The A-Team: Season Five [3 Discs] [DVD]

The fifth and final season of The A-Team marks a very significant change in the series' established format. Tricked into being captured by the authorities, the members of the renegade do-gooder squad known as the A-Team are sentenced to be executed -- even though they never killed anyone in any of the prior five seasons. This, however, is all a ploy cooked up by General Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughan), who offers A-Team leader Hannibal Smith (George Peppard) an offer he can't refuse. If Hannibal and his cohorts agree to perform covert government missions, Stockwell will see to it that their names are cleared, and they will finally be fugitives no more. With no other option, Hannibal grudgingly agrees to the terms as do team members B.A. (Mr. T), "Howling Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz), and "Faceman" Peck (Dirk Benedict). In addition to Robert Vaughn, two additional cast members join the series during its valedictory season. Eddie Velez is cast as the A-Team's newest member, squirrely special-effects expert "Dishpan" Frankie Sanchez, a character introduced in the two-part season opener "Dishpan Man." And in the tradition of the past seasons' Amy Allen and Tawnia Baker, Judy Ledford is seen as the team's off-and-on female associate Carla. This year's missions find the A-Team disguising themselves as football players to rescue a defecting East German scientist; Face meets a crooked political adviser who may or may not be his own father; the team defies Stockwell's orders and searches for a missing Hannibal deep into enemy territory; Murdock is mistaken for a god by a South American religious cult; and in the season's final episode, the team is held hostage by a group of hoods who have been hired to assassinate the U.S. Attorney General. The most fascinating of the series' final-season episodes is "The Say UNCLE Affair," in which series regular Robert Vaughn is reunited, after a fashion, with his former Man From U.N.C.L.E. co-star David McCallum (here cast as one of the bad guys!).