Showing posts with label The A-Team. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The A-Team. Show all posts

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Thoughts on the Little House on the Prairie Series Finale

The following post contains spoilers for a 40 year old tv show.



The stories I heard about "Little House on the Prairie" ending with a BONKERS finale were true.

After the end of the TV series, 3 made-for-tv movies were made, as an unofficial "Season 10." The first of these movies features a teenager contracting a terminal illness and dying. The third of these movies, the last one to air, is about a woman who loses a child during birth, goes crazy and kidnaps another child to substitute as her own. It should be noted that this is a Christmas episode. And even though it takes place in Minnesota, at Christmastime, the weather is sunny and hot and all the leaves are green... it looks suspiciously like California. Ho ho hoooo.

The second movie, "Little House: The Last Farewell," was the last filmed and the last chronologically within the world of the show, so it is, for all intents and purposes, the series finale.

As the story begins, it's discovered that a land development tycoon owns all the land of Walnut Grove, the little town around which the entire series has taken place. Yes, all the years in which we've seen them buying and selling deeds, farming the land, building upon their land, leaving deeds in their wills as they contract terminal illnesses... it was all somehow in error, none of it was legitimate. There was even that one episode (S09E09) where a large train company wanted to take the land to build a railroad and they had a conflict with the residents over who can use the land... No, no, forget all that, those lawyers didn't look at THE REAL records, someone else owned the town all along, it's just that nobody was noticing the real, real, real.

So upon that insane rock is built a story in which the rich real-estate tycoon tries to take possession of the land from the everyday townsfolk who've built their lives there. They're not going to give up without a fight. They gather guns, band together and refuse to leave. It's at this point of the story where it is most effective - though somewhat out of character, the show has become a fairly convincing Western and there is real tension.

The rich railroad tycoon enlists the help of the government (the Union army) and there is a tense standoff. The people of the town do the moral calculus and stand down.

Finally, resolved to abandon their homes and livelihoods - their entire lives, really - they decide that the railroad company may take the land but they will not give up the buildings. They dynamite the town and blow it up.

The town preacher gives a eulogy for the buildings of the town as tears flow from his face. And as each citizen, in turn, takes the plunger detonator to blow up their own structure, they all cry and react as if watching a massacre. It is insanely executed. It is such incredible schlock.

It's hard to convey what a complete non-sequitur this finale to the series is. In case you're not aware of "Little House on the Prairie," this show is about (was about) a family trying to survive on the frontier, trying to do what's right in a harsh world and bring their children up to have that same moral backbone. The morals of the show were hard work, determination, honesty, respect, forgiveness, courage and especially community. And the ultimate end of all this... blow up the community. Nine seasons of the family show were just building up to pyrotechnics. Do you want heartfelt emotions or do you want to see some 'splosions?!

At a loss for words, I'm also at a loss for how to conclude this. I don't understand and have not seen anything to help me understand. Yes, the show arguably jumped the shark a while back but nothing has ever prepared anyone for anything like this. 

The idea of the town banding together to fight the powerful, combined with the rigging (and setting off) of the explosives, feels somewhat like an "A-Team" plot. This movie aired in 1984 and "The A-Team" had become a big hit in 1983. Is it possible that some dopey corporate executive saw the sagging ratings of "Little House" against the massive ratings of "The A-Team" and said, "I know what will draw in the viewers... Here's what the people of the 80s want to see..."? I have no proof or evidence that anything like that happened but it's the only thing I can think of to make sense of what I just watched.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

The A-Team

The A-Team (1983-87)




"Milk is good for you, Billy."
"OK, B.A., you got it!"

A good portion of A-Team academia focuses on the question of what preceded the slide in ratings that caused the series to be cancelled after only 5 seasons. Some say that the audience simply grew tired of its formulaic nature. Other say that it strayed too far from the formula that made it a hit. So, did it stay formulaic or didn't it? Not only is there disagreement about the reaction, we can't even agree on the show itself.

Having just finished watching the entire series, I'm firmly in the "it strayed" camp. The first three seasons are the "golden years" where the hired by a person in trouble/car flip/B.A. doesn't like planes/machine building montage/Hannibal's on the jazz formula never changes. Starting in the fourth series, the episodes start to branch out and play around with the possibilities. Episode 2 takes place entirely on a cruise ship. Episode 13 begins with Murdoch being kidnapped. Episode 21 starts with a flashback to a boxing match in the 50's. Most extreme of all, in Episode 23 a man gets shot and killed - A MAN IS SHOT AND KILLED on "The A-Team"! This is also the season where the A-Team helps out famous guest-stars Rick James, Isaac Hayes, Hulk Hogan and Boy George (I kid you not). The Boy George episode may be the worst of the entire series.

