Angela's Eyes: A Retro TV Review

Angela's Eyes was a television Series that ran for 13 episodes in 2006. The show was created by executive producer / Screenwriter Dan McDermott. During the show he wrote just 3 of the episodes.

The title character Angela Henson was played by Abigail Spencer, a really good actress.

The show touts Angela as a special character with a talent for recognizing when someone is lying, but not necessarily why they might be lying. But is this a special skill? Or is it just a mystery to some men that some women have a really great bullshit detector?

Whether it's a special skill or just a really good bullshit detector, the show appears to be about a strong young beautiful woman with a lot of personal baggage, including the early loss of both her parents.

That loss leads her to the FBI agent who has been there for her since the death of her parents. He became a staple, the parent in her life. She loves and respects him.

He is one of the major inspirations drawing her to join the FBI as an adult. When she finds out that her parents were FBI agents, and there is a secret that has been hidden from her, she is even more interested in joining up.

Early on in the story it becomes clear that the FBI have been keeping her as close to them as possible. This part of the story is interesting, and it could be worth watching if just to find out why...but first, let's look a bit closer. There are some nagging problems that are noticeable from the beginning.

Angela is touted as an individual who can spot liars a mile away. She’s been told over and over that she has an amazing skill. But the writing makes it appear that Angela doesn't seem aware that her mentor and the FBI itself have been lying to her the whole time, contradicting the premise of the show itself, unless they ultimately give Angela a secret agenda of her own.

Angela slowly finds out that she has been manipulated and used by men (FBI) all her life. They think she may know something she doesn’t know that she knows concerning her parents, and for her entire life they have been keeping her very close.

The FBI has lost information that was so important her parents were willing to go rogue to protect it. In fact her parents might actually still be alive. Her accumulation of this knowledge over time leads her to search for her parents over the course of the show, while the FBI continues to lie and manipulate her.

This show is overwhelmingly written and produced by men. The male gaze runs though this show even though it is being shown on a network that proclaims its commitment to women (Lifetime). From the very first episode it becomes clear that this show seen through male eyes is chock full of female stereotypes both straight and lesbian.

In the first episode, there's a husband accused of murdering his wife. Instead, you find out that his wife has left him, taken his money, and fallen in love with a woman.

While it's easy to read through the writing that leads up to the knowledge that the wife is alive and well, the first glimpse of bisexuality/lesbianism is one of specific male titillation. In fact, you see it from the view of the male FBI agents watching. And Angela who is with them at the time says nothing.

They see the two women kissing and respond in the usual male way, but the one female in the show remains silent. No woman's voice is available within the scene.

This show is on Lifetime; a network that states that it has a commitment to women. But apparently Lifetime forgot that Lesbians are actually women too. This network seems to have no qualms about perpetuating negative lesbian stereotypes right alongside of their straight stereotypes.

In one of the few TV series that depicts any lesbian characters at all, the characters are pathological liars, thieves, and cheats. But one of the sad things about it is if you check out the chatboard for this show, not one person has said a word about it. Not one.

It is okay to make lesbian characters bad guys, but you need to balance it out and make sure some of those lesbian characters are good guys. Don’t continue to perpetuate only negative stereotypes, because that is what the audience will remember.

Note: This show was on the air in 2006. While women were leading many shows, few of their characters were lesbian. Broadcast stations were incredibly slow to warm up to the idea of lesbian characters. If they were in a show, they were not portrayed well at all. Cable stations were only a little better than their Broadcast counterparts.