It's a bad time for men to watch television.
24 is gone.
The Shield is gone.
The Walking Dead
is busy making new shows. We are left with endless reality shows,
celebrity shows, singing contest shows, dancing shows, TV shopping
channels, cooking shows, and decorating shows. If you're a man, it's
time to return to the 80s with
The A-Team.
By A-Team_Van.jpg: Wonker Wonker from London, United Kingdom derivative work: Btr (A-Team_Van.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Fortunately,
The A-Team is being re-run on the
Centric
cable television network in the early mornings (as of May 2012). It's a
prime candidate to catch with your DVR. It's a chance to return to a
pure, unadulterated, shoot 'em up show from the 80s. The show originally
ran on NBC and was written and produced by Frank Lupo and Stephen J.
Cannell. It had one of the best TV music themes and a cool title
opening. The fictional premise is that a special forces A-Team was sent
to military prison for a crime they didn't commit, escaped to the Los
Angeles underground, and is available for hire for people who are in
trouble and need their help.
The A-Team's crime was that they were ordered to take all the money from
the Vietnamese central bank in the closing days of the Vietnam War.
However, while they were off succeeding in their mission, their
commanding general was killed, their headquarters was overrun and burned
to the ground, and all records of their orders were lost. Consequently,
they were arrested for robbing the bank. The premise is a set up for a
fun show with lots of gratuitous cartoon-style violence.
As kids, my brother and I weren't allowed to watch
The A-Team
because of the violence. In retrospect, the A-Team may have been the
least accurate shots in the history of television. Each show featured
lots of automatic weapons fire and explosions with no on ever getting
hit. The laughable violence of the A-Team is a relief after the
relentless realistic crime scenes, autopsy scenes, and medical scenes of
gruesome contemporary television shows like
Law and Order: SVU,
CSI: Miami, and
House.
After 9/11 and a decade of war, viewers generally know what realistic
violence looks like and we know its consequences. However, if you are
watching
The A-Team with kids, you might want to take a few
minutes for a quick gun safety lecture to explain how the show is
unrealistic television. Since I didn't really watch the show as a kid, I
love having an untapped fountain of 80s television shows at my
disposal.
The cast of characters created for
The A-Team are all television
icons now - Hannibal, Face, Howling Mad Murdock, and B.A. Baracus.
George Peppard was perfect as the mastermind behind the operation. He
was a master of disguise and the undisputed leader of the group. It's
nice to see him chomping on a cigar again as the hard bitten Colonel in
reruns. He always reminded me of a light version of George C. Scott's
Patton. After the pilot show, Dirk Benedict (of Battlestar Galactica
fame) took over as "The Faceman" or "Face" who acts as the smooth
talking con-man and charmer who works the system to arrange things for
The A-Team.
Dwight Schultz played Howling Mad Murdock who was certifiably insane as
an individual, but gifted as a pilot. Finally, the inimitable Mr. T
played B.A. ("Bad Attitude") Baracus who provided real muscle and
mechanical genius for the group.
The A-Team is definitely formula television with fairly predictable
plots. A typical episode consists of a setup to establish the bad guys
and their victims, a meeting between the A-Team and the victims, a
confrontation with the bad guys, a reversal in the groups fortune, the
creation of improvised weapons or armored vehicles, and a final showdown
with the bad guys. It lasted for 5 seasons for a total of 98 shows. In
the final season, the A-Team started performing missions for the
government. It's fun, 80s-style, escapist entertainment. I'd highly
recommend setting up your DVR, catching a few shows, and popping some
popcorn.
