When Good Shows Go Bad: The A-Team

[TMC]

http://www.wewantinsanity.com/am2/pu...e_A_Team.shtml

The History:

In the early 1980s Mr T had become a breakout star thanks to Rocky III (a film that would also help ensure the success of Wrestlemania as a result). The late Brandon Tartikoff, President of NBC Entertainment, snatched up the late great Stephen J. Cannell ( The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings) from ABC. Armed with Mr. T and the idea of creating a sort of mash-up between Mission: Impossible, The Dirty Dozen and Hill Street Blues, Cannell tapped into the cultural zeitgeist of the 80s and The A-Team was born. Premiering after Super Bowl XVII on January 30, 1983, the show was an instant hit. For three years The A-Team was a top program, though in the fourth season ratings would noticeably drop as overall TV viewership increased. For the show's final season it was moved to Friday nights, touting an audience of less than ten million after hitting twenty million during its peak. The fifth season proved to be the show's last, managing ninety-eight episodes. A feature film revival came out in 2010 but due to mixed reviews and a slightly disappointing box office no sequel appears to be in the works at this time.

The Show:

In 1972, an American commando unit stationed in Vietnam was ordered by General Morrison to rob the Bank of Hanoi. When the mission succeeded Morrison was killed by the Viet Cong, and since the mission was need to know between the unitand Morrison they were tried for a war crime they technically didn't commit. Escaping from Fort Bragg before they could stand trial, the unit escaped to Los Angeles where they worked as noble mercenaries, aiding those with problems, when no one else can help, and those can find them... They hire... The A-Team. Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith (the late George Peppard), Lieutenant Templeton 'Faceman' Peck (Dirk Benedict), Captain H.M. 'Howling Mad' Murdock (Dwight Schultz) and Sergeant First Class Bosco Albert 'B.A.' Baracus (Mr. T). A person in trouble would contact the team, and they'd happily shoot at the bad guys a bit (never hitting them except maybe in the shoulder ideally), later get captured and then escape using something they managed to build out of junk to save the day for real. Hannibal would wear disguises and smoke ciagars; Face would coerce people into getting something for him; Murdock would act crazy; and B.A. (which was said to also stand for 'Bad Attitude') would be a key builder/mechanic as well as the physical muscle. B.A. would also often be knocked out so he could ride on a plane, his main fear. Allies included Amy Amanda Allen (Melinda Culea) and Tawnia Baker (Marla Heasley), who were both reports that followed the team; Frankie “Dishpan” Santana (Eddie Velez) joined the team late into the show's run as a special effects expert. Recurring antagonists took the form of military types sent to hunt the team down and included Colonel Lynch (William Lucking), Colonel Decker (the late Lance LeGault), General 'Bull' Fulbright (Jack Ging) and General Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughn).

The Good:

The A-Team is a live-action cartoon for the twelve year old in all of us. The show's universe is not our own, it is a world of pure action fantasy. Now this can be stupid, especially when something tries to pretend to be gritty and still follows the clichés that The A-Team perfected. But that's just it: the show perfected it. Explosions timed to coincide with cigars being lit for lighters being closed, virtually no one ever dying (I think the body count was 4 by the end of the show's run), and bullets (fired from bottomless magazines naturally) never ever hitting someone except in a non-lethal way. An episode would nary go by without a car chase, a fight fight or an explosion, all typically making a point to show that no one was killed by these events. While culturally you could argue this show poorly reflected reality, the show never tried to be something it wasn't, instead remaining firmly a militarism power fantasy that shot electricity right to the testicles.

The show also possessed a very strong and effective formula, making it the perfect mindless TV program. The villains were virtually always one dimensional (kind of needed to be given the limitations of broadcast television), the people in trouble were always good folks just trying to get by, and they tend to end up speaking to a Mr. Lee, who is in fact Hannibal in disguise. After getting to a location, which if it required flying meant B.A. was knocked out, and breaking Murdock out of a psychiatric hospital, the A-Team sets out figuring out to undermine the bad guys. Be they captured or just in need, the team will build something to help them take out the bad guys and win the day, proving themselves as champions of the downtrodden (though usually with at least some money in there for them). This was the show's formula, and it varied very little from episode to episode. The main way to tell what season you were watching for the first four seasons was who was hunting the A-Team (if such an antagonist even appeared in the episode), and if Tania or Amy was around. These elements made the show perfect for syndication, as really any episode you watched didn't have ramifications on the next one, but at the same time important character moments could appear to reinforce just who our heroes really are.

Speaking of our heroes, the core group of four had a pretty solid dynamic. Hannibal was the master of disguise and cunning, and you know why he was the leader as he frequently had the plans. Smiling and sarcastic, Hannibal was rarely seen without his cigar, and when he got serious you knew it was about to get real. Face in turn was the more relaxed, swaggering type, playing arguably the sanest character and possibly the best shot with a rifle. Murdock was crazy, often investing way too much in any 'character' he had chosen to play, and was effectively the wild card of the bunch. Murdock's insanity (if he was indeed insane or just playing a grand game of deception) would often annoy Baracus to no end, leading the two to bicker constantly. B.A. would usually prove himself to be highly durable in a fist fight (I remember at least three times he was punched to no effect), say the kind of catchphrases you might associate with Mr. T (the word 'fool' was used a lot to be sure), and had a GMC van that was his pride and joy. The four were a sliding scale from crazy-eccentric to comically serious, going Murdock, Hannibal, Face and B.A. respectively. It was a dynamic that was simple yet solid, and the kind some shows struggle to even get close to emulating.

