The A-Team
The A‑Team is an American action‑adventure television series that aired on NBC from January 23, 1983, to March 8, 1987. Created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, it follows a fictional squad of former U.S. Army Special Forces commandos who, after being falsely accused of a crime, escape military prison and become soldiers of fortune. Led by the cunning Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith and joined by Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck, Sergeant B.A. Baracus, and Captain H.M. Murdock, the team dedicates itself to helping those in need.
The series was created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo and was a joint production of Universal Television and Stephen J. Cannell Productions for NBC. A feature film based on the series was released by 20th Century Fox in 2010.
History
The A-Team was created by writers and producers Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo at the behest of Brandon Tartikoff, NBC Entertainment's president. Cannell was fired from ABC in the early 1980s, after failing to produce a hit show for the network, and was hired by NBC; his first project was The A-Team. Tartikoff pitched the series to Cannell as a combination of The Dirty Dozen, Mission: Impossible, The Magnificent Seven, Mad Max and Hill Street Blues, with "Mr. T driving the car".The A-Team was not considered commercially promising, although Cannell has said that George Peppard suggested it would be a huge hit "before we ever turned on a camera". The show became popular; the first regular episode, which aired after Super Bowl XVII on January 30, 1983, reached 26.4% of the television audience, placing fourth in the top 10 Nielsen-rated shows.
The show is prominent in popular culture for its cartoonish violence, formulaic episodes, the team's ingenuity in improvising weaponry and vehicles out of seemingly random parts, and its distinctive theme tune. The show boosted the career of Mr. T, who portrayed the show's initial central character B. A. Baracus. Some of the show's catchphrases, such as "I love it when a plan comes together", "Hannibal's on the jazz", and "I ain't gettin' on no plane!" have appeared on T-shirts and other merchandise.
The term "A-Team" is a nickname coined for the Operational Detachments Alpha of the U.S. Special Forces during the Vietnam War. The U.S. Army Special Forces still uses the term ODA for its 12-man direct operations teams.
In a Yahoo! survey of 1,000 US television viewers published in October 2003, The A-Team was voted the "oldie" television show viewers would most like to see revived, beating such popular television series from the 1980s as The Dukes of Hazzard and Knight Rider.
Plot
The A-Team has a standard plot structure of independent episodes with few references to past events, and few overarching stories except the characters' continuing motivation to clear their names. In explaining the ratings drop during the show's fourth season, reviewer Gold Burt complained that "the same basic plot had been used over and over again for the past four seasons with the same predictable outcome". Reporter Adrian Lee called the plots "stunningly simple" in a 2006 article for The Express, citing such recurring elements "as BA's fear of flying, and outlandish finales when the team fashioned weapons from household items". The show became emblematic of "fit-for-TV warfare" due to its depiction of ferocious combat scenes with lethal weapons, where the participants are never killed and rarely seriously injured, with the notable exception of General Fulbright.As the television ratings of The A-Team fell dramatically during the fourth season, the format was changed for the show's final season in 1986–87 to increase viewership. After years on the run from the authorities, the A-Team is finally apprehended by the military. General Hunt Stockwell, a mysterious CIA operative, propositions them to work for him. In exchange, he will arrange for their pardons upon successful completion of several suicide missions.
Connections to the Vietnam War
As a back story, the members of the A-Team were originally members of the 5th Special Forces Group during the Vietnam War. In the episode "Bad Time on the Border", Lieutenant Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith called them "ex-Green Berets". Their commanding officer Colonel Morrison ordered them to rob the Bank of Hanoi to help end the war. They succeeded, but on their return to base four days after the end of the war, they discovered that Morrison had been killed by the enemy and his headquarters burned down, destroying the proof that the A-Team were acting under orders. They were arrested, and imprisoned at Fort Bragg, from which they quickly escaped before trial.An article in the New Statesman published shortly after the premiere of The A-Team in the United Kingdom, characterized it as an idealization of the Vietnam War, and an example of the war slowly becoming accepted and assimilated into American culture.
