My Year With The A-Team: Season 2, Episode 1 - Diamonds 'N' Dust

No one believes me when I say this, but amidst the bombs, bluster and bonhomie that characterized the first season of The A-Team was an unexpected sweetness. I'll let you finish laughing before I explain.

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I know it's not what you'd expect - philanthropy via commando mission isn't exactly the selling point of the show - but seriously, under the team's rough-and-tumble exterior is really a swell bunch of guys who right wrongs mostly just to be nice. They're basically the cast of “Highway to Heaven,” except their weapon of choice is grenades instead of grizzled character actor Victor French.

Just to be sure, I tried finding out what the cast members did for charity outside of the show. And while I did find a number of things - Dwight Schultz, for example, was linked to some kind of group fighting childhood arthritis – but the most important thing I found was this - an interview with Mr. T... on Beliefnet! The whole thing is worth a read, but my favorite moment is when he describes how his reality show is unique: "It’s a reality show [but] we’re not eating worms, we’re not naked, we’re not having sex with nobody, we’re not wrestling pigs and stuff like that." This isn't strictly charity, but you have to assume that soup kitchens all over America were posting those inspirational words on every surface they could find. It's food for the soul, clearly.

So with that, it's on to Season Two!

Diamonds 'N' Dust

Wild Guess Preview: The A-Team is hired by the mom-and-pop diamond industry, which is being run out of business by the new cubic zirconia manufacturers and their thuggish CEO. Hannibal's bizarre plan involves starting up a new radio station to play all your favorite hits and dusties (hence the “dust” in the title); weirdly, it's so successful that Hannibal buys out not only the cubic zirconia people but the Moo 'n' Oink grocery chain and the Pump 'n' Loaf gas station franchise, AND he convinces Peaches and a reluctant Herb to do away with “and” and rename their duo Peaches 'n' Herb!

The Recap: So the opening sequence is a little different; now it starts “In 1972” because it's not “Ten years ago” anymore. Also we get some new action shots of the team during the credit montage, most notably Murdock as a bride. Sadly, these are the only new shots we get of the team for a few minutes, as there's a long stock footage sequence to establish that we're in Africa. An evil Mr. Fletcher sits at a desk and instructs some near-Australians to stop some guy in a pickup truck from doing god knows what. So they shoot out his tire and his windshield, and then the whole truck blows up. The old feller runs for it, only it's hardly running - it's maybe Benny Hill running, and that's being generous.

It's the cuddliest commando ever! And the bear's pretty cute, too

And there's more shooting at a carnival, where Hannibal is dressed as a carny and introducing a blond lady named Toby Griffin to the team. Murdock has a new friend – Bogey Bear, who is kind of cute but still bugs B.A. Triple A, who's sporting a new Pam Dawber-ish haircut, explains that Griffin's dad, the Benny Hill running guy, moved to south Africa to look for a diamond mine but then got killed. (Just to be clear, the show goes to great pains to invent a country called Zilabwe, which is in southern Africa but not South Africa, so while this is the era of apartheid, the series is not playing Sun City.) Face accepts a medium-sized, uncut diamond as a deposit on their fee, and they promise to regroup in Africa in two days. B.A., true to form, says he's not flying there! “Of course not, B.A.” says Hannibal, and the next thing we see is the team wheeling a drugged B.A. onto an airplane as “Chief Baracus” who has to be in surgery in Johannesburg.

And we move to Africa, so don't expect to see the van; instead, the team drives in a maroon K-car. B.A. wakes up and realizes he's been duped again. “I'm getting tired of all these tricks you keep playing on me! This is the last time!” Toby meets them at a bar, where she says she got them all the supplies they asked for except for dynamite - Face and Murdock have to go get it themselves. They walk outside, dig through the bar's garbage and find a uniform and – how timely – an invoice for dynamite.

I should mention that the bartender is one of evil Mr. Fletcher's henchmen, and this brings up something I still don't understand about the A-Team – don't criminals have bureaucracies? Every low-rent thug on this show has a direct line to the top guy in his organization, be he a diamond smuggler in Africa or a mob kingpin in Vegas. You have to wonder if their schemes fail not just because the A-Team shows up but because of poor human resource management.

