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When “The A-Team” has made its way in the salons of the country on January 23, 1983, NBC had no great expectations for the show. But when the second episode – which was broadcast after the Super Bowl XVII (the one where John Riggins of Washington rushed with a shocking impunity against the defense of Miami) – marked ratings high, the network realized that he had a blow on his hands.
We appreciated the familiar, sometimes litigious interaction, between the wise lieutenant Hannibal Smith (George Peppard), the lieutenant “Faceman” Peck (Dirk Benedict), the Sergeant Ba Baracus (M. T) and the HM “Howling Mad” Murdock (Dwight Schultz), all of the Fugcitives crimes of crimes. And, perhaps the most important for the time, we loved their use of various firearms and improvised weapons.
“The A-Team” was a Nielsen show by the first ten Nielsen during his first three seasons. It was as popular as “Monday Night Football” and owned Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. It was an hour of family on television in Prime Time, which meant that “The A-Team” had to work essentially as a live cartoon. The co-creator Stephen J. Cannell and his writers could use all the high-tech weapons they wanted and explode all kinds of vehicles, but, as the former writer “The A-Team” said Mark Jones in 2023, they could not kill anyone.
“The A-Team” ranked sixth in the Nielsen notes at the end of his third season and seemed to be in the long term, but viewers suddenly abandoned the show in season 4. He finished 30th this year in the ratings due in large part to ABC for the first of two popular and family-family sites in “Who-The Boss” and “. NBC tried to save the show in season 5 by offering it initially to Friday, then Tuesday (this time at 9:00 p.m.) and finally on Sunday, but its already declining audience was halved. When it was clear that viewers had gone from “The A-Team”, NBC canceled it in mid-season. How is such a massively popular spectacle died of such a rapid death?
What happened in the fifth season of team A?
It is rarely a good sign when a show in difficulty presents new characters to spice up his intrigue of rigid formula. Fund replacements are good (“Cheers” has brilliantly withdrew that twice), but drawing a “Brady Bunch” and following the Route du Cousin Oliver is generally a sign of imminent cancellation.
At the start of season 5, Hannibal was captured by General Hunt Stockwell retired (Robert Vaughn), which makes the whole team apprehended and Courtielle. Stockwell encourages the team to escape the prison, after which he will send them to a series of clandestine missions which, if they will be successfully executed, will make them win presidential forgiveness. To help them with their perilous operations, they win a new member of the team, Frankie Santana alias “Dishpan Man” (Eddie Velez). He is a neurotic like Murdock, and has a characteristic of a character to be afraid of traveling at sea (which has placed him on tedious dimensions with Ba, which houses a flying phobia).
Other modifications included an adjustment of the opening credits. The producers dropped the narration (which was now not relevant because the team was no longer fleeting), and, perhaps to bow to the musical fashion of the time, avoided the orchestra theme for a heavy interpretation of the synth. Each episode was always full of action, the hook of potential forgiveness has had a certain call, and Stockwell being a ladle dealer added suspense as to the legitimacy of its offer. In terms of quality, apart from Frankie’s boring addition, it was a perfectly average season of “The A-Team”. The problem is that no one looked at.
What does the A-Team distribution say on cancellation?
While “The A-Team” entered season 5, there was a strong feeling among some of the actors that it would be the song Swan. The newcomer Eddie Velez certainly felt this way. As he said to YouTuber Jim Conlan:
“What I understood was that they all knew that it was the last season. What I heard was that at the end of the fourth season, the notes were so weak that they were talking about canceling it. But because the show had organized the network, it was the only successful show they had for some time, they needed 13 additional episodes to do 100, what needed you for the syndication.” must change it a little, pepper in a way.
“The A-Team” actually closed with 98 episodes, but perhaps the network has made charitable mathematics to help it push it on the syndication threshold (even if I remember that the show disappeared for a long time after its cancellation).
Regarding the veteran of television Vaughn (better known as Co-Star of David McCallum on “The Man From Uncle”), he declared in the archives of American television that he had offered a good salary to stimulate the notes as General Stockwell slippery. He was told that the show may survive a few more years, which he did not do it. He liked him because he was disconcerted by Mr. T:
“One thing [Peppard] said to me before making the show: “You must understand that there is a guy named Mt he is crazy and you just have to accept his madness. I can’t bear it. I don’t even want to see the guy, but I’m stuck with him. “”
Although Vaughn considered “clinically crazy”, he worked through the eccentricities of his co-star. Peppard, however, was less forgiven the antics of MT (it seems that the actors “A-Team” did not hear themselves so well.) In an interview with Terry Wogan (which I can only find on an electronic babbleman), the putative star of the series recalled that an Irate Mr. T demanded once the dismissal of six crew members. When Peppard discovered it, he entered the cannell office and told the creator of the show that he would leave the series if he had accessed MT requests in the end, everyone kept his job.
To be fair, Peppard could also be a diva. According to the late Hulk Hogan (quoted in the British tabloid The Express), which appeared on two episodes of “The A-Team”, “Peppard and Mr. T hated themselves by a passion”. When Peppard called Mr. T “The worst actor of the series” in an interview, the Badass Mohawked parked in front of the trailer for his co-star and read all the derogatory quotes of the play aloud. Dwight Schultz was also lacking peppard for bad vibrations. “I think it has created a lot of problems and tensions,” he said. “I don’t think George accepted the fact that T was the star star.” Dirk Benedict Innocent!
Was the final episode of A-Team really his last episode?
Season 5 of “The A-Team” officially ended on March 8, 1987, with an episode entitled “Without Reservations”, but it was essentially a burn. The True Final series had been broadcast on December 30, 1986 with the episode “The Gray Team”, in which Hannibal and the boys realize that the promise of forgiveness is an imposture, forcing them to break from Stockwell and to be an independent unit which will again allow them to help the decent people to be victims by all kinds of avar.
There was certainly a lot of disappointment when “without reservations” was broadcast, because it was a little more than a basic adventure for the quintet. But it was a boon for fans of Cannell because he released the prolific television producer to focus on one of his best series, “Wiseguy”. The same year, he also gave Fox Network to the new network one of his first successful series with “21 Jump Street”, which became his own film franchise.
In any event, if you plan a complete review of “The A-Team”, keep in mind to look “without reservations” before launching “The Gray Team”. And always remember that George Peppard and Mr. T hated each other.
