The Good
Just watching the process of The A-Team in action is enough to make you look forward to every other season of this show on DVD.
The Bad
No extras.
The A-Team: Season Three continues the exploits of four men who will never be daunted by any challenge. If you’re reading this review you probably already know the story but lets backtrack just to make sure. Hannibal (George Peppard), Face (Dirk Benedict), B.A. (Mr. T) and Murdock (Dwight Schultz) were soldiers in Vietnam who were imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. They escaped and went underground, setting up shop as “soldiers of fortune”. Should you have a problem... call The A-Team. This was one of the most entertainingly enjoyable shows in it’s 1983-1987 run. I remember watching it religiously on Sunday nights and always being surprised by what Stephen J. Cannell and his creative team came up with.
Whether The A-Team was battling the mob, Colonel Decker (who wanted them back behind bars), or other corrupt factions of society, they always did it in such away that justice was doled out and nobody ever got seriously hurt. The four actors who made up The A-Team worked very well together, and even though this show usually tied up it’s problems very neatly within the hour that it ran, I never found that things we’re too clean for my tastes.
Even when I was 10.
Features
No extras came with this DVD release.
Video
Full Frame - 1.33:1. Classically shot without any of TVs current camera tricks, I am sure that in about 20-30 years I will have somewhat more of an appreciation for the TV shows of the new millennium. As it stands now, I am pretty satisfied with the work they have done on The A-Team. I love that there is nothing flashy about this show. That it simply shows us the action and presents each story as it’s own mini, action packed movie.
Audio
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono - Subtitled in English. With 19 hrs. and 26 minutes of video and audio, I could have forgiven these DVDs if there would have been any problems with the sound. With that much material one would think that the compression could have certainly lost something. Also, with these shows being 20 years old, I wouldn’t have been surprised if things weren’t perfect. There were honestly no problems with any parts of the discs that I watched. Granted, I don’t have the best system and some people with a better one might notice certain things more than I, but overall great care seems like it has been taken here.
Package
The camouflage colors of this box set are quite similar to those that are employed by the U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. The front cover features a shot of The A-Team in which they are all brandishing weapons. The back cover continues this idea but Face and Hannibal are wearing disguises. There is a description of the box set, a shot of the red-striped, black van driving through a flame and a technical specs listing. The packaging is of the digipack sort in which all three discs are housed in their own slim, plastic cases. The front cover picture is the same as the one on the vinyl, cardboard box that houses them. There are episode listings on the back of each plastic case and a description of each episode as well. These discs are double-sided so that they can hold all of the content.
Final Word
I was sadly informed during the writing of this review that George Peppard had died in 1994 of pneumonia. His last work according to IMDB, was an episode of Matlock which was a terrific show in it’s own right. I have only seen Peppard on The A-Team and the aforementioned episode of Matlock. Everything he seemed to do on the TV screen was perfect. Whether he was standing up to a bad guy, smoking a cigar or firing a gun, Peppard always acted in a way that showed he meant what he was doing.
The A-Team: Season Three is a reminder of when TV was simpler. There wasn’t a need to be moving the camera as much and while the stories were formulaic, a viewer could take comfort in their consistency.
The A-Team was released .