A-Team: TV Series

[Christopher]

On the Get Smart comparison, it's not the same kind of show or the same media climate. For one thing, Get Smart was a biting, adult-oriented satire, while The A-Team was more of a light farce intended for family viewing. Also, GS was parodying the spy shows/films that were around at the time, in which killing was commonplace, casual, and highly sanitized. That gave way in the '70s to a climate of greater censorship, so that heroes who didn't kill (or did so rarely) became more the norm on television; but by the '80s that was starting to give way to a new wave of violent shows like Magnum PI and Airwolf. The A-Team was spoofing the excessive violence of the latter while still being in the spirit of the former, since it was an early-prime-time family-oriented show.

 

[Knight Templar]

Well, the thing about Fullbright (played by Jack Ging IIRC) was that he was introduced to the show because the actor was a close friend of George Peppard. And after three seasons of the A-Team, producers were having a major problem handling the extremely volatile Peppard.

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

The A team was one of my favourite tv shows during the 80s,and guess it still is,i like the movie as well.

 

[Forbin]

Now I wanna see a musical version of Deadwood!!

I knew someone would say that. Does paint an "interesting" mental picture, though, doesn't it?

What rhymes with cocksucker?

 

[auntiehill]

^

 

[Brikar99]

Now I wanna see a musical version of Deadwood!!

I knew someone would say that. Does paint an "interesting" mental picture, though, doesn't it?

What rhymes with cocksucker?

To tide us over, there is the musical version of 'The Wire'...

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/414fa4b226/the-wire-the-musical-with-michael-kenneth-williams

 

[inflatabledalek]

Well, the thing about Fullbright (played by Jack Ging IIRC) was that he was introduced to the show because the actor was a close friend of George Peppard. And after three seasons of the A-Team, producers were having a major problem handling the extremely volatile Peppard.

Aw, that makes me feel sorry for the bloke who played Decker now. Certainly that last episode of season 4 would have had a bit more punch if it had been the most established army man who died...

The one with David McCallum is great, great fun, playing the UNCLE spoofery to the hilt (and as his name was on the clapperboard of the film the final fight interrupts I'm guessing Rob Bowman directed it? Or at least it was a mate of his who did). But it's not just nostalgic for the '60's show, it's nostalgic for what The A-Team used to be. They're back in LA, Face is scamming and they're potentially having to go on the run again. There's even a chase around the Universal lot like in the pilot.

Oh, and to add to the death list, David McCallum gets completely blown up by Robert Vaughn at the end. I think I once read a review that commented "He must have wanted to do that for years!". Actually, season 5 as a whole seems to bother less with the "Two guys get out the deadly car wreck and shake their heads from side to side" shots than previous years. Though with some of the stuff people have walked away from you can't really call them fatalities unless it gets pointed out as such...

Oh, and just for fun, a fiendish A-Team competition I found in issue 4 of the UK Transformers comic when I was looking at it for my website. Can you identify The A-Team? It's surprisingly hard actually, mainly because one of the outlines looks more like a woman (though a friend on Facebook pointed out that A looks worryingly like Spotty Man from Super Ted:

 

[auntiehill]

Well, the thing about Fullbright (played by Jack Ging IIRC) was that he was introduced to the show because the actor was a close friend of George Peppard. And after three seasons of the A-Team, producers were having a major problem handling the extremely volatile Peppard.

Aw, that makes me feel sorry for the bloke who played Decker now. Certainly that last episode of season 4 would have had a bit more punch if it had been the most established army man who died...

Don't feel sorry for Lance LeGault. He went back to a much better gig, as Col Buck Greene on Magnum, PI.

 

[inflatabledalek]

He specialised in Colonel's, must have been able to bring his own uniform.

I've finished the show now, ending with the intended last episode rather than the restaraunt one (with it's very, very lengthy reused season one opening which just shows how much chunkier and tired looking Peppard was by the end). It was surreal to have both the short shouty cop from Police Academy and the dad from Citizen Smith involved in a car chase with the A-Team. And not nearly as much fun as that sounds.

Though as rubbish as most of it was, the very last scene was rather wonderful. Firstly because the deeply annoying Frankie was dragged off by a bunch of pensioners beforehand meaning the show got to end on the proper cast. But the way they think they'll be pardoned but don't have a clue what to do next except carry on doing what they did when the show was good is nice and melancholy. I think they worked in just about every catchphrase in the last two minutes as well. "I knew you'd have a plan".

All in all, despite going off the boil in the end, it's a nice fun show. And surprisingly smart. For an 80's action show there's a lot of post modern and pop culture references of the sort that wouldn't really become common in this sort of series till post-Buffy. OK, it's often not hugely sophisticated (often being simply actually name checking whatever film they're knocking off that week) but very much ahead of the curve.

And as much as I mocked it earlier, the scene where the guy just assumed they're all gay is the sort of joke that was years ahead of its time. Even though he gets interrupted by BA before he could say "gay" is there another series of its type and time that even slightly acknowledges the existence of homosexuality? It's actually odd a few episodes later when they dance round the real reason a bunch of red neck hillbillies wouldn't be big Boy George fans.