The Bad:

First up, the show is incredibly sexist. The problem with the idea of a male fantasy show is women are, at best, sex objects. The years of the 80s that The A-Team occupy were kind of a strange time, as women for sex appeal was toned down, but in male-oriented programming they still tended to not be great characters. Amy and Tawnia were both fairly useless characters despite how long they stuck around, and for two whole seasons there was no female character even as a recurring cast member. Now The A-Team does have a bit of defence going for it in that it was the 1980s and women in the military wasn't really a thing, so it was a product of the time. That doesn't excuse or justify this problem, just kind of explain it. There are, after all, quite a few story locations where inserting female characters is damn hard (just look at Prison Break), and an American military unit pre-1990s is a fairly good example of this. None the less Amy and Tawnia could have ideally been given better characterization, maybe use a gun now and then or kick at least a little ass despite their lack of military background. I'd call this one of the best films ever... And there's a woman in it for maybe 10 seconds.

That formula I praised earlier also has its downsides. As a show goes on it can get stale, especially with such a specific formula. While keeping a show formulaic has advantages, a lack of real progress over the course of the program can frustrate people, especially when ideas start to come out dry. Your spy program might experiment more with ridiculous technology out of the James Bond films, your romantic comedy will progress the relationship between the leads, and most adventure shows would introduce new recurring threats. In the case of The A-Team our heroes found themselves finally put on trial in Season 5 and then sentenced, only to end up working for General Stockwell in hopes of getting a pardon. Stockwell was an interesting villain/ally to the team, and giving the team a new set of targets that the military was interested in dealing with did shake things up a bit, but it wasn't enough. Worse yet, they introduced a certain character...

Frankie Santana. Frankie freaking Santana. This character is basically everything wrong with inserting a new character into a show (minus being Latino since more diversity is never a problem). Frankie was young, hip, and the characters tied to make him likeable by associating him constantly with the show's most popular character, B.A. Frankie essentially became a more handsome Murdock, which made Murdock less fun since he was toned down for the crazier Frankie, and Frankie got the dynamic with B.A. that Murdock had originally possessed. By the time the writers realized this was a bad idea and started pairing Santana with Face the damage was done and the character was yet another annoying new character inserted into a dying show.

The Blame:

Believe it or not George Peppard might have quite a bit to do with the show's problems, though the producers and writers didn't help. Peppard, for a time, was considered to be a very gifted actor, but his career didn't pan out perhaps as well as one would have hoped/expected. Peppard also seemed to get the mindset of the show, and was confident it would be a hit. Unfortunately Peppard also knew the female characters wouldn't work, and in fact was a jackass to both female co-stars during their runs on the show. The writers and producers didn't want the women (kind of sad that I can generalize enough just to call them 'the women' isn't it?) holding guns, despite the occasional push for them to have a point. Tension also developed between Mr. T and Peppard, some reports suggesting the whole reason Robert Vaughn showed up was to help the tension between the two (the tension has various supposed sources, from jealousy over popularity to racism, though most favour the former). With a formula the crew was too afraid to deviate from, a set that had become contentious and approved sexism it sadly isn't a shock why the show died when it did.

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[Mr. Television]

The women really weren't needed. I don't think anyone missed Amy when she left. I heard that Culea and Peppard didn't get along and that was too bad. I think it was probably NBC that wanted the women on the show and the guys didn't. Since the show was such a huge hit Peppard won out. The show JTS right after the trial. It really wasn't the same show anymore but it sure was fun while it lasted. I just wish I would have discovered it earlier than when I did. I didn't start watching until it went into syndication in the mid 80's and the show was already in decline when I started watching in primetime.

[isiahthomas]

Stuck In The 70's, thanks for posting that about why Melinda Culea left. I think she was cute back in the day but I don't think they really needed her. I didn't know she didn't get along with George Peppard.

[Mace Dolex]

It's funny but I could never get into the show and strange too because I was a kid at the time which I think was the target audience because little kids just wanted to see Mr. T punch guys out and things blowing up.

But nah somehow the militaristic feel of the show didn't appeal to me and weird because I was into G.I.Joe at the time.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by TMC

http://www.wewantinsanity.com/am2/pu...e_A_Team.shtml

- See more at: http://www.wewantinsanity.com/am2/pu....QLcRA80r.dpuf

They could have kept Stockwell, but not had Frankie. He was a mistake. At the very least, he could have been written better. Instead he steals everybody's thunder. We see him handling the miniaturized electronics instead of BA, making plans instead of Hannibal, getting in the quick quips instead of Murdock, and getting the girls instead of Face.

[Dr. Thong]

It was a fun show at the time. I was 16 and it had humor, action and Mr. T, who was the new big star thanks to his appearance in Rocky III.

The show doesn't quite hold up for me nowadays, though I do have a soft spot for it due to nostalgia.

Unfortunately, egos and power plays ruin great shows and I'm sure part of the reason for the show's decline was the fact that the novelty wore off.

Great article.

[SitcomsOffline]

Originally Posted by Mr. Television

The women really weren't needed. I don't think anyone missed Amy when she left. I heard that Culea and Peppard didn't get along and that was too bad. I think it was probably NBC that wanted the women on the show and the guys didn't. Since the show was such a huge hit Peppard won out. The show JTS right after the trial. It really wasn't the same show anymore but it sure was fun while it lasted. I just wish I would have discovered it earlier than when I did. I didn't start watching until it went into syndication in the mid 80's and the show was already in decline when I started watching in primetime.

George Peppard didn't really get along with anyone.