To be honest, I hate them! I mean, pretending they're so f_____g weapons inspector - ah, superior...

Anyway, Murdock and Face visit the local dynamite supplier, who's inexplicably Cockney, and they pretend to be United Nations weapons inspectors. Murdock's British persona is hysterical, he accuses the dynamite dude of being insufficiently British! “I see no kippers, no English herringbone tweeds, no meat pies, no Rolls Royce petrol caps, no original pressings of 'Hey Jude'...” Then they “confiscate” all the dynamite on the grounds that it has no state seals on it. The Cockney guy is miffed but not so miffed that he refers to anyone as “guv.”

The three thugs who shot at the Benny Hill dude show up at the bar and try to threaten the team for helping Griffin, but Hannibal and B.A. beat them up. They also beat up the bartender, and they beat up the other guy who was drinking quietly at the corner table. The lead goon, Schechter, has to call Mr. Fletcher's gold-plated phone and explain that he failed, all the while giving off a sort of wounded John Hurt vibe.

Fletcher sends Schechter and goons to head the team off before they reach the Griffin mine, which leads to a big gunfight... for a while. That's another puzzling trend on this show – heroes and villains spend most of the hour stockpiling massive amounts of ordnance, and then resolve every battle with kicks and punches. The thugs ask what's to be done with them, and they dream up a number of scary torturous punishments before... letting them go? Murdock's Bogey Bear is shot up during the gunfight, as is the team's truck, which has a busted wheel and axle. Luckily, Face says he saw an abandoned truck just over a nearby hill – Toby's dad's old truck, as it turns out. She gets all emotional over the truck, but she cheers up when B.A. promises to make Fletcher pay and then starts the weekly montage. They fix the truck and drive on toward the mine; they also have to fend off a vicious herd of stock footage elephants (?!?). A long montage of a truck repair, stock footage of elephants pacing back and forth... the word “padded” does leap to mind for this episode.

B.A. says thumbs-up to padding the episode!

They drive to the pass just before the mine, and Hannibal stops, because there's a big cliff on either side and it's a perfect spot to be ambushed. So they decide to scale the cliff wall instead, a job made trickier in that they're still lugging around dynamite. One explosive slips out of B.A.'s pack and blows up just as Fletcher's thugs show up in a jeep. So it took them less time to walk miles and miles back to Fletcher's place and return in a jeep than it did for the team to scale about a 20 foot wall on a rope? They start shooting, as does Fletcher, who's in a helicopter (ah, I see the endgame here). The team holes up in the mine, where they discover – surprise! - a lot of mining tools. Hannibal and B.A. remember something they did in Cambodia once and they start working on a plan. Time for a second montage? PADDED EPISODE. They build some kind of deathmobile filled with dynamite.

All part of Murdock's well-thought-out plan

Everybody stays in place until the next morning, when Fletcher says come out now or he'll flush you out. Hannibal says no, and B.A. gets in the deathmobile and rams their jeep and blows it up. Fletcher flees to his copter, but Murdock, who's promised to avenge Bogey Bear, brings the chopper back to land and brings Fletcher into B.A.'s clutches. “That's the ballgame, coach,” says Face. “We got the whole team.” Thumbs up from Hannibal!

Everything is wrapped up save for one thing: how to get home. B.A. is concerned, and Hannibal tries to distract him long enough for Triple A to give him a knockout shot. But B.A. ducks and Murdock catches the shot! B.A. laughs. “He tried to get me!” But Murdock has a shot too, and he injects in B.A.'s leg. Toby sums it up well: “You guys might be a little unique, but you're great.” We're done.

Still fun, but somewhat weird and very obviously PADDED, and I did not like the graphic death of Bogey Bear one bit. And while we're on that subject, how come the last A-Team friend who got killed got a big sendoff at the end of the episode, a long shot of his grave? How come Bogey didn't get that? We're going to give him such a sendoff right here:

Your heroism will not be forgotten, Bogey Bear! If you happened to marry the stuffed bear equivalent of Joanna Kerns, we'll make sure to help her! Or something!

