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 squad of former U.S. Army Special Forces commandos who, after being falsely convicted 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 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".Stephen J. Cannell on The A-Team Season Five DVD boxset.
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 (with few injuries even with heavy weapons), 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.Bring Back... The A-Team (UK), Mr. T. Broadcast on May 18, 2006. Some of the show's catchphrases, such as "I love it when a plan comes together",Ranked No. 96 in TV Land's list of The 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases . Retrieved on August 17, 2007 "Hannibal's on the jazz", and "I ain't gettin' on no plane!" have appeared on T-shirts and other merchandise.
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 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 UK newspaper 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 UK news magazine 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 (with one additional, previously unbroadcast episode shown on March 8, 1987), 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 (George Peppard), whose plans tend to be unorthodox but effective. Lieutenant Templeton Peck (Dirk Benedict in the TV series, Tim Dunigan appeared as Templeton Peck in the pilot), 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 (Dwight Schultz), 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." Baracus (Mr. T).
In the first season and the first half of the second season, the team was assisted by reporter Amy Allen (Melinda Culea). In the second half of the second season, Allen was replaced by fellow reporter Tawnia Baker (Marla Heasley). The character of Tia Fulbright (Tia Carrere), a Vietnam War orphan now living in the United States, was meant to join the team in the fifth season,"For NBC, Trouble at 'A-Team. The New York Times, May 18, 1986, written by Aljean Harmetz. but she was replaced by Frankie Santana (Eddie Velez), 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 (as Britt) in The Magnificent Seven, was considered for the role of Hannibal in The A-Team, and George Peppard (Hannibal) was the original consideration for the role of Vin (played by Steve McQueen instead) in The Magnificent Seven.Bring Back... The A-Team (2006). Broadcast on May 18, 2006.
Reception Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 scores 53% (19 reviews), and season 5 scores 60% (5 reviews).
Awards The A-Team was nominated for three Emmy Awards: in 1983 (Outstanding Film Sound Mixing for a Series) for the pilot episode, in 1984 (Outstanding Film Sound Mixing for a Series) for the episode "When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?", and in 1987 (Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series) 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 ("Children of Jamestown"), 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 (mid-season), 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% (a 26% audience share on that timeslot) 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 (ET) Rank Rating1982–83 Sunday at 9:00 pm (Episode 1)Sunday at 10:00 pm (Episodes 2–3)Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 4–14) 10 20.1 (Tied with Monday Night Football)1983–84 Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–5, 7–23)Tuesday at 9:00 pm (Episode 6) 4 24.01984–85 Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–2, 4–25)Tuesday at 9:00 pm (Episode 3) 6 21.91985–86 Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 1, 3–23)Tuesday at 9:00 pm (Episode 2) 30 16.91986–87 Friday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–8, 10–11)Tuesday at 9:00 pm (Episode 9)Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Episode 12)Sunday at 8:00 pm (Episode 13) 61 12.8
International The A-Team has been broadcast worldwide and international response has been varied. In 1984, main cast members George Peppard, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict, and Dwight Schultz were invited to the Netherlands. Peppard was the first to receive the invitation and thus thought the invitation applied only to him. When the other cast members were also invited, Peppard declined.As told by Dirk Benedict in Jensen!, a Dutch talk show, broadcast on May 11, 2007. The immense turn-out for the stars was unforeseen, and they were forced to leave early as a security measure. A video was released in which Schultz apologised and thanked everyone who had attended.Repeated showing on Jensen!, a Dutch talk show, broadcast on May 11, 2007.