Despite a terrific guest cast led by Christopher George as Chadway, Cesar Danova as Franco Cirella, and three-time Charlie's Angels guest star and husband of Jaclyn Smith, Dennis Cole, playing against type as Carl Hansworth, this plot let me feeling cold. It's a two-part episode shot on location in Vail Colorado.
The location scenes are fantastic, the village with the hotels and main street-feel, and of course the mountain slopes where the skiing was filmed. All that worked.
The plot, if I'm honest, was a bore-fest. There were several ski chase scenes that quite honestly all looked the same and went on for too long. When they're intercut with the rear projection studio stuff, the beautiful effect of being out on location is instantly ruined. Also I have no idea why this was a two episode arc. It worked for Angels in Paradise, the Hawaii episode, but here it felt like a drag.
That said it wasn't all bad by any stretch. The chemistry between Dennis Cole and Jaclyn Smith is apparent, and there's a lovely scene filmed at night on a ski slope with what appears to be hundreds of skiers carrying torches as they ski down the mountain as Dennis Cole and Jaclyn Smith eat dinner in the foreground.
The Christopher George/Cheryl Ladd pairing seemed a little forced to me. It's amusing to suggest that Kris Munroe would suddenly develop feelings for a government agent she barely knows just because they're working a case together. That was one of the worst 70s tropes, that a woman would automatically be attracted to the man she worked with, just because.
But that was nowhere near as bad as the Bosley romance angle, which as usual is just cringe-inducing. He's paired with the lovely age appropriate actress Kathleen Nolan as Elizabeth James. Perhaps it's just me but every time Bosley is put forth as a romantic lead he falls off his skis.
Sabrina was mostly left to her own devices, which often seemed the case in season 3. It's as if she had CA already in her rear view mirror.
I won't exlain the plot too much, only that it's patently ridiculous, with foreign rabble rousers from Italy killing a gov agent for some Bond-plot reason. I did not care about any of that. Cesar Danova was always good at playing rakish villains, but his part was grossly underwritten. So this one gets marks for effort, with the location, ski stunts, and camera work shining, but the plot never pulled me in.