In the US: Lifetime TV, Sundays 10pm ET/PT
In the UK: Please God. Don't let them buy it.
I can't remember the last time I switched off a TV programme within the first minute. I'm not talking about when channel surfing. I'm talking about sitting down to watch something, turning it on, then realising it was so incredibly awful, so amazingly badly written that I couldn't stomach any more of the show.
Hell, I sat through the first episode of Blade. I made it all the way through an episode of Ultimate Force. But I just couldn't get through more than a minute of Angela's Eyes.
Angela's Eyes is about a woman (I'm guessing Angela) who has this gift that's very useful for an FBI agent: all she has to do is talk to a person and she can tell if they're lying or not using her 'gift' (I suspect body-language reading, given it's called Angela's Eyes. If she were psychic, it would be Angela's Third Eye).
How do I know this? Have I been reading the web site notes or something?
No. I know this because it was all explained in the first minute of dialogue.
Seriously. There might as well have been a man standing behind her, shouting "Angela is a tough, no-nonsense FBI agent who can read other people's body language. But none of her male partners believe in her gift, because it's women's intuition, so Angela must face a constant battle to prove herself and her gift."
You know a show's going to be bad when not only can the show be explained in just a minute of character interaction, but that the whole first minute of the show is dedicated to explaining itself through character interaction. At least have the dignity of Automan, Manimal and all those other 80s shows that had a little explanation at the front of each episode. Don't reduce your characters to ciphers just so the particularly slow can cope with the programme's set up.
It's disheartening to watch. I did actually read a few reviews of the show in Variety and the like and apparently it gets even worse. She gets suspicious of her boyfriend so plants a tracking device on him. When he's about to find it, she deserts her observation post and runs back home. Now that's quality writing.
But I'm never going to have to watch that now, because thankfully, I've managed to avoid wasting an hour of my life with Angela's Eyes.
Final verdict: Has the subtlety of Destiny's Child's "Independent woman" crossed with FBI Barbie and one of those 'Spot' books.
You can read a longer review that's more or less the same as mine over at TV Squad.
Updates and related entries
August 16, 2006:
Sometimes you'll come across a programme that is absolute rubbish at first, but which turns out to be a real corker by the end. The Black Donnellys is one such show.
August 16, 2006: I've uploaded the exact first minute of Angela's Eyes. Now, you decide: would you have turned it off when I did?
December 4, 2006: Angela's Eyes has been cancelled.
July 30, 2007:
My half-review of Saving Grace
July 24, 2006 | Reply
Almost nothing beats a good bad review; much funnier and informative than reading in agreement!
July 24, 2006 | Reply
Well, thank you. But don't encourage me. I was known once as The Great Sarcastron for a reason, and it wouldn't take much to push me off into the deep end again.
These days, I try to be fair and balanced. Hopefully, not like Fox News.
Incidentally, I've now uploaded the first minute of the episode to YouTube. You can visit it here:
http://www.the-word-is-not-enough.com/blog/rob/2006/07/angelas_eyes_you_decide.php
I actually felt physically ill watching it again. That's got to be a bad sign in anything except a medical show, hasn't it?