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Hello, Angels for one last time! It's the final season for Charlie's Angels (the original version) and we have a new Angel: Julie Rogers (Tanya Roberts) replacing Tiffany (Shelley Hack). She joins Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) and Kris (Cheryl Ladd) to solve crimes as only they know how. You can own all 17 episodes of this final season on DVD-R from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's onDemand Choice Collection. In the explosive final season of this legendary and groundbreaking series, the Angels travel to Hawaii to take on a variety of conniving criminals by using their brains, skill and beauty.

Combining beautiful scenery, thrilling action and of course stunning beauty, the Angels deal with the brutal kidnappers, dangerous divers and even a gang of ruthless dune buggy drivers. Along with their loyal confidant, Bosley (David Doyle), the Angels use their brains, toughness, and good looks to take down wrong-doers throughout this final season! Among the most memorable episodes from the final season include the two-hour premiere, "Angels in Hiding," as with Tiffany returning to Boston, streetsmart Julie Rogers is introduced as a model who works for a talent agency linked to drugs, prostitution, and death, so the Angels join forces with Julie who proves her worth well enough to be offered a job at the Townsend Agency. In "To See An Angel Die," the Angels travel to the new Hawaii branch of Townsend Associates, but soon after their arrival, Kris is kidnapped by Tom Grainger and his two children, who claim she's responsible for Mrs. Grainger's death. In "Waikiki Angels," the Angels go undercover as lifeguards to catch a gang of dune buggy drivers who are terrorizing a local beach and who are likely to be behind the disappearance of a congressman's daughter. In "Angel on the Line," the Angels investigate a murder at the singles bar, 'The Hot Line Club', where customers contact each other anonymously by phone, while Kelly is chosen as the next target of the killer, who stalks her at home as well and with the help of the club entertainer Margo, Kelly dresses to kill...or be killed. In "Angels on a Roll," when a computer programmer dons a variety of disguises to rob multiple ATMs, Kris travels to Las Vegas and poses as an adventuress to lure him back to Los Angeles, while they are both pursued by an irrational casino owner. In the series finale, "Let Our Angels Live," after Kelly is shot in the line of duty, Kris, Bosley, and Julie reminisce about their most challenging cases in a clip-show filled hour.

Each episode on this set is around 49-50 minutes on average, which is unedited most likely. Runtimes are as follows:

Disc 1:
1. "Angels in Hiding, Part 1" (49:57)
2. "Angels in Hiding, Part 2" (49:58)
3. "To See an Angel Die" (49:00)
4. "Angels of the Deep" (48:56)
5. "Island Angels" (49:05)

Disc 2:
6. "Waikiki Angels" (49:01)
7. "Hula Angels" (49:01)
8. "Moonshinin' Angels" (50:01)
9. "He Married an Angel" (50:00)

Disc 3:
10. "Taxi Angels" (49:03)
11. "Angel on the Line" (50:06)
12. "Chorus Line Angels" (49:54)
13. "Stuntwomen Angels" (50:02)

Disc 4:
14. "Attack Angels" (48:56)
15. "Angels on a Roll" (49:00)
16. "Mr. Galaxy" (49:00)
17. "Let Our Angel Live" (48:59)

The packaging comes in a standard Amaray case. A shot of the three Angels is used as the cover art in a purple background. The show logo and The Complete Fifth Season (along with the three star names) mention are both above the photo. The back of the case has three episodic images along with a short synopsis of the series and the DVD specs are provided. The same photo of the three Angels on the cover art is featured on the spine of the case. Inside the case, there is no artwork, just plain black. It would have been great if they included some episode summaries or additional photos. The discs just have a plain white background, like all Sony Choice Collection sets do, with the series logo and disc number. Generic! The four discs are on two plastic holders, with one on each side. And finally, there is an insert for other Sony Choice Collection titles like Sheena, Rules of Engagement and Hart to Hart.

As for the menus, the main menu is simple and it works. There is no theme or music playing in the background, though. We have a black and fire background with the three Angels featured. The famous pose shot is in black and we have selections for Play All Episodes and Episode Selections. In Episode Selections, we have different main artwork on each disc. There is an orange box with the Angels pose in black with episode titles listed along with an option to Play All Episodes at once and to go back to the Main Menu. It's simple but effective. It's just missing music.

This DVD set is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media, as we mentioned. Thus, the packaging notes that this disc is expected to play back in DVD Video "Play only" devices, and may not play in other DVD devices, including recorders and PC drives. The episodes are presented in 1.33:1 full screen, as it should be. It looks good to me. For the closing logo enthusiasts, there is just one: Sony Pictures Television. The audio is an English Dolby Digital track. It sounds fine and maybe better than most series from the early '80s (1980-81 season). So there is nothing to worry about here. Unfortunately though, there are no subtitles or closed captioning on any of the episodes. Pretty standard and basic, but both audio and video are perfectly good here. Very good! And we have about seven chapter stops for each episode, so that is great, too.

Unfortunately, there are no special features included, just like the other Sony Choice Collection titles. This is usually the case with these on manufactured on demand type releases. You just get the episodes here, which are fine I guess, especially for a show that that started as a regular Sony DVD title and moved to Choice Collection. We never had any special features for the first four seasons either, well except one featurette on season one (back in 2003). No expectations.

So after 10 years, finally we have every season released on DVD. A complete series set came out last fall, but now each seasons has also been individually released. Even if it's just a MOD DVD-R release, it's still something! This set has flaws, but I think it is expected since it is a cheapened set. The audio and video are not affected. They both are very good. Packaging needs a bit improving though, but that's not a major issue. The menus are much better than past Choice Collection set series, so that's great news. Special features are never expected on MOD stuff, so if we even got something it would have been surprising. This is definitely a release for just the episodes and you get those! This is our first review of this series, so I can't really compare to previous seasons but I did watch and love all the episodes for this series and this season is still good. Don't say goodbye to the Angels without buying this set!

(4/5 stars)

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