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"Across Borders" Does Not Mean The Slaves Bought Books and CD's and Coffee

So a few months ago I said I'd been finding goofy Wikipedia quotes in depressing Wikipedia articles, and it made me nervous because I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing by mocking them. It's one thing to make fun of Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis," but giggling at the darker side of reality... that's best left to one of those "edgy" comics, isn't it? Or a drunk guy on Facebook.

But what seemed like an ethical crisis of considerable proportions to me was, apparently, of little concern to any of the people I knew. "I thought you were done with Wikipedia," said a relative. "Aren't you watching the A-Team now?" The only one in my circle who would even broach the subject was a great aunt of mine. She was generally supportive of me writing about the darker topics, though her advice is suspect given that she's been convinced since the 80's that she's actually singer/songwriter Cat Stevens.

I may have lacked advice, but I was not lacking in inspiration, for later than day I came across a YouTube video of a monkey eating crackers, and I learned much:

And so I realized that I should approach my dilemma the way the monkey would: just tear into the heart of the thing, do what needs to be done, and hiss at everyone around once finished. With that in mind, I present a disappointing quote from the Wikipedia article on slavery:

A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.

I'm pretty sure that "internally" and "across borders" filter each other out... just... eh... hissssssss hissssssss hisssssss hissssss

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My Year With The A-Team: Season 1, Episode 14 - A Nice Place To Visit

So we arrive at the end of Season One, and even someone as humble as myself can't deny this is a huge achievement if ever there was one. No less than three Congressional Medal of Honor winners and four Nobel laureates have sent me their encouragement. And none of the laureates were economists, either; we're talking high-profile here).

All of this is greatly appreciated, though you'd think people who are this accomplished could slip a twenty in with their words of support. My stated objective for this project is building up my self-discipline, but that doesn't have to be the only objective. Once I was at a networking thing with a lot of creative networking type people, and when we introduced ourselves we were asked what we might want from the group- advice on a project, for example, or a collaborator. I decided to be honest: “What I want is a million dollars.”

So what I'm saying here is, encourage, people, encourage!

A Nice Place To Visit

Wild Guess Preview: In this explosive season finale, the US and Soviets accidentally trigger a nuclear exchange. Out of the rubble emerges Hannibal and the A-Team, who are happy that Colonel Lynch is now too well-cooked to hunt for them, but disturbed to find that all that's left of American civilization is Branson, Missouri. The team has to save the last dregs of the human race from Ray Stevens, who wants to recreate Earth as a wacky nudist colony based on his song “The Streak.” Murdock is swayed by the chaos and begins a frightening striptease, but just before he reveals his, um, “invisible dog Billy”, Hannibal wakes up and everything is back to normal, except that Ray Stevens is playing B.A. Baracus. “Everything is beautiful in its own way, except when you're on the jazz!”

Barlow Creek: Not Just Another Town Run By Pushy Hillbillies

The Recap: After a wild police chase through some previously seen footage, the team and their awesome van head to a small town called Barlow Creek, where they're attending funeral services for an old war buddy called Ray. But Murdock is famished, so he, Triple A and Face stop off at a diner in town while B.A. and Hannibal go get some gas and directions to the funeral. They encounter Harold, the gas station attendant who thinks he's quite funny and talks a lot and he says they shouldn't go to the cemetery for Ray's funeral because no one's allowed because “Watkins said so.” By “Watkins” he means himself and like four other random guys. Hannibal says forget you, we're going, and then Harold says “Logan” is going to be mad at them. Was this scene ad-libbed? “That guy's crazier than Murdock,” says B.A.

At the cafe, Face flirts with the waitress until two large hillbillies with pimp hats, one of whom is named Deke, walk up and confront him. They also pour a whole container or salt in Murdock's soup, but Murdock, unfazed, continues eating the soup even after they take the bowl away. Face wants to fight, but just then Hannibal and B.A. walk in and the hillbillies decide to leave. The owner then asks the A-Team to leave because he “doesn't want any trouble” with Watkins or his goons. Hannibal tells Triple A that if she wants them to continue to avoid trouble this is probably not the right town.

