Three beautiful women (Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett) are the only employees of a detective agency run by the unseen Charlie (voice of John Forsythe) and his helper Bosley (David Doyle). Every week these women went out to solve laughably obvious crimes and never break a nail or get one hair out of place. Just like real life huh?:) This came on TV when I was in high school and it was trashed (for good reason) by the critics but was a HUGE hit. The ratings went through the roof and this started the Farrah Fawcett phenomenon of the late 1970s. Also, for its time, this was pretty sleazy. The women all wore very tight and/or revealing outfits and in one episode ("Angels in Chains") they were sent to a prison camp, forced to strip and sprayed with disinfectant! There was a huge outrage over this show but the rating were incredibly strong. It was also originally broadcast at 10:00 at night so the kids couldn't see it (I was 14 and I remember being angry that I couldn't watch). However the series toned down the scripts and it was put on at 9:00 with (I believe) the second season.
Now this show WAS sexist to a ridiculous extreme but it did show strong female characters solving crimes each week. Of course they used every opportunity they had to get them in bikinis too:) Fawcett walked out after the first season (to become a movie star--which never happened) and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Then Jackson was fired (she rightfully complained that the scripts were "sh*t") and was replaced by Shelley Hack. Then SHE was fired and Tanya Roberts stepped in. By the time Roberts joined the series was seriously dying in the ratings and was cancelled right after.
I watched it every week for the first few seasons. Being a closeted gay teenager I wasn't watching it for the women or the acting (which was terrible) or the scripts (pretty bad). But the show was beautiful to look at and was pleasant in a no-brain sort of way. You could relax for an hour and not think at all:) But, after Hack joined, the series just got dull. This was not Hack's fault--the scripts just got plain boring! I stopped watching around then--that's around the time the ratings dropped steeply. They tried to pump life into the series by introducing another detective agency run by Toni (Barbara Stanwyck) and she has three hot guys solving crimes! However that was only for one episode. Also this is known as starting "jiggle" TV. So I won't say this is any masterpiece but it was fun to watch.
Now this show WAS sexist to a ridiculous extreme but it did show strong female characters solving crimes each week. Of course they used every opportunity they had to get them in bikinis too:) Fawcett walked out after the first season (to become a movie star--which never happened) and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Then Jackson was fired (she rightfully complained that the scripts were "sh*t") and was replaced by Shelley Hack. Then SHE was fired and Tanya Roberts stepped in. By the time Roberts joined the series was seriously dying in the ratings and was cancelled right after.
I watched it every week for the first few seasons. Being a closeted gay teenager I wasn't watching it for the women or the acting (which was terrible) or the scripts (pretty bad). But the show was beautiful to look at and was pleasant in a no-brain sort of way. You could relax for an hour and not think at all:) But, after Hack joined, the series just got dull. This was not Hack's fault--the scripts just got plain boring! I stopped watching around then--that's around the time the ratings dropped steeply. They tried to pump life into the series by introducing another detective agency run by Toni (Barbara Stanwyck) and she has three hot guys solving crimes! However that was only for one episode. Also this is known as starting "jiggle" TV. So I won't say this is any masterpiece but it was fun to watch.