Episodes
The show ran for five seasons on the NBC television network, from January 23, 1983, to December 30, 1986, for a total of 98 episodes.Characters
The A-Team revolves around the four members of a former commando unit, now mercenaries. Their leader is Lieutenant Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, whose plans tend to be unorthodox but effective. Lieutenant Templeton Peck, usually called "Face" or "Faceman", is a smooth-talking con man who is second-in-command, and the appropriator of vehicles and other useful items. The team's pilot is Captain H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, who has been declared insane and lives in a Veterans' Affairs mental institution for the first four seasons. The team's strong man and mechanic is Sergeant First Class Bosco "B.A.", or "Bad Attitude", Baracus.Through the first half of the second season, the team was assisted by reporter Amy Amanda Allen. In the second half of the second season, Allen was replaced by fellow reporter Tawnia Baker. The character of Tia Fulbright, a Vietnam War orphan now living in the United States, was meant to join the team in the fifth season, but she was replaced by Frankie Santana, who served as the team's special effects expert. Velez was added to the opening credits of the fifth season after its second episode.
Casting
Although the part of Face was written by Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell with Dirk Benedict in mind, NBC insisted that the part should be played by another actor. Therefore, in the pilot, Face was portrayed by Tim Dunigan, who was later replaced by Benedict, with the comment that Dunigan was "too tall and too young". According to Dunigan: "I look even younger on camera than I am. So it was difficult to accept me as a veteran of the Vietnam War, which ended when I was a sophomore in high school."Tia Carrere was intended to join the principal cast of the show in its fifth season after appearing in the season four finale, providing a tie to the team's inception during the war. Unfortunately for this plan, Carrere was under contract to General Hospital, which prevented her from joining The A-Team. Her character was abruptly dropped as a result.
According to Mr. T in Bring Back... The A-Team in 2006, the role of B. A. Baracus was written specifically for him. This is corroborated by Cannell's own account of the initial concept proposed by Tartikoff.
James Coburn, who co-starred in The Magnificent Seven, was considered for the role of Hannibal in The A-Team, and George Peppard was the original consideration for the role of Vin in The Magnificent Seven.
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 scores 53%, and season 5 scores 60%.Awards
The A-Team was nominated for three Emmy Awards: in 1983 for the pilot episode, in 1984 for the episode "When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?", and in 1987 for the episode "Firing Line".Ratings
During the show's first three seasons, The A-Team viewership included an average of 20% to 24% of all American television households. The first regular episode, reached 26.4% of the television watching audience, placing fourth in the top 10 rated shows, according to the Nielsen ratings. By March, The A-Team, now on its regular Tuesday timeslot, dropped to the eighth spot, but rated a 20.5%. During the sweeps week in May of that year, The A-Team dropped again but remained steady at 18.5%, and rose to 18.8% during the second week of May sweeps. These were the highest ratings NBC had achieved in five years. During the second season, the ratings continued to soar, reaching fourth place in the twenty-highest rated programs, behind Dallas and Simon & Simon, in January, while during the third season, it was beaten out only by two other NBC shows, including The Cosby Show.In the fourth season, The A-Team experienced a dramatic fall in ratings, as it started to lose its position while television viewership increased. As such, the ratings, while stable, were relatively lower. The season premiere ranked a 17.4% on the Nielsen Rating scale, but ratings quickly declined after that. In October, The A-Team had fallen to 19th and by Super Bowl Night had fallen further, to 29th on the night where the show had originally scored its first hit three years earlier. For the remainder of its fourth season The A-Team managed to hang around the 20th spot, far from the top 10 position it had enjoyed during its first three seasons.
After four years on Tuesday, NBC moved The A-Team to a new timeslot on Friday for what would be its final season. Ratings continued to drop, and The A-Team later fell out of the top 50. In November 1986, NBC canceled the series, declining to order the last nine episodes of what would have been a 22-episode season. The final season ranked 61st with a 12.8 average rating.
| Season | Time slot | Rank | Rating |
| 1982–83 | Sunday at 9:00 pm Sunday at 10:00 pm Tuesday at 8:00 pm | 10 | 20.1 |
| 1983–84 | Tuesday at 8:00 pm Tuesday at 9:00 pm | 4 | 24.0 |
| 1984–85 | Tuesday at 8:00 pm Tuesday at 9:00 pm | 6 | 21.9 |
| 1985–86 | Tuesday at 8:00 pm Tuesday at 9:00 pm | 30 | 16.9 |
| 1986–87 | Friday at 8:00 pm Tuesday at 9:00 pm Tuesday at 8:00 pm Sunday at 8:00 pm | 61 | 12.8 |