Finally we're at Ray's funeral, and it's just the team, a minister and Ray's widow Trish, who's played by Joanna Kerns, the mom on “Growing Pains.” The team is in full uniform, and they do a gun salute and all the military pageantry you'd expect... and then Hannibal narrates a flashback to Vietnam! He explains, underneath a montage of stock footage, that Ray was born to do... something. A bridge blows up, maybe that was what he was born to do. Now it's Face's turn – he remembers losing his helmet during his first firefight in Nam. “Ray gave me his.” B.A. remembers a time when he was shot on a mission, and “this white dude came up and dragged me to the Medivac.” Even Murdock has a memory of saving some grunts in a helicopter once with Ray. This is like the most somber and therefore weirdest thing in A-Team history. They all drive to Trish's house for post-funeral sandwiches, but the hillbillies follow in a tow truck and ram the van until it flips over. Dicks.

B.A. sums up the team's attitude toward Watkins as they drive back into town: “I'm gonna get those guys, I'm gonna make 'em pay for messing up my ride!” The problem, of course, is that Watkins owns the only tow truck in the area, and he's not inclined to help. Hannibal asks Logan Watkins why no one was supposed to go to Ray's funeral, and Logan says “because I say so.... that's reason enough around here.” The Watkins tow truck pulls up with the van – well, most of it. “STOLE MY RADIO!” barks B.A. At Trish's urging, the sheriff drops by and says Watkins can fix the van and charge the team for it. They spell out the charges. Hannibal says “Just get it fixed.” Logan says “We'll do our best.” So if they all agree why are they angry?

Let's hope Deke's pimp hat does not also offer 24-hour service.

So the team is ready to put a stop to Watkins and his bullying ways. Face and Murdock go into the cafe to throw salt in Deke's face, punch him and toss him into the street. B.A. slams the dudes around and mutters about “my van” 8901 times. They tow the Watkinses away while the townspeople applaud, and then drive back to the service station, even though that's where they already were, to rebuild the van.

I think B.A.'s flagging down the Rocky II production team.

One problem: the machine guns that were in the back of the van are now in Logan and some other guy's hands. They take the team hostage and deposit them out on some lonesome country road, warning them not to come back to town. Undeterred, the team flags down a passing car, hand the elderly drivers $450 and drive off, promising to send a cab.

Haha, she extinguishes nerdy sidekicks like a girl

The Watkins boys decide to harass Trish now. She and Triple A try to defend themselves with an empty rifle, locked windows and hot coffee in Deke's face, and... it works? Oddball Harold tries to break through the side door, but Triple A nails him with a fire extinguisher, making him yell “Deke! She burned out my eyes!” Finally they find some bullets and Triple A scares them off with a nice rifle shot. Finally the team shows up and Hannibal finds Ray's secret weapons cache – always good to find grenades sitting around in some guy's bedroom closet next to all his war memorabilia. Hannibal smiles warmly when he finds a pic of Ray with the team - B.A. is growling at Murdock even in the picture!

They drive back to the service station for like the tenth time. “We're the neighborhood beautification committee,” explains Hannibal. Logan says “huh” and Murdock uses the tractor to demolish the whole service station. Now everyone is shooting. Harold tries to flee in a tow truck but Murdock tosses a grenade exactly in his path and he flips over. The team rounds up the Watkins clan pretty handily and they walk 'em over to the sheriff, to the cheers of all 18 residents.

Wistful remembrance of friends long gone... and Murdock honking off B.A.

We're wrapping up. B.A. has to put the tires back on the van himself, and he's mad about it, and about Murdock trying to cheer him up with singing. Hannibal asks Trish if she'll be ok, and she says yes, because she's pregnant!?! Murdock says Ray will always be their friend. Then we get a long somber shot of Ray's grave.

And... the end? I don't know if Stephen J. Cannell somehow thought that it wasn't sufficiently established that the A-Team was made of Vietnam vets, or what – this was certainly an out-of-left-field and fairly off-putting finale – no wisecracks, no one-liners, just some earnest promises to help people. On the plus side, this likely would've freaked out all the people tuning in to catch “Remington Steele,” which is probably a good idea in principle.

So I'll get going on Season Two, and you can send your congratulatory telegrams and gift certificates this way, sound good?

