The End of the A-Team

Note: I was originally going to make this an entry entirely about what I really thought of each show, but then I realized that talking about how much I liked most of them made for a really boring entry. So I decided to make the whole entry about a single show that a lot of you are not cool enough to have seen have never even seen. I made the opinions on the shows into a seperate entry that you can find right below this one.

As a few of you may know, we at Island Television¹ will no longer be showing any syndicated programming after this week, and will be switching to mostly locally-based programming. The one exception is SAW Wrestling, because they let us air that² for free.

So thus ends my favorite part of the job: Getting to sit back and just watch the shows, the way nature intended. One of the shows that I'll miss the most is The A-Team. There just aren't enough shows that are so awesomely good and awesomely bad all at the same time. Nothing combined so much great action, memorable characters and theme music while simultaneously being awesomely dumb and the most formulaic show on TV since Scooby Doo. Seriously, one time we were preparing to shoot thehosted segments that go in-between the commercials and the pieces of episodes, and the following exchange occured:

Larry: What's the plot for this week's A-Team?
Me: (Reading) "A mob kingpin threatens a restaurant owner to sell out to him or be destroyed."
Larry: Wasn't that last week's episode?
Me: Nope, last week it was a coffee shop.

And it's even educational! Here are just a few things that I learned from watching it:

• Once a stolen plane has left the ground, there is absolutely no way of pursuing it further, and everyone chasing it will give up.

• If the mafia or a band of thugs is harassing you and your business, don't bother going to the police, just go directly to a group of people wanted for war crimes.
  

• If you're finally captured after escaping from prison, years of resisting arrest, firing at military police and destroying things in order to get away, you will only be in trouble for your original crime.
  

• An attacker who is knocked into water is absolutely, positively incapacitated and will not attempt to get back out and take another shot at you.

• Mercenaries on the lam can allow reporters to tag along with them for months at a time and continually publish stories about them without fear of being captured. Also, the military will never think to find said reporters where they work and trace said mercenaries from there.

• Even if you're wanted by the military for war crimes, nearly all of the public will automatically be on your side. This includes large corporate entities that have to keep up a pristine public image, like Carnival Cruise Lines.

And those are just the points that I picked up myself. You can find a much more complete list of valuable lessons from the A-Team here. Teachers take note!

Another great thing about this show is that after watching as many episodes as I have, I feel like I can write entire episodes by myself. All it needs is:

- An evil person of power such as a mob kingpin, drug lord or corrupt devloper attempting to extort the owners of a small business.

- The victims being screened by a disguised Hannibal.

- Murdock getting under B.A.'s skin.

- A good-looking woman who is in some way related to the victim. There will be chemistry between her and Face that will ultimately go nowhere.

- Lots of bullets will being fired, but no one ever getting hurt. Bad guys thrown through windows or out of helicopters conveniently fall into dumpsters or into the ocean.

- The A-Team disguising themselves to get inside the villain's lair and learn that there is actually a more nefarious reason behind their plot.

- Their cover blown, the heroes get locked inside a room that happens to include a blowtorch and a ton of metal objects that can be used as weapons.

- Hannibal extolling the virtues of a plan coming together.


See? What am I doing here? I should be in Hollywood writing episodes for major network shows!

I'm giving A-Team a pretty good sendoff; I had Joey and Larry extend its run to Friday (we were going to end all syndicated shows on the 31st), so I could show an episode that is considered one of the best. So yeah, if you happen to be living on the island, you should stay in Friday night and watch TV this week. This one actually breaks nearly every rule I've listed above. Shocking, I know.

Finally, you should watch this, because it's the most relevant, awesome, and nerdy thing you will see all day:



¹ Me.
² "Air" as in "dirty socks"