When It Appeared on TV:

1994 – 2003

Genre:

Drama

Episode Running Time:

60 minutes

The Concept:

Angels visit Earth on assignment from heaven and work together to visit troubled people. While the angels don’t always solve people’s problems, they do always deliver messages of hope, assuring people that God loves them and cares about their lives.

The Characters:

Tess (Della Reese) supervises Andrew (John Dye) and Monica (Roma Downey) on their earthly missions.

Tess provides wise guidance, Monica learns valuable lessons as she works, and Andrew helps them both while also serving as the Angel of Death. During the series’ last three seasons, a new angel named Gloria joins Tess, Andrew, and Monica in their work. Gloria (Valerie Bertinelli) tends to be gullible, since she still needs to learn more about people.

The Plot:

Each Touched by an Angel episode usually revolves around the angels’ current assignment (called “cases” in the show, since the angels are portrayed as heavenly social caseworkers), helping someone who needs encouragement or is facing a difficult decision.

Famous Angel Images:

The angels work undercover (in disguise as humans) on each case at first so they won’t scare the people they’ve been assigned to help. But when each case reaches the point where it becomes necessary to reveal their true identities, viewers see the angels bathed in bright light. After the light appears around them, the angels explain who they are to the humans they’ve been helping.