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My Year With The A-Team: Season 1, Episode 13 - The Beast From the Belly of a Boeing

Had my first A-Team dream last night. A real-life friend of mine, a radio host, was working for several different stations, one of which was just across the Mexico/U.S. Border. This upset some kingpin or other in Mexico and he was trying to take over the station or some nefarious type thing, and my friend thought the A-Team might be able to help. I was the go-between; I told him “my friends” would come by and they'd be able to solve the problem. I woke up just as the van pulled up to meet us; I guess my work was done.

But the more I think about this, the less I like it. I can understand why I subconsciously see myself as an intermediary; for years I thought my role in life was to collect interesting stories and share them, and often that's what I do. Heck, this is a go-between project! I watch the show and relay the good stuff back to you, right?

It's a good role, mind you. Take Gram Parsons. He used to say that his dream was to play a concert with half an audience of wild rock 'n' rollers and the rest old-school country music fans, and to get them singing and clapping and dancing together. Pretty noble stuff, if you think about it. But TV is my new medium, and on TV the go-between is the guy on the sidelines, the man behind the scenes. He gets all the important players together so they can fulfill their various destinies. It's not noble; it's barely even there. And I want to be more than barely there; I want to be in on the action, the way the team is. Someone else can bring me over and I can drive up in an awesome van and take on the scum who hassle the good honest residents of nonexistent small towns. And it'll be my plans that come together. Intermediaries, it's been a pleasure, but this former go-between is taking action!

So it's settled. Starting tomorrow I'm taking up target shooting, American kempo, alligator wrestling and cliff diving. I can't wait to see what my dreams start looking like now!

The Beast From the Belly of a Boeing

Wild Guess Preview: The A-Team is hired by a carry-on bag that's being threatened by a full and menacing luggage set. Hannibal has the team stow away in a plane's cargo hold dressed as luggage, but things get out of hand when the luggage handling system accidentally re-routes Triple A through Singapore and B.A., drugged and sleeping outside a “Hudson News” kiosk, is sold to a Dallas businessman along with some M&M's and a Stephen King paperback. The team wins out in the end by leaving a jar of cold cream slightly open inside each piece of renegade luggage, messing up all the clothing inside and convincing the owner to travel with just a backpack from now on.

The Recap: We're at a very large airport, and we're just in time to watch a group of renegade porn actors plus a poor man's Marvin Gaye hijack a plane owned by the fictional Beller Airlines. These flabby dudes and their bad mustaches (one of them looks like Adam Sandler, ick) call themselves the “United People's Resistance” (suggested motto: “united we resist”) and their first act as terrorist hijackers is to ask for permission to take off. “We have just hijacked your flight – could we please take off?” The air traffic controllers, who aren't sweaty dumbasses, say no. The hijacker pilot says let us take off or we'll start shooting. The air traffic controllers say nothing, which I guess is permission by omission, and they're airborne.

This worries the two Beller executives, who have been told the pornjackers are demanding $5 million in cash and safe passage to Libya. They want to pay the ransom, but they're not actually in charge, they're just filling in for the actual Mr. Beller, who is away on a fishing trip in Greece. What's really interesting here is that this big-time airline is literally run by three guys. There's no large and baffling corporate structure; there are three executives and then everybody else works directly on aircraft or at a gate. Anyway, one of the execs has tried to track down the A-Team via some “Vietnam veteran activist groups,” but says it's a dead-end. At that very second, Hannibal walks in and starts throwing sandwiches at them! Then he explains that he's Hannibal. The other exec thinks it's all crazy.

Hannibal doesn't dye his hair, he's just prematurely orange.

Hannibal arranges for the team to meet him at the airport; he says they owe Beller a favor because during Vietnam the airline got them a special flight home for Thanksgiving or something. Hannibal's plan is for he and Face to dress as Beller executives and offer themselves as substitute hostages, while B.A. and Murdock sneak into the hull and then subdue everybody. B.A. is suspicious that he'll have to fly, though Hannibal assures him he won't have to leave the ground. Murdock is somewhat subdued himself; his doctor has decided he's well enough to leave the mental institution, despite his tales of Billy the invisible dog and “a giant fish eating the White House.” B.A. unhappily takes that crazy fool to the airport while Hannibal, Face and Triple A take a limo to meet the hijacked plane. Hannibal's executive disguise makes him look like the lovechild of Chuck Woolery and Ronald Reagan.

