User reviews

The A-Team was 80s personified in pop culture, along with Knight Rider, Magnum PI, Hart to Hart and maybe Murder, She Wrote for the older audience I guess. The first two seasons were superb, but the later seasons kind of lost its sparkle. But still, any A-Team is better than none.

For me, The A-Team (of which we got a complete dvd set) is nostalgia, but our sons (10 and 12) love to watch it with us. Probably because of the characters and the heroic yet humoristic storylines.

For all true fans, here is your A-Team bingocard to use with each episode:

• car rolls, but everyone gets out alive
• B. A. calls Murdock 'fooooool'
• fist fight in which the bad guys are stacked in a pile
• B. A. needs to be unconscious for the team to fly somewhere
• part of the team gets caught and needs to be rescued / needs to escape
• gun fight without people getting shot
• B. A. creates something for 'battle' from metal, with a hole/slit in it for seeing through
• Face takes out a cigar from his pocket for Hannibal
• Murdock has a new fetish
• Hannibal says "I love it when a plan comes together"

The premise was pretty simple: 4 war vets wrongly accused help others while trying to stay free. Each guy had his specialty: planner, crazy, scammer, and tough guy.

That's how it opened. I was sorry for Ms. Culea to be taken off the show and Peppard should be ashamed for having done it as I read the trivia. She added to the show both as a great actresses and storylines.

The "special" effects were fairly basic, and they worked. Would the show make it today: hard to say. Several other shows of the same time have been redone and have made it. Frankly with the right cast it'd be nice to see a series reboot.

I absolutely agree with a previous comment that the internal chemistry between the characters AND their great interactions made this show great fun to watch. It was a "cartoonish satire" with real people lots of bullets that did not take it self too seriously until mid third season or so. I was a big fan.

Rumblings on several recent boards talk (again) of a movie. They are a laugh as they all about guessing the choices to play the roles from the Rock as T (noone could replace T (he was an original entity) to Mel Gibson or George Clooney as Hannibal and Jim Carrey or Will Farrell as Murdoch or Brad Pitt as Face.

(These people don't seem to get it that it was not only the characters and their interpretations but the period in which A-Team ran that made it work. The Lennon shooting the attempt on Reagan -- viewers enjoyed and accepted the absurdity of the show because of the time and sensibility of what was going on around them.)

That rant being being made it might be nice to bring the gang back except for the death of George Peppard. Supposedly Stephen Cannell is again screening scripts. One rumor has it, that the original cast will play some role. Sounds like when they tried to do a show about show remaking a show of Bewitched (directed by the super Nora Ephron) and it was absolute garbage.

If GP was around I might be interested (altho somehow I suspect GP would not touch it.) I don't wish to watch Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, K. Reeves, Jim Carry, Steve Buscemi or any of the other choices, spoil the the great work Dirk Benedict Dwight Schultz and the rest did with the characters.

I also feel, the forgotten character of Amy Allen (by the far the best of the three sidekicks dropped in during the run) had the greatest potential. This potential but was given short shrift by the writers. There are many web sites of interviews with Melinda Culea explaining that she did everything to get the the writers to give here more to do than be a face with no part. Mr Cannell even admitted in one interview they were not clear on her role.

In pilot Melinda Culea played feisty, a fighter, wanting to get involved in everything including fights. She was a super counterpoint to the all boys gang from keeping them from fighting to providing background checks and other help the thru the paper etc.

I disagree with the comment Melinda was eye candy. Or, perhaps, the straitjacket that the writers put her in as the show went on made her seem that way. However as one poster notes, today it would be different. Someone like a Joss Whedon would know how how use her talent. (Just watch her in her 3 episodes of Family Ties 1984 and the strength of her comedic sense partnered against Michael J. Fox is hilarious.

Loved the scene with the cockroaches where she was given the main job of sewing listening buttons on cops jackets. The comeback to Face was "sewing buttons -- how wonderfully sexist". It was subtle but funny. However, this kind of thing was never developed.

Two of my favorite early episodes The Rabbit who ate Los Vegas and Jamestown where the show has one of it really serious tones. Hanibals makes a dark "acceptance of death to keep the edge" speech showed and Melinda clearly showed she had the ability to handle the scene. I wish they had kept her on as the role could given the stories wider range.

Any way. I have little interest in seeing Bruce Willis, Rock, Cloony or anyone else muck this up by trying recreate it esp. given the train wreck of rail cars that have come of TV to big film conversions. The reruns are fine up to the entrance of Robert Vaughn (who essentially did what Decker and Lynch never could do ) which was bring the A team down.

It was great for its time and its fun to drift back to that period and smile.

I recently read a web interview with Cannell stating the movie "IF" it came would not be much like the original. There would be far more "realistic" action, real shooting and more fast paced without the humor that the show ever had. Sounds like a different program from the one I knew. While I might agree with his idea it would not be the A TEAM as it was. More like a Mission Impossible or Oceans 2X whatever number they are up to now. No thanks

Pity the fool who plays with this. Leave it alone sucker.... And if HM could not take Billy or THerm he might never agree to do a reprise.

Tim S. Ottawa

I'm very young, like late teens and I bloody adore The A-Team. Now granted I grew up with the show, I remember our father showing it to us on television and we thought it was the coolest thing in existence. He soon bought us the DVDs and we watched it all. Weirdly enough, season 5 was the first we watched then season 2.

