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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
A-Team, The-Volume 1 (1983)

A-Team, The-Volume 1 (1983)

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Released 18-Feb-2004

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action None
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1983
Running Time 275:45
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Craig R. Baxley
Chuck Bowman
Bob Bralver
James Darren
Studio
Distributor

Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring George Peppard
Dirk Benedict
Dwight Schultz
Mr. T
Case ?
RPI $29.95 Music Pete Carpenter
Philip Giffin
Mike Post


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
French
German
Dutch
French Titling
German Titling
Smoking Yes, Hannibal and his ever-present cigar
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    "In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.
These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground.
Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.
If you have a problem,
if no one else can help,
and if you can find them,
maybe you can hire . . .

. . . the A-Team."

    And with that famous opening statement we are greeted with a theme tune so memorable I guarantee you will be humming it for days after indulging in this two-disc set containing six episodes of everybody's favourite can-do action team from the 1980s - The A-Team.

    80s nostalgia overload appears to be gripping the DVD release schedule of late, with the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider just having been released, and hopefully my all-time favourite American series The Greatest American Hero soon to appear (fingers crossed). As a result, those that were children in the decade that fashion forgot are certainly getting well catered for of late.

    For those too young to have seen it first time round or those that just plain chose to ignore it (like my dad - I can still hear him now - "what a load of bulls***" he would say, "nobody ever gets hurt in this rubbish"), here's a quick run down of the series. As the opening lines state, The A-Team were fugitives on the run in Los Angeles from the clutches of the bumbling military. Having busted out of jail, they were now soldiers of fortune, prepared to take on any job, no matter how difficult, if the reward was right. Often this meant standing up for some oppressed minority group who was being harassed by some powerful warlord, drug baron, crime head, or the like. The four members of the A-Team all became household names when this show was at its peak. The team consisted of leader and chief brain Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard), a man of a thousand dodgy disguises and a similar number of risky plans, Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Dirk Benedict, the good-looking and incredibly smooth member of the team who in addition to scoring well with the ladies had a knack for scrounging all manner of bizarre items, usually by conning someone out of them, Captain H.M. 'Howling Mad' Murdock (Dwight Schultz), recent inmate at a mental institution and now the pilot for the team whenever they needed to fly somewhere and of course Sergeant Bosco B.A. Baracus (Mr. T), who was the muscle whenever situations got a bit hairy and a whiz with the welder whenever something needed to be built or fixed.

    Who would have thought this would have lasted 10 episodes, let alone the final tally of 98 spread over five seasons when it first hit the screens in the early 1980s. From the pilot in early 1983 to the finale in early 1987, this is pure cheese all the way. Corny story lines, clichéd line after clichéd line, nobody ever getting seriously hurt, injured, or shot despite several thousand rounds of automatic weapon fire going off in every episode and car crashes aplenty. Now I know what my dad was on about.

    The big disappointment for all A-Team fans here is the lack of a complete series. What we actually have here is a so-called 'best of' collection with six episodes from various series spread over two discs. One consolation is that we do actually get the series pilot, but with 98 episodes overall and 13 in series one alone, we are really short-changed badly here.

Disc 1

Mexican Slayride Parts 1 & 2 (91:23)

    This is the two-part pilot episode which introduces us to the team and their soldier of fortune tag. Amy Allen (Melinda Culea) is a newspaper reporter working in LA who learns close friend and colleague Al Massey has gone missing while working on a story in Mexico. All attempts to locate him have proved fruitless and as a last resort Amy tries in vain to track down the mythical A-Team to help, all without much initial success. Of course The A-Team does exist and finally agree to help, provided the fee is right. The team heads off to Mexico (by plane, and it's here we first see B.A's fear of flying) to try and rescue Massey who has been captured by a band of drug bandits. They try to recruit a local group of villagers who have been terrorised by these bandits, but the town is scared, so the team must work alone. Out-numbered, they are eventually captured by the bandits. It looks like a typical A-Team style shoot-out is going to be required to get themselves out of this situation.

    Interestingly, in this episode, the role of Face is not played by Dirk Benedict, but rather an actor named Tim Dunigan, who is completely lacking the charm and suave confidence that Benedict would later bring to the role.

Taxi Cab Wars (46:33)

    Would you believe episode 7 from series two is the only other offering on disc one? This time round, the team decides to help out a new taxi company called The Lonestar Cab company whose drivers are being terrorised by the heavies from the Love Cab Company run by the evil Crane (Michael Ironside). For a ten per cent stake in the company, the team will pose as drivers and meet the challenge from the rival company head-on. Plenty of shoot outs, car crashes and even a little romance for the smooth Faceman (now played by Dirk Benedict) ensue.

