Now this is the best of what this show can ever deliver: a good mix of action and comedy, or simply: absolute fun.
In recent interview, on line, with (Dwight Schultz), he wished if only the writers of the first season wrote the rest also. He was referring to (Stephen J. Cannell) and (Frank Lupo) the creators of the show, who wrote its most vivid episodes, then both of them left writing for it, except occasionally, and attended to be its executive producers.
Here, at the second season, and after some tiresome episodes that looked nearly the same, Mr. (Frank Lupo) takes over the writer's seat to provide the show with what it needed, and to provide us also with what we needed.
You can sense clearly at the smart, carefully done, teaser that this will be different one. A hot one. There is clever brevity at the start; the voice over of the kidnapper to sum up the whole case, then cutting the things that became boringly repetitive (bringing Murdock out of the hospital, the matter of disguised Hannibal saying: "You've just hired the A-Team"..). There are 3 missions already (to fit 3 cuts to commercials), unstoppable action, repeated catchphrase that embodied the team's weariness (Piece a cake!), an evil match for Mr. T, a chance for Hannibal, or rather (George Peppard), to jump heroically over a cliff into the ocean with many bullets around him, a James Bond situation of ticker bomb at the climax, and finally a line said by Mr. T which assures how B.A admires and respects Hannibal that ended the episode and maybe tried to end the rumors about the tension between (Peppard) and (T) behind the camera (that happened to be so right, and harder than it looks, at the moment!), or at least to distract it, or even to deliberately erase it in the drama, so it doesn't effect the unity and the credibility of the A-Team.
It was such a cool plan that (Lupo) managed to master, with the rest of the team, wonderfully; (Dwight Schultz) is crying after knowing the matter of the dam's bomb, and just observe well when he reveals his mask to the evil guys, he says: "You Would Never Believe it!" the same way it had been said in (The Guns of Navarone - 1961), I loved that somebody, else me, remembers that line, and the way it was said, to impersonate it! I loved also the shot when B.A, Face, and Murdock show up suddenly with their guns from the back seat of the van, WAW.. I bet a lot of boys just adored this one, and imitated it with each other the day after the episode was aired!
Look at (Peppard) as Hannibal, he was on the jazz; fighting, smiling, and delivering punchlines all at once (And yes, I didn't recognize him as the dam's guard!). Actually this man was dealing with the unserious show very seriously. I think he demanded the success so badly, and when he got it, he feared of losing it, and tried to keep it strongly, to be a mega-star in a TV super-hit, I'm just trying to understand why he used to be surly behind the camera (something that you can read, hear, learn about through a lot of sources) for any other reason except being just a Hollywood star with a bad temper. By the way, re-watch carefully the penultimate scene, at the palace, to observe well how (Dwight Schultz) and (Dirk Benedict) just steal the camera wittily while (Peppard) is giving his speech, I believe that was some kind of cute revenge on something nasty (Peppard) had done to them behind the camera or in front of it!
Save the very cheesy line of Hannibal at the end: "We're like socks, you can put us through rough wash once, but you'll never use us again" (or something as bad as this!), it's one of the best 45 min B movies that the American TV used to bewitch us back in the 1980s as pure entertainment which nearly disappeared in next decades.
At last, why I think that nobody will ever care to read a review about an episode of The A-Team?
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