Fun and Entertaining

A very entertaining program with a good mix of action, humor and good will. At times the writing is corny. This is a show I enjoyed as a kid and now I'm able to share it with my kids who enjoyed it as much as I did. This is good entertaining family programming if you are not overly sensitive to violence. This is an action hero show, so it is packed with gun play, fist fights, car chases and crashes. However, no one is ever killed or seriously injured (all involved in the end run from the scene coughing). Target audience in my opinion boys over the age of eight.

Fun, if you like action-adventure series.

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.

The A Team got an A for Christmas!!

My husband was thrilled with his gift of Season #1. . .I'll probably order more seasons in the future!

Season 1 released again?

I don't understand why Universal felt a need to re-release this abbreviated season on DVD again and discontinue the original THE A-TEAM-SEASON 1 DVD despite the fact that this was the best season of them all, because I found absolutley no flaws, skips, or freezing on the original that was released on DVD back in the Summer of 2004, but my guess is that Universal is either trying to compensate for the flaws, skipping, and freezing that occured on a lot of the episodes from the 1st Season through the 5th Season by redoing each episode of each season on single sided discs instead of having them on double sided discs just like Universal did with KNIGHT RIDER and MIAMI VICE with a complete series box set since the dual sided discs caused a lot of freezing and skipping on shows like KNIGHT RIDER, MAGNUM, MIAMI VICE, and THE A-TEAM, which is probably why Universal is trying to re-release a lot of classic TV show box sets or is this just another gimmick that Universal is trying to pull to get us to buy more DVD's from them during today's suffering economy.

However, The A-Team's 1st Season was still the best season of them all throughout its whole 4-year run on NBC and when this show was the bomb since THE A-TEAM seemed to have started becoming stale when Amy Allen(Melinda Culea)departed the show in November of 1983 since Culea was fired in the mid-Fall of 1983, but was briefly replaced by newspaper reporter Tawnia Baker(Marla Heasley)in January of 1984 whom left the show in September of 1984, due to sexual harrassment issues.

Therefore this show started getting quite stale when it got into its 3rd Season in the Fall of 1984 leaving us mourning the loss of Amy and Tawnia since THE A-TEAM no longer had any female co-stars or team memebers anymore which made this show a lot less interesting and very boring which is why I stopped watching THE A-TEAM in January of 1985 since it just wasn't the same anymore without Amy or Tawnia anymore without their pretty faces and spunky personalities which always brightened up the show in the first 2 seasons.

It was also interesting seeing
-Joanna Kerns in the "A Nice Place To Visit" episode before her co-starring days as Maggie Seaver on GROWING PAINS
-Dean Stockwell in the "A Small & Deadly War" episode before his co-starring days on QUANTUM LEAP
-Michael Swan in "The Belly Of The Beast Of Boeing" episode before his co-starring days on the soap opera AS THE WORLD TURNS
-Jack Ging in the "A Small & Deadly War" episode before his co-starring days as the A-Team's overzealous nemesis(General Fullbright)
-Andrew Robinson in "The Battle Of The Beast Of Boeing" episode after his co-starring days on the soap opera RYAN'S HOPE
-Rhonda Shear in the "A Small & Deadly War" episode before her hosting days on USA UP ALL NIGHT
-Amy Steel in the "One More Time" episode after her co-starring days as Pam Elliott on the short-lived THE POWERS OF MATTHEW STAR
-Don Stroud in the "A Nice Place To Visit" episode before his co-starring days as Capt. Lussen on THE NEW DRAGNET
-Meeno Peluce in the "Pros & Cons" episode during his co-starring days on the short-lived series VOYAGERS

This is goood!!

I like these episodes are fun!!! I watched episode 14 "A Nice Place to Visit" They were held in Ray's Funeral. I saw the Las Vegas episode. Late George Peppard, Dirk Bendict, Dwight Shultz, and Mr.T are the best!!!