Now I'm not even going to try and deny that the show is very dated, but it doesn't bother me that much, it actually makes the show kind of fun for me. What really makes The A-Team is the main cast (Hannibal, Face, B.A and Murdock), they bounce off eachother brilliantly. The four actors (George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Mr. T and Dwight Schultz) light up the screen with their charisma, they were really great actors and it's a pity that the attention was always lavished on Mr. T.

The show is really formulaic, obviously. But it's a fun formula, for some reason I never get sick of the A-Team getting a job and annoying some bad guys resulting in a shoot out where no one dies. That was one thing the show was criticised for, that no one ever died but it really doesn't bother me. At the end of the day it was a kids show and it's refreshing to have an action show that isn't all blood and guts, I think it would spoil a lot of what makes the show so fun if the A-Team just shot everyone.

The scripts are laced with a lot of really funny dialogue as well, Murdock always makes me laugh. Hannibal was easily the coolest character, always smoking cigars and popping one liners but he could be absolutely vicious when we needed to. Face was the ladies man, always charming and trying to be part of Los Angeles' upper echelon (there's a really great episode where he is cleared of all his crimes and he tries to live a normal life, he gets some great moments in that one). To be honest, B.A. is probably my least favourite character but I still like him a lot, he's just a lot more one note compared to the rest of them, most of his dialogue is just tough guy stuff. But he's still really entertaining, he provides a lot of the good humour as well. The show had a revolving door of Army Colonels and Generals who were out to catch the A-Team, I thought they were really good, each successive one was better than the last. I don't remember much of Colonel Lynch but there's a great episode in Season 3 where he comes back. Decker and Fullbright were brilliant antagonists, you loved to hate them but at the same time felt bad because they were just doing their duty.

The show was cancelled after five seasons, and that last season is what prevents me from rating the A-Team a full ten. It's a weak final season, they really messed with the formula in order to save the show from plummeting ratings but ultimately it resulted in a funny bunch of episodes, they're enjoyable but not as good as the Los Angeles based episodes.

The show had many companions throughout the years, Amy Allen, Tanya Harding, Frankie and Hunt Stockwell. They were all grand but none of them ever really clicked with the main cast hence why they were being replaced almost constantly.

I think I'll wrap up my retrospective here, The A-Team remains one of my favourite television shows. I've a lot of fond memories of it plus the cast are excellent, it's really watchable and enjoyable. If the dated 80s style doesn't bother you and if you like episodic adventure based storylines then you'll love the A-Team I think.

I used to watch this show with my father when I was a little girl. Although I don't remember much about it, I must say that it was a pretty good show. Also, I don't think I've seen every episode. However, if you ask me, it was still a good show. I remember the opening sequence vaguely. In addition to that, everyone was ideally cast, the costume design was great. The performances were top-grade, too. Before I wrap this up, I'd like to say that I'll always remember this show in my memory forever, even though I don't think I've seen every episode. Now, in conclusion, I hope that you catch it one day before it goes off the air for good.

The A-Team was basically a fun show to watch. It was about 4 Vietnam vets, who were framed for a war crime they didn't commit. They escaped from a military prison, and wound-up on the run from military officials.

They made their living as Soldiers-of-Fortune, which meant that in every episode, someone hired the A-team to get them out of one jam or another. While doing so, they had to evade their pursuers; bumbling Col. Lynch, and (after the first season) deadly-determined Col. Decker.

The team was led by Col. John "Hannibal" Smith (played with swaggering relish by George Peppard). He was the brains of the group, and was known to constantly exclaim; 'I love it when a plan comes together!'

Actor Dwight Schultz played Capt. "Howling Mad" Murdock. Murdock was indeed certifiably crazy. The team always had to break him out of mental hospitals, whenever they needed him for his cracker-jack piloting skills (he could fly anything that could be flown). This was a running joke during the entire series. I thought it got stale after a while though.

Lt. Templeton "Face Man" Peck, was the devastatingly handsome, con-man of the team. Actor Dirk Benedict (of Battlestar Galactica) played the "Face" character with smarmy perfection. "Face Man's" great looks and oily charm, always came in handy. Whenever the team needed to finesse any sticky situation, or finagle necessities from someone, it was "Face Man" who always came through.

Then there was B.A. (which stood for Badass) Barracus. Played by the muscle-bound, menacing Mr. T., he was the guy nobody dared mess with. B.A. could always be counted on to whop the villain's behinds. He also was the team's expert mechanic, who could fix anything. Beneath his snarling exterior though, was a guy that had one big fear-he was terrified of flying. The rest of the team always had to find ingenious ways of sedating him (without his knowledge) before putting him in a plane or 'copter. This was another running-joke through the duration of the series. And, like the Mad-Murdock mental-hospital-breakout shtick, it too got stale after awhile.

This was a macho show, with lots of violence, shooting, and a 'no gals allowed' mentality. The one woman who was a regular on the series, was a reporter who tagged-along with the team-on the condition that she not make a nuisance of herself. I was always shocked that nobody ever got hurt from all the violence! It all seemed to be tongue-in-cheek though.

Since the A-Team always foiled the bad-guys in every episode, I think that this was what made the show so popular. That, and the great chemistry between the four A-Team members. Their camaraderie, and loyalty to each other, really held the show together.

Though I disliked the intense macho element of the show, I thought it was quite entertaining in its own way. It's enjoyable, as long as the viewer realizes that it just wasn't meant to be a politically correct show. The A-Team characters were the John Wayne-types of 80s television (though the macho-factor was always leavened with a humorous slant to it). And they were proud of their machismo. If you like these sorts of action-adventure shows, then the A-Team was more of a fun show, than most of its kind.