I have no problem with "branching out" and changing (some) things and playing with the format but the bottom line is that this season - Season 4 - is also the time when the ratings started to slide. And then in Season 5, the whole script gets flipped upside down - they're working for the government (not the common man) and the show becomes a "Mission: Impossible" ripoff. Again, that wouldn't be the worst thing in theory but it is pretty bad in practice. And they even re-made the theme song. That's sacrilege, pure and simple.

This is one of my favorite shows of all-time. The "golden years" are as formulaic as any show ever created but I absolutely love the formula. I love the use of guns and explosions as a **non-violent** means of control. I love the car chases. I love when they build machines. I love the van - one of the greatest TV vehicles. I love Mr. T - one of my favorite tough guys of all-time. I love Hannibal's plans. I love it when a plan comes together.

When I was a kid, "The A-Team" aired Sunday night from 8-9 P.M. and my bedtime was set firm at 9. There are still times when I can hear the theme song and go back to that moment in my childhood. It was so exciting that I was about to get an hour of awesome television... and it was so sad that I knew the countdown had begun - when the final credits rolled I had to go to bed. The weekend is almost over... almost... but it's not over yet.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The A-Team

The A-Team (2010)

Pictured: The coolest toy ever.

I'll tell you something interesting about "The A-Team" (movie): it isn't terrible.

Going into it, I had heard nothing but bad things about how bad it is at badness. This, combined with the fact that I despise the current trend of making horrible remakes of things I like (see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Transformers", "Transformers 2", "G.I. Joe" and so forth), meant that I had no hope for this remake of "The A-Team" TV series from the '80s. Still, my love for that series made me curious about the movie and kept me curious until I felt I should at least see it once.

The main criticism I heard was that it was ridiculous, mindless action that was both ridiculous and mindless. And there's no doubt that was right. I won't get into spoilers of specific actions/scenes/scenarios but I will say that calling it "unrealistic" is an insult to unrealism. If you think about the physics or logistics of this movie - or simply try to place the events somewhere within the space-time continuum in which the rest of us live - for any more than a few seconds, you WILL suffer an aneurysm and probably suffer brainexplosia. This movie takes believability and melts it with underwater fireworks and chocolate sauce.

However (and this is a hard "however" to face), it is most enjoyable. I never go for mindless action and I usually hate when other do, but in this case I do have to say that for me, believability and enjoyment were not on a line extending in opposite directions, but were rather on a circle continuum. In one direction, a movie gets more and more unreal and less enjoyable but then there comes a point where the movie gets SO unreal that it's laughable and fun. This movie is that event. The situations are SO ridiculous and SO over the top that I just chuckled and enjoyed the ride - I think you have to. And - let's be fair - we can't argue that the original A-Team didn't require a certain well-proportioned level of disbelief suspension.

It might be said that my opinion is skewed because I'm probably a pushover for all things A-Team... well, I guess that's a crime I DID commit. But how can you not be? If you got the A-Team theme blasting as the A-Team characters fire guns from a helicopter while being chased by the bad guys and BA is yelling at Murdock and it's all displayed on the big screen, what's not to like?!

And I know there's only one real BA and only one real Face, etc. and it is true... But the actors are good in this "re-imagining". The closest parallel is the new "Star Trek" movie. There are new actors playing iconic roles that are defined by the original actors but somehow it's not offensive, and actually is kinda fun.

In the end, is it Shakespeare? No. Is it smart? Not really. But it IS fun and if you're looking for some escapist entertainment for an hour, it's perfect. And it's The A-Team.

Trivia: Watch for two Phillies shirts worn by Face in the movie. Actor Bradley Cooper is a Philadelphia native. Be sure also to keep watching until after the credits are over.

Trivia Continued: Within the "A-Team" movie, there is an "A-Team" movie... (yeah). The first listed credit of this movie is Reginald Barclay. Reginald Barclay is Dwight Schultz (the original Murdock)'s character's name in "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

Personal Addendum: This may be the first time I've encountered a brainless action flick and gone along with the "turn off your thinker" mentality to laugh at the crazy explosions. So far I'm taking it in stride but it is slightly worrying that I may be getting stupider.