Can Charlie's Angels escape the remake curse?

Will ABC's update of the kitschy '70s hit repeat the success of CBS' Hawaii Five-O reboot — or go the way of Bionic Woman 2.0?

Minka Kelly (center) stars as one of three butt-kicking agents in "Charlie's Angles," a classic TV remake that some say is already doomed.
(Image credit: Facebook/Charlie's Angels)

Despite the wretched fates of recent Knight Rider and Bionic Woman remakes, tenacious TV execs keep attempting to revamp old shows for a millennial audience. In Charlie's Angels, the latest rebirth (premiering Thursday at 10 p.m. on ABC), actresses Minka Kelly, Rachel Taylor, and Annie Ilonzeh step into the butt-kicking, private-investigator shoes of Farrah Fawcett and Co. By most accounts, it doesn't go well: Critics are already proclaiming the straightforward series "offensively bland" and "DOA (dumb on arrival)." Is Charlie's Angels doomed to suffer the TV remake curse?

Yep. Especially with writing this bad: The new crimefighting trio is burdened by "comically bad writing," says David Hinckley at the New York Daily News. When a perceptive kidnap victim remarks, "You don't look like cops," the girls respond: "We're not. We're Angels." This stiffly delivered repartee is better suited for a "dialogue balloon in a comic book" than a primetime series.

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