Murdock wins at flashlight tag, mostly because B.A. is in a coma

The plane lands, lured by Hannibal's promises of a briefcase full of money (Hannibal and Face look longingly at the five million bucks before heading off to the mission). Murdock and B.A. drive up in the fuel truck, posing as ground crew and climbing into the cargo hold while nobody's looking. The porn guys free the hostages, and take Hannibal and Face as planned. What isn't planned is that the hijackers take off before refueling is complete, which means they're flying with B.A. on board and when B.A. realizes this he freezes in place. Murdock hilariously tries to snap him out of it, singing snatches of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” as “Catatonic Choo Choo” but to no avail. So Murdock climbs up into the cabin, hits a hijacker with a wrench, and ties him up in cargo.

This is the only thing going right at the moment – inside the plane, the thugs have caught on to Hannibal's disguise, and they're not even worried because they're going to ditch the plane and parachute into anonymity, leaving Face and Hannibal to “go for a swim” when the fuel runs out. But they can't seem to find the dude who was going to get the parachutes. One of the porn dudes goes back to find him and Murdock takes him away at gunpoint as well. And suddenly it dawns on me that Howlin Mad Murdock IS... Passenger 57!

Now two of the skyjackers are tied up, and B.A. awakes, screaming “WE'RE ON A PLANE? WE'RE ON A PLANE?!?” But he calms down when Murdock explains that Hannibal and Face are in trouble, and they come up with a plan, which they share with Hannibal and Face by tapping Morse code under their seats. Face pretends to need a bathroom break, and when he gets there he and Murdock knock out the Marvin Gaye-looking guard. (Hannibal tells the other guards “I never go to the bathroom.” Ever?) This leads to a big fistfight, which in turn leads to a gunfight, and this leads to the next plot point when Murdock gets a powder burn and can't see. Also, Jackson, the hijackers' leader, manages to shoot out a window, which depressurizes the cabin a la “Goldfinger” and sends him flying out the cabin door. (Don't worry, he's got a parachute.)

The name is A... Triple A

So the bad guys are history, but now the plane is out of control and their pilot is a crazy fool who can't see. Hannibal mentions that he took an introductory flight course once; Murdock says if Hannibal will be his eyes, he can probably land the plane. B.A.: “This is my worst nightmare.” They explain this plan to the Beller execs on the ground, who then devise a secret plan to get Hannibal to fly into the ocean while making him think he's flying to the airport. Triple A is outraged, but they say they have to do it or the plane could wipe out “half the city.” Um, L.A. is kind of big, isn't it? They pull out of autopilot and Murdock calmly instructs Hannibal on pilot technique - why no one ever thought to do a “Murdock Flight Simulator” I'll never know. Triple A grabs a gun from the guards and tells the execs to actually help them or she'll shoot. They start helping.

WE GONNA CRASH! WE GONNA CRASH!

Finally the airport is in sight and they head toward the runway. Hannibal grits his teeth and prepares to bring her in, but B.A. starts freaking out again, yelling “WE GONNA CRASH! WE GONNA CRASH!” and grabbing Hannibal tight. Face has to hit him with a briefcase like twelve times before he sits back down. They go in for the landing... hit the ground... and crash right into the terminal! What fun. Face says to B.A. that maybe flying isn't so bad, but B.A. is already catatonic again. Hannibal says he loves it when a plan comes together.

The team is on the ground a week later, and Murdock is healing fine, but B.A. is scarred for life. Face goes through the finances – they got one percent of the $5 million ransom, but after expenses, retirement and taxes (B.A. “We don't pay taxes!?!”) they're left with $236. They drive Murdock to the asylum to get his stuff; while there Murdock runs into the doctor who released him, and doc is talking about aliens and crazy stuff. Turns out the doc is crazy and tried to release all of his patients! Murdock is brought back into his room, where he yells “HOME! HOME AT LAST!”

Wild fun, and very out of the ordinary – aside from the unique setting and premise, I love that Murdock saved the day here! And the last few minutes, where they try to land the plane, were interesting despite being very un-A-Team-like. I'd go on about how much I enjoyed this one, but I have an hour booked at the gun club and those targets aren't going to fire on themselves.

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