Would the show have worked without the ____ character?

[sidney]

I think they proved that the show could work without the Amy character.

I 100% think the only character they HAD to have would be Hannibal.

I know the show was created for a Mr T starring vehicle, but honestly, I think BA is the character that would be easiest to have written out in terms of story. Probably because he does so little in the later seasons. In the early 80s, maybe the show wouldn't have been as successful because everyone loved his style and who he was, but in terms of the show, I think he could have been missing from about Season 3 on for sure. Would 1, 2, and 3 work without him? Some episodes, yes.

The big strong guy being afraid to fly was important to the show. Could they have just given that character-trait to Hannibal?

[amyk]

I don't think the show would have worked after-the-fact without any of the main four characters, meaning that if they had written off any of the four guys after the first season, I think the show may have failed more quickly. But from the start had they left off any character, then it really is up for grabs - we would not know the show any differently. For example, suppose there was a fifth team member, e.g. Ray was supposed to be on the team, but the writers felt that having yet another person was too much so they ended up not putting him in as a character. If he had been there from the start and then was written out, he may have been sorely missed and the show may not have "worked," but since we didn't have him there from the start then we don't know any different. However, I do think it was a certain combination of the four main guys that made the show "work" and without any one of them, perhaps it would have "worked" but not been what we have come to know and love.

It's kind of the same old dilemma about Tim Dunigan as Face - had he stayed on, perhaps we would all be so loving him that to replace him, say third season, with Dirk Benedict may have caused a revolt among fans.

I do realize, though, that Amy was a main character from the start, and I do think the show continued to "work" for some time after they wrote her out. However, I wonder if the show would have benefited with her staying in through to the very end.

The two characters I'm personally convinced the show didn't need at all are Frankie and Stockwell! And although I enjoy some of Tawnia, I don't think the show really needed her. I think it would have been better in season 5 to bring back Amy, but with all the "bad blood" between Melinda Culea and George Peppard and perhaps others, I doubt that would even have been an option.

[Katia]

Honestly... it's hard to say since we're so used to having all the guys that it's hard to imagine the show without any of them. Then again, if any of them were absent, the show would just be written without them and it would still work.  I daresay they maybe even could've added another character and found a way to make them work.

Do we really, really need Hannibal? I dunno. The other guys proved they could come up with good plans without him. Is it fun to have the cocky leader-type, though? Sure.

Do we really, really need Face? I mean, I know, he was supposed to be essential as the con man, but I've said before I just wasn't that blown-away by many of his scams, and some of them seemed more labored/required more obvious effort than I would think a natural con man would have to exert. (I'll have to put up my bulletproof glass for this one, but I still think TD did a better job at making it look natural, and coming across as charming, than DB did.)

Do we really, really need Murdock? I think the show could've gone just fine without the "insane guy" schtick-- it's fun and he's loveable, but even without keeping in mind that the show was originally meant to work without him, the only thing we really need him for is flying, and I think there are other ways they could've gotten around.

Do we really, really need B.A.? I do actually think he's necessary-- he's the mechanical genius who fixes things; the show is largely built on them fixing and building stuff, and he was essential to that. Also, they needed a tough guy, and he was that as well. But I don't think we needed a guy who was afraid to fly, or who was into helping kids, or anything else that B.A. was.

IOW... each of the guys pretty much had one essential trait, with the rest being fluff/frosting on the cake, and honestly, some of those essential traits could've been combined into someone else.  (How many do you think we needed on "The A-Team" to make it plausible?  I mean, we know the real A-Team in the war was bigger, though we're not told how much bigger their unit was nor what happened to the rest of the guys and why they're not also on the show.  Too many would've made it more clunky (harder to be surreptitious about stuff, more to keep track of, etc., plus let's face it: they probably picked the number that would fit easily in the van, lol).  Too few might've seemed strange... like, say, a pair of vigilante-type dudes running around (though it worked for Airwolf, but even they added a third in S2).  One was already done many times (MacGyver, Night Rider, Streethawk, etc.).  Three?  Maybe.  I still argue four looked better in the van (I'm not willing to discount that as a reason...)

Now, Amy (and to a lesser extent, Tawnia)-- I think they could've made her more essential if they wanted to. They could've given her a bigger role in research and such (in fact, that's one way my OC argues herself onto the team-- she tells them she can do their research, they say they can do that themselves, and she says, "or you could be spending your time on more important things.") If Amy does all their research (rather than Face having to), with the better resources she has, then they are more free to concentrate on the battle plans, surveillance, building stuff, shooting in the general vicinity of bad guys, etc. Everyone on the team has a strength that the others don't have, and Amy's could've been that she's damn good at getting info, maybe better than the other guys (it is, after all, her job). The other essential thing Amy brings to the table is the fact that she's female, which helped them out many times with her playing personas (Murdock and Hannibal in drag notwithstanding) and being the one who's underestimated by the bad guys, which can work to her/the team's' advantage. (There was also at least once-- "Pros and Cons"-- that the "reporter" angle helped them out.)

It's cheating to say Frankie or Stockwell weren't essential, isn't it?

[Katia]

Nov 25, 2023 18:31:25 GMT -5 amyk said:

The two characters I'm personally convinced the show didn't need at all are Frankie and Stockwell! And although I enjoy some of Tawnia, I don't think the show really needed her. I think it would have been better in season 5 to bring back Amy, but with all the "bad blood" between Melinda Culea and George Peppard and perhaps others, I doubt that would even have been an option.

LOL-- we posted at the same time.  (Also, I could make an argument for "the show didn't need S5, period," so...)