Disc 2

The Maltese Cow (45:46)

    This is episode 13 from series two and it sees the team defending a restaurant they have a stake in from the clutches of a drug-dealing group of Chinese called the Tong. The team has a personal stake in this one, since the owner of the victimised restaurant is an old friend who once helped them out in Vietnam. This episode sees plenty of gun fights and fireworks (literally) and yes - there are still no deaths. Interestingly, the team is captured by the local LA police at one stage and it is only through the quick thinking of Hannibal that they manage to escape.

Champ! (45:42)

    This is episode 15 from series three. Faceman has invested some of the team's money in a 60 per cent share of an up-and-coming boxer, much to the displeasure of some of the team who see it as a bad investment. When the boxer has pressure put on him by some drug-dealing promoters to take a dive in a big fight and refuses, the team steps in to help. With B.A. masquerading as boxer 'Volcano Johnson', trained by Murdock, and with Hannibal in disguise as his promoter, the team set about ruining the big fight for the heavies and bringing about some justice.

Lease With An Option To Die (46:23)

    This is episode 4 from series four. The team travel to Chicago to help out B.A's mother, who has been the victim of an assault by some local hoods who have moved into her building and are terrorising all the residents. The team uncovers the fact that this is more than a simple case of harassment when they find out a local property tycoon is using any means available to move all the residents out of the building and several adjoining ones to further his development plans. Some nice emotional scenes between B.A. and his mum are on offer here in addition to the amusement generated when she initially thinks her son is actually the leader of the A-Team.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    Unlike today's multitude of digital offerings, television in the early to mid 1980s didn't offer a whole lot of choices.

    An obvious aspect ratio of 1.33:1 is what we get here. It is also not 16x9 enhanced. There are also the noticeable fades to black at various stages throughout each episode that are obviously the spots where the advertisements would have been. It's nice not to have to watch the ads, but the fades leave you in no doubt that you are watching a commercial television series.

    Overall, this isn't the greatest of television sourced transfers and hardly what I'd call excellent. It is quite grubby at times and tends to be rather soft, which reduces the appearance of any edge enhancement, but leads to quite a flat and two-dimensional image. Shadow detail is acceptable. There is a little grain in some shots and no low level noise.

    Colours are quite dull, which given the early 80s fashions and styles is not surprising.

    There are no apparent compression artefacts, but there are plenty of film artefacts throughout. Splotches, nicks, flecks, dust, dirt and all manner of nasties crop up on quite a regular basis.

    There are several subtitles available. I sampled the English variety and found them excellent for finally working out just what B.A. Baracus was on about.

    Both discs are dual layered, and since I failed to see any layer changes, I think it is safe to assume that each disc has episodes on different layers.



Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Three soundtracks are present. We get a choice of English, German, or French Dolby Digital 2.0. It is fairly harsh and flat with little fidelity on offer. I was unable to determine if the original source was a stereo recording, and given the age I would assume it was, but I found it extremely difficult to pick up any separation at all across the front speakers to indicate a multi-channel recording here, so it could well be mono only. Dialogue is rather harsh and flat, with a real tinny sound on occasion. There are some quite obvious audio sync problems in episode one, but these appear to clean up from episode two onwards. There is very little else to say about the audio - it works without being anything startling.

    The theme tune is instantly memorable, while the music used during the actual show is pretty much what you would expect from stock-standard action-adventure television.

    There is obviously no surround channel nor subwoofer use.



Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    There are no extras on either of these discs.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    I can't find any reference to a Region 1 title, but the Region 2 disc is identical to this one.

Summary

    The A-Team is a glorious B-grade cheese-fest. Watching these few episodes again took me back to the time I was in year eight of high school and everybody thought Mr T. was just about the coolest bloke around and his ability to build something to get the team out of trouble in each and every episode was the stuff of legends. In the words of Hannibal "I love it when a plan comes together", but unfortunately Universal have not seen fit to fully realise that plan and we don't get a complete series here. In fact, there are only two episodes from series one in this six episode set.

    The video is about what I expected. A little grubby, fuzzy at times, a bit pale in colour, and with annoying fade to black spots for commercials.

    The audio is fairly nondescript, much like the packaging

    The extras. What are you talking about, fool! There are no extras!

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Darren Walters (It's . . . just the vibe . . . of my bio)
Friday, February 06, 2004
Review Equipment
DVDLoewe Xemix 5106DO, using RGB output
DisplayLoewe Calida (84cm). Calibrated with Digital Video Essentials (PAL). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Digital Video Essentials (PAL).
AmplificationHarmon/Kardon AVR7000.
SpeakersFront - B&W 602S2, Centre - B&W CC6S2, Rear - B&W 601S2, Sub - Energy E:xl S10

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