First off, I love the A-Team. I watch every episode I can. These days, it comes on
TNN every weekday at 11:00 in the morning (I think, PM me if I'm wrong) on Eastern time. The time is subject to change, as it USED to be shown on
TV Land at 2:00. Oh well. Anyway, there was more than one year of shows.
RalphyK's writeup concerns what I think was the second season, although
Murdock sang mostly in the first season. He actually sang almost every episode... but I think my favorite song of his would have to be the "Traaaaaaaash BAAAAGS!" song from the "
Pros and Cons" episode, back in the first season.
Anyway, the A-Team went through several different stages. There were 5 seasons. Soooo here's a summary and some interesting information on each season that the show was on.
Season 1: Origins
This was the first season the A-Team showed up. Episode 1 also introduced
Melinda Culea as a
newspaper reporter. In the first episode, she asked them for help, to save her colleague from
Mexican guerrillas. The
military officer for this season was
Colonel Lynch, a relatively dry and boring person. The last time he appeared in the series was in the
finale of the first season.
In the first season, the A-Team was very unstable. They argued a LOT.
B.A. Baracus always argued with
Murdock, and nobody trusted
Hannibal's plans. They'd always refer to old plans of his gone wrong, and would frequently make up their own. In the end, they always used
Hannibal's plans, though.
Some
memorable episodes include:
"
Pros and Cons" where Face dresses up as
Dr. Pepper and a prison warden is making his inmates fight each other...)
A Small and Deadly War: Where a
renegade SWAT team led by a
corrupt policeman commit murder for money...
Till Death Do Us Part: Better known as the episode where
Murdock dresses up in a
wedding dress. Not a pretty sight.
Season 2: Enter Decker
In my opinion, Season 2 offered very little in the way of entertainment as compared to the other seasons. In fact, there were few episodes I liked that much. Here's the info on Season 2.
First,
Amy Allen (the reporter played by
Melinda Culea) is gone. She left at the end of the first season to go overseas. She is replaced by
Tawnia Baker, a friend of hers, who wants to join the team too. She gets dumped in the 2nd episode of the 3rd season. Oh yeah, and this is where
Colonel Decker enters. He shows up in the episode "When You Comin' Back
Range Rider?", the 5th episode of the second season. He's another
Army MP who carries a grudge against the A-Team.
Memorable episodes? Not many. You might recognize "The
Taxicab Wars", an episode where a taxi company owner hires the A-Team to stop the other taxi cab company from taking them out of business by
using underhanded tactics.
Season 3: Same Old, Same Old
Well, it was the third season. Despite having a lot of cool episodes, it didn't have any really new plot twists.
Tawnia left, after never really joining the team like Amy did. She left in the episode "The Bend in the River".
Colonel Decker is still the Team's worst enemy.
Memorable Episodes:
Timber!: In this episode, the Team helps a logger that faces a hostile takeover by a big old
Logger's Union.
Fire!: This is an odd episode about fire engines. More importantly, it introduced a new military enemy,
Colonel Briggs, who mysteriously vanished at the end of the episode, never to be seen again. R.I.P. Briggs. Nobody knows WHY he left. But he did.
Showdown!: This is the episode where there's a bunch of imposters pretending to be the A-Team. The episode involves a
Wild West show that
Colonel Lynch (not Decker, who's the usual villain in the 3rd season) hopes the real A-Team can't resist going to. He fails, and vanishes once again.
Season 4: Welcome to the Real World
Season 4 introduced a new development in the A-Team. It went global. The producers brought big-name people in (outlined later) and it went from being "Team Cruises Around in Van" to something more. There were
Soviets and more foreign countries than ever before.
Another new thing in Season 4 was a new enemy. Decker had vanished at the end of the 3rd season, but starting on the episode "Mind Games", a new enemy was unveiled:
General Fulbright. He knew the Team's Commanding Officer, and also had an
Amer-Asian daughter in Vietnam.
Memorable Episodes:
The Heart of Rock 'n' Roll: Special Guests
Rick James (
Superfreak!) and
Isaac Hayes.
Isaac Hayes plays an old imprisoned rock star whose life is in danger. Special BONUS:
Rick James performs
Superfreak. On the A-Team. This is highly entertaining.
Body Slam: B.A. knows
Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan doesn't like the fact that a mobster is busy trying to close down orphanages. They try and track the guy down, and hilarity ensues.
Mind Games: This is when Face receives a government pardon, but the rest of the Team is still wanted. It turns out to be a trap set by their new nemesis,
General Fulbright.
The Doctor is Out:
Murdock's psychiatrist is kidnapped, and the team has to go to the jungles of South America to find him and bring him back safely.
Wheel of Fortune: Murdock is a contestant on
Wheel of Fortune. Seriously. Not only that, but he wins a truck. Oh yeah, and something about a
Soviet gunship...
Cowboy George: Face tries to book a guy named Cowboy George into a Texas bar. He gets
BOY GEORGE. I only wish I was kidding. However, in the end,
Boy George wins over the
tough cowboys and they all start liking his music. Homoeroticism abounds. BONUS:
Culture Club performs. An. Entire. Damned. Song.
The Sound of Thunder:
General Fulbright
hires the A-Team to go and search for his Vietnamese daughter with him. He, however, tells them that they're searching for the one guy who could clear them of all charges. Gen. Fulbright dies at the end of this episode.
Season 5: Military Courts and Stockwell too
This season radically changes the whole A-Team. This season even got its own new intro sequence with a synthesized theme instead of the old "rock guitar" feeling. It starts off with a new enemy:
Stockwell. He kidnaps the A-Team and threatens to prosecute them unless they can rescue hostages from a plane in Spain (Episode:
Dishpan Man). It's named
Dishpan Man because of the new guy,
Frankie "Dishpan" Santana, a special effects guy that aids Stockwell. For some reason, Stockwell turns the A-Team in anyway. In episode 2,
Trial By Fire, the Team faces a court-martial. The testimony by the Army rapes them, as Murdock enlists Frankie's aid to find evidence that will save the A-Team. In episode 3,
Firing Line, the Team is sentenced to death. However, Murdock and Frankie think of a plan to save them. It works... with a little help from
General Stockwell. Stockwell has a proposition: the Team will help him with a whole bunch of missions, and after a while, Stockwell will get them all a
presidential pardon. This is how the rest of the 5th season goes: Stockwell gives them missions, and they do them.
As a side note, the A-Team is never pardoned as the part of a show. On the last episode, "
The Gray Team", they speculate on their future and they talk about how their contract with Stockwell will be up soon. Oh, yeah, and on that episode, Murdock's shirt says "
Fini". Due to a mistake, though, the last episode of the A-Team aired actually on March 8th. Murdock's shirt in that episode said "
Almost Fini" and as the chronological order doesn't really make sense, it's safe to assume that
The Gray Team was meant to be the real last episode.
So that's how the A-Team went. And you know a little bit more about the coolest show on television.
Interesting tidbit:
Only one person was ever killed on the A-Team: General Fulbright. Sure, mobsters fell and stuff, but only Fulbright was ever actually shown as being killed.