How much fun would it have been to have a plot point, though, where they bring Amy back and dump Frankie and he's pissed... lol.  Or, if they really wanted to have a super-uncomfortable episode with a lot of conflict and drama, where they bring Amy back and Tawnia is jealous that she has more of a rapport with the team... poor Amy stuck in the middle because they're all her friends...

[amyk]

I wrote a fanfiction script with Amy, Frankie, and Tawnia all in it! As much as I always say I can't stand Frankie, I think he could have been fun as a recurring character, like someone they could go to in order to come up with some special effects from time to time.

[Katia]

I could get behind Frankie as an occasional character (very occasional)... just not as a regular member of the team.

I had an idea once for Amy, Tawnia, and my OC-- they have to rescue the guys! I really want to work out the particulars of this. They do it in their own way that suits them, rather than trying to do it the way the guys would... I need to figure out what that is (I think it would involve a lot more being sneaky, outsmarting the bad guys, conning them, etc.).

(I've not quite figured out how to bring Tawnia back. Amy I can manage once by perhaps saying she's back in the U.S. and they happen to have a job right around then, so she comes with them for nostalgia and maybe even because they need her help with something. Tawnia's harder, because she basically quit the team because she got married, which to me is more of a hard-and-fast stop-- what would happen for it to be "okay" for her as a now-married woman to help them out? {Then again, I don't know why it would be a problem in the first place. Brian knows what she and the team are all about, so why couldn't she still hang out with them?} But the question is... can I also come up with a good excuse for her *and* Amy to be around at the same time?

I suppose possibly that the team recruits Amy's help, maybe with some kind of research because she'd still know people, but then she pulls in Tawnia because she's been away for a while so Tawnia might have new contacts she doesn't know... then again, is Tawnia still a reporter, or did she also quit working when she got married? Or I could say they pulled Tawnia in, and it was around the same time that Amy was due to come visit her so Amy gets pulled in, too. And since I still like the idea that Brian and Tawnia are out having adventures together now, maybe it could be something happens with them that they run into the team in some situation...)

[amyk]

In my fanfiction (written with a friend who also used to frequent this forum but has not for ages), Brian and Tawnia are happily married but off in a small town trying to start up a newspaper from scratch. Amy comes to visit because she and Tawnia were (supposedly, although of course in the show we never saw this) friends. Amy has to go in search of the team because Tawnia and Brian need their help. That search led Amy to Frankie, of all people! Maybe was a silly way to bring them all together, but I really used to enjoy writing that kind of stuff!

[sidney]

Nov 27, 2023 18:17:07 GMT -5 amyk said:

I wrote a fanfiction script with Amy, Frankie, and Tawnia all in it! As much as I always say I can't stand Frankie, I think he could have been fun as a recurring character, like someone they could go to in order to come up with some special effects from time to time.

I don't think I could.
He was just so unnecessary. Maggie was necessary. They needed her medical skills, and they probably needed her medical skills more than twice. It was important that they had access to a doctor who knew their situation and who they can trust.
They didn't need anything Frankie was offering. They really didn't. Face could have scammed the materials and BA could have figured all the tech-stuff out.

[amyk]

It really is kind of a shame that they didn't have Maggie recur at least once every season. As you wrote, it would have been so natural for them to need her medical skills.

[sidney]

Just think about the other times they've been injured. Maybe she did fix 'em up. Except, wasn't Murdock shot in Vietnam during THUNDER? She couldn't come and help all the way to Vietnam. That's a little bit of a trek from Bad Rock.

[amyk]

Yes, that was in Vietnam, but didn't BA get shot in that episode with the 15-year old kid who looks like he's 30? For some reason, I can't think of the name of that episode right now, but it is the one where he stayed on his dad's land and was trying to defend it from the bad guys. I think there was oil on it. Maggie could have treated BA in that one, I suppose.

It would have been good if they got Maggie to treat Murdock when he was shot in CURTAIN CALL.

[Katia]

Dec 2, 2023 22:08:25 GMT -5 amyk said:

It really is kind of a shame that they didn't have Maggie recur at least once every season. As you wrote, it would have been so natural for them to need her medical skills.

OTOH, how realistic would it have been for them to so often sustain injuries that needed more medical attention than they could patch up themselves/explain to an ER?  (I mean, I guess I could see it that they were building something and there was an accident and someone needed stitches again, they were running after a bad guy and someone twisted an ankle, etc., but small things like that could be easily explained at a regular hospital-- it would just be things like bullet and stab wounds that they wouldn't be able to explain away so easily.)

But, it's true I would've liked to see more of her.  Outside of a closet, I mean.

Dec 3, 2023 19:29:53 GMT -5 amyk said:

It would have been good if they got Maggie to treat Murdock when he was shot in CURTAIN CALL.

Technically, we don't know that she didn't... we don't know how he got treated. Hm. Maybe I like to think she did.

[hasford1978]

Definitely without Frankie because i have always said his character was completely useless and his being there was pointless. All he was trying to do is build stuff which was BA's part and he was also trying to be a ladies man which obviously was already sealed for the part of Face so Frankie was a stupid character, even the character of Tawina had more to do and that's saying something..
I think the series was completely fine without the girls either Amy and Tawina, when they both left, the series carried on very successfully anyway.
Yeah Amy felt more like a proper Team member other than Tawina but the fifth member in my eyes was the van, no offence to Amy because she was great and was nice 'eye candy' but the series didn't really need her as such

[amyk]

This gives me an idea for another thread....

[Katia]

That was one thing about Frankie... he sort of replaced Murdock as being Face's buddy. Poor Murdock. (But I do still feel like Murdock got a bigger role in S5, so I guess that kind of makes up for it.)