filling the contemporary HD frame. Unfortunately, the image is riddled by compression artifacts. Chunky macroblocking is commonplace in practically every shot, destroying any goodwill that comes from the high definition video textures, which are not particularly impressive anyway. The macroblocking wants to tear the image apart at the seams, but in the most stable shots there are at least some decently clear and intimate facial features, clothing lines, and environments. Colors are flat but effective at the core. Skin tones are more or less fine, ditto black levels. The final episode, unaired in the United States, looks terrible, like it was yanked off a poor web stream, amplifying the instability and compression artifacts many times over. See the final five screenshots in this review for a basic visual reference. SCORE: 2.0/5.0

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Note: The audio score above reflects only the original series. See the end of the review below for an individual score for the brief 2011 series.

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. The presentation is about as expected, a rather unassuming, straightforward experience that captures the limited constraints of a 1970s TV show and presents it with as much fidelity and clarity as the source allows. The two-channel constraints limit opportunities for the track to flourish in terms of scale, and while width is never stifled it's never truly glorious, either, never quite stretching as far and as limitless as one might expect. Somewhere between cramped and flowing, the track finds adequate stage engagement but certainly favors a more reserved approach that keeps most everything pushed more towards the middle. The exception is music, which generally enjoys a little more breathing room out to the edges. Musical clarity will never be mistaken for perfect, but core notes and details present with welcome accuracy in the lossless deployment, limited more so by the inherent sound design and less the DTS encode.

Support effects range from ideally delivered to questionably faithful. There's a certain crunchiness to many effects, a lack of clarity and authenticity that renders various moments less than sonically ideal as the track struggles to bring even simple environmental details to life with more than crude approximations of any given sound. Some of the more intensive action scenes, while obviously lacking high end sonic firepower, do find enough core vigor and detail to please, but as with everything else in the track the rule is that everything falls into a middle ground where core faithfulness suffices but clarity and detail beyond is lacking. The track gives a good honest effort, however, and the sum of the parts more often than not works well enough to please. Dialogue is usually well prioritized but occasionally stumbles around competing elements; ocean waves at the beginning of season one's "The Killing Kind," for example, conflict with dialogue rather than melt into the background. Still, for the most part, dialogue clarity is just fine, prioritization by and large good, and imaging to the center satisfies.

The audio presentation for the short-lived 2011 series comes in the way of a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. It's not first-rate but it's passably good in key areas. Gunfire is wimpy and additional action elements lack punch. Music generally finds a good, healthy width, some surround integration, and decent low end engagement. It's more open and immersive than the older show's track, more detailed and precise, and compliments the show well. Dialogue is clear and center focused. SCORE: 3.5/5.0

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series contains no supplemental content across all twenty of its discs. The main menu screens offer only options to select episodes individually, play all, and toggle subtitles on and off. The twenty discs ship in two large cases, each with several leafs holding discs one per side. Both fit into a modestly sturdy, but not fully rigid, slip box.

Charlie's Angels: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite its early success and longstanding name recognition, history has not been particularly kind to the Charlie's Angels brand name. The original series' popularity waned with a decided lack of forward development and multiple casting changes. The death knell came in season one with Fawcett's departure, though it was a slow-burn process for reality to sink in, with the producers and the network fighting to keep the show afloat despite all indicators pointing to the contrary. The big screen revitalizations that would come a couple of decades later in Director McG's feature film of the same name and its 2003 sequel amplify big budget splash and sex. Neither are remembered as bastions of great cinema. The 2011 television show, which was hoped to spark a major return to glory for the familiar title, was a flop of historic proportions, cancelled after just a handful of episodes. Sony was hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with the 2019 feature film, but box office returns have been disastrous. This is a franchise that has lived on allure and sex appeal more so than meat and dramatic quality, and it's no surprise that it never can quite seem to gain a foothold as anything more than a popular culture name brand. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of the original TV show and the short-lived spin-off isn't at all bad. The only downside is the video presentation for the 2011 show, which is rather poor in the aggregate. The original series translates quite nicely to Blu-ray albeit with some flaws. Recommended.