Would a show like Charlie's Angels not worked had it debuted a few years later

[TMC]

To give you a better perspective:

Charlie's Angels might be one of the most recognisable pop culture staples of the late 1970s - at least in TV terms - but it, like The Dukes Of Hazzard - was very, very rooted in a cultural moment that is as far removed from now as you could possibly imagine. It may have starred powerful female characters but it was marketed on sex appeal in a way that was wildly at odds with its supposed feminist agenda. Whisper it, but it also wasn't very good.

It was - however - popular, at least initially. The first two seasons broke into the top ten of Nielsen Ratings, despite ABC calling it one of the worst TV ideas they'd ever heard of and refusing to accept the huge ratings of the pilot to the extent that they screened it a second time to check. Talk about faith in your own product. But for those first two seasons, the show pulled in great figures, despite critics calling it no more than "Jiggle TV" marketed on the sex appeal of the leads.

It might have become a classic thanks to syndication and largely off the back of those first two seasons, but the third, fourth and fifth seasons faired markedly more badly, dropping in ratings to the point that the network relied on gimmicks like a talent hunt to find a new Angel for the fifth season. It didn't work and the show ended up being cancelled in 1981 at its lowest and with the original concept of a detective show increasingly pushed aside for light plots, a cop show of the week approach and more overt focus on "glamour".

Pitch a movie like THAT in 2015 - or even at the turn of the Millennium - and it wouldn't get off the ground. Ideas of feminism were grossly different back then and it's clear why there's been several attempts to reframe Charlie's Angels from what it once was. Unfortunately, though, those who actually LIKED the original show liked it for the things that revisionists would always be likely to change about it.

In 2000 and 2003, McG rebooted the series and managed to rake in over $500m for the pair at the box office from budgets totally almost $220m. Not massively successful, but there was enough profit in the first one to warrant a sequel, even with talk of production unrest (between Bill Murray and Lucy Liu, most famously). There had been talk of third and fourth chapters in the same series with the cast returning, but that plan hit the rocks around 2004, even though Drew Barrymore was talking about possibilities of a follow-up as late as 2015.

The sequel simply didn't make the required money for further instalments, earning less than the original and when you combined that with a critical mauling - including Razzies nominations - you don't need a degree in marketing to work out why it killed the franchise. But then, perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised on the cooler reception when it came with only a B+ CinemaScore, which hardly indicates enthusiasm.

And yet, someone, somewhere still believed that Charlie's Angels was a viable, commercially promising brand. Because after that, we got another reboot in 2011, this time for TV, which ran for one season, was cancelled after only the fourth episode thanks to low ratings and suffered the ignominy of having its final episode left unaired. That's how bad it was.

And yet, STILL someone, somewhere STILL believed that Charlie's Angels could work and we come to the latest attempt, announced in 2015 and helmed by Elizabeth Banks with a new, dynamic cast hired not simply because of how they look or the "glamour" appeal they bring to the table. The sort-of reboot - which has been called both a new take and a continuation, which is a problem in itself - was clearly well-intentioned and sought to change the imbalance of plot and surface gloss that plagued both the original TV series and Full Throttle, but critical reception seems to suggest that the script was an issue from the start.

And while the critical response has clearly played into things, there's more to this tale than merely bad reviews (because there have been FAR worse for far more successful movies). You have to start with the audience.

To follow this up, Todd in the Shadows (who is a YouTube music critic) said that shows like Charlie's Angels (and also, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Police Woman, The Bionic Woman, and Wonder Woman with Lynda Carter) came off the heels of the women's lib moment of the early '70s. According to Todd, Charlie's Angels always sat weirdly and awkwardly in the wake of second wave feminism.

What he means is that on paper, Charlie's Angels was extremely progressive. Even though the Angels still worked for a man, Charlie nonetheless, believed in them. Before, they weren't taken seriously on the police force due to sexism so they went where there talents were actually valued. On the same token however, Charlie's Angels is primarily remembered really for showcasing hot girls in skimpy outfits. So it's sometimes hard to tell if Charlie's Angels is actually supposed to be an empowering fantasy for women or degrading "jiggle TV". The movies from the 2000s with Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu seemed to according to Todd, absolutely want to live down the show's bad rep.