Touched by an Angel

Touched by an Angel was an American television series created by John Masius and Martha Williamson that ran on CBS (Disney Channel and Hallmark Channel in the UK) from September 21, 1994, until April 27, 2003. It shared strong, non-denominational Christian values. During its run, it was one of the highest rated shows on CBS.

Touched by an Angel spawned a spin-off, Promised Land. Like some other dramas in the past with concurrent spin-offs, sometimes an episode begun on "Angel" was concluded less than a week later on "Promised Land".

Cast

Regular Cast and Character Descriptions

Roma Downey - Monica: Monica is the main character of the show. Sweet and tender, this angel was promoted from the Search and Rescue department to become a case worker, to help people, delivering them a message of hope from God. She once was revealed as having an evil twin, or something to that effect, named Monique in a casino episode. Previous to Search and Rescue, Monica was in annunciations and, like all angels, spent at least some time in the choir in Heaven. However, she does not seem to have a good singing voice, something Monica bemoans more than once. Monica's biggest weakness is coffee, especially mocha lattes.
Della Reese - Tess: Tess is Monica´s angelic supervisor. Sometimes tough but always compassionate, she would eventually brighten everyone´s spirits by singing with her melodic voice.
John Dye - Andrew: Andrew became an all-episode character in the third season. He is an Angel of Death, that is, one of the angels that take people who die to their eternal fate, heaven or hell. Andrew was also a case worker at one time. He hates being stereotyped as a Grim Reaper.
Valerie Bertinelli - Gloria: Gloria is an inexperienced angel, because she was created by God during one of Monica´s assignments (in the seventh season). She is always learning new things and is very intelligent (and good with technology), but also adds a lot of humor to the show.

Occasional Cast

Sam Dalton - Stage Manager
Alexis Cruz - Rafael (16 episodes), one of the "specialty angels" called in from time to time
Paul Winfield - Sam (13 episodes), a senior supervisor at a rank above Tess
Charles Rocket - Adam (10 episodes), another angel currently serving as an angel of death, and who makes regular appearances in season one and occasionally later in the series run.
Jasmine Guy - Kathleen, Monica's arch-nemesis, an angel and former cohort of Monica's who had turned to the side of the Devil. Kathleen's assignments usually involved trying to somehow derail Monica's assignments, but although she came dangerously close to succeeding more than once, Monica always triumphed in the end. Eventually Kathleen was "fired" for failing in her mission one too many times, and Monica took pity on her and invited her to come back to God.
Scott Wilkinson - D.A. John Tipton / Surgeon / others (8 episodes)
Randy Travis - Wayne / Jed Winslow (7 episodes)

The show featured different guest actors in every single episode.

Special Guest Stars

Bill Cosby (the angel of reconciliation, but he has a poor sense of direction)
Melissa Joan Hart
Jack Black
Celine Dion
Wynonna Judd
Evan Rachel Wood
Naomi Judd
Faith Hill
Patrick Duffy
Tara Lipinski
Chris Burke as Taylor, an angel who appears to have Down syndrome

Series Premiere

Tess guides Monica on her first assignment as a case worker after being promoted from search and rescue.

Series Finale

The series finale shows Monica, who is up for promotion, defending Zack, an innocent drifter accused of blowing up a school full of children. The prosecutor is actually the Devil, played by David Ogden Stiers. Despite Monica's best efforts, Zack is convicted.

Visiting him in the prison, Monica offers herself to be his guardian angel for the rest of his life, protecting him from the dangers of the federal prison.

Later the citizens find out the truth: it was the prosecutor who blew up the school and framed Zack. Monica makes the citizens see that there's still hope to rebuild the life in the town and helps them to free themselves of the anger.

Before Zack can be sent to jail, however, he disappears. Monica then finds out that Zack was actually God. Defending Him was a test, and she succeeds: according to His words, "There's no greater love than to give your life away for someone else." This is a strong and powerful Gospel message. Monica is finally promoted.

Music

As the show's resident songbird, Della Reese performed the theme song to Touched By An Angel, "Walk With You."

When you walk down the road

Heavy burden, heavy load

I will rise, and I will walk with you

I'll walk with you till the sun don't even shine

Walk with you, every time

I'll tell ya, I'll walk with you

Believe me, I'll walk with you

A full-length version of "Walk With You," recorded with the Verity All-Stars, was included on the show's soundtrack album, which was released in November 1998 and went platinum. The album came out on the heels of the episode Psalm 151, broadcast November 15, 1998, which starred Wynonna Judd as the mother of a terminally ill boy and featured a guest performance by Celine Dion of "Love Can Move Mountains" (the boy's best friend in this episode, played by Mika Boorem, was obsessed with Dion and even nicknamed herself Celine). Dion recorded a new version of "Love Can Move Mountains" (originally a #36 Pop hit in 1993 from her self-titled sophomore English album) with God's Property for the soundtrack. The song Wynonna's character performed at the end of the episode, "Testify To Love," was also featured on the soundtrack album, as was Wynonna's cover of Whitney Houston's "You Were Loved" (from Houston's movie The Preacher's Wife).

The soundtrack album was comprised of other songs featured on the show that season, including tracks by Shawn Colvin, Bob Dylan, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Amy Grant, and Jaci Velasquez. One other track from the album, "Somebody's Out There Watching," was a moderate country hit for The Kinleys, and Amanda Marshall's "Believe In You" became a major hit in Canada and was also later featured on her 1999 album Tuesday's Child.

Trivia

The show was cancelled during its first season. It was brought back the next year after the fans staged a letter-writing campaign.
John Masius's original pilot script was much darker than that which was eventually shown on TV (In the original pilot, Tess was a chain-smoking angel who was frequently at Monica's throat.)
Regular production for the show was based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Early posters for the 1999 comedy film Dogma featured the tagline "Get 'touched' by an angel". CBS took legal action to force Lions Gate Films to change the tagline.
In Family Guy, in one episode the show is parodied with the 'Angel' being charged in court for "touching" a boy sexually. The prosecutor asks the little boy where exactly the angel touched him, to which the angel's response is "Who you gonna believe? I've got a freakin' halo for God's sake!"

External links

Touched by an Angel at TV Tome
Touched.com

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