What I don't like is that I don't buy her as a reporter at all.
I don't really, either, but I think "reporter" is a good job for a character to have to explain both why they can be useful to the team (access to lots of research resources, without someone asking why they're doing research), and why they can go off on jobs with the team without running out of leave time at work or having to explain to a boss why they're gone yet again (I suppose another possibility is having some sort of freelance job they don't have to be at every day or something). (Do we ever have any idea how Frankie can just... suddenly disappear without employers or family/friends asking questions?)
* in the opening credits, it introduces Tawnia Baker but the computer spells her name Tanya. Probably a lazy oversight by the show -- or maybe since Tawnia was undercover at the security place, she thought merely changing the spelling of her name would be a good enough cover - LOL
I think someone just couldn't spell... the pronunciation sounds a bit similar to "Tanya" so they probably just messed it up and nobody bothered to correct it.
* the part with the team talking about leaving the country for a while made me sad becauase they are obviously leaving Murdock behind. And when Hannibal talks about the great vacations the three of them have had - that made me really sad to think the team goes off to have fun without Murdock.
Poor Murdock. He really does get marginalized sometimes... I wonder how he feels about that. (Though I guess you could argue he brings it upon himself...)
*Boy, Tawnia can sure afford a swanky condo on a reporter's salary - and for as nice as that condo was - she had a very ugly shower curtain
* so at the end - was that supposed to be Tawnia's house they were at? She has a swanky condo and a house? In LA? I am pretty sure even in the 1980's it was expensive to live in LA
TV shows often aren't very realistic on this front-- a lot of characters live in way nicer places than they should be able to afford. Then again, I guess who wants to watch a show about people who live in tiny roach motels, lol.
They seem to assume that being a reporter is way more glamorous than it is, though. I've mentioned before how Amy's only in her mid-20s, but somehow gets to pick her own stories, pitch her own stories, take on high-profile big stories, etc. No way that would happen in real life... someone her age would still be covering school board meetings and stuff.
Then again... it wouldn't surprise me if we found out Tawnia is a trust-fund baby. She just seems like she could be that type. (And-- do we ever even see her doing "reporter" things? Amy at least put out a story every once in a while. I don't know that Tawnia ever does? All I ever recall for a mention of her job again is how she met Brian. Oh man, what if we found out she wasn't really a journalist but just said she was...)
*Um the team carries Mike around in a box with no air holes. And what happens to Mike when the team doesn't need him - who takes care of Mike?
And how do they get Mike back? It seems like they just... leave and never retrieve him.
(Though I could see Mike being a pet of someone they know or a zoo or something, and they just "borrow" him. Ha, now I'm having mental images of Face having to scam Mike out of wherever Mike lives, in the same way he does Murdock...)
I never actually understand a lot about this episode. Did Tawnia specifically take that job at Intermode undercover to find the team, or was she really investigating things there?
I wondered that, too. I assume she had to have been actually investigating on a job for the paper, though, because otherwise how would she get a leave of absence to go work somewhere else?
And why did Intermode even have the information about Decker going to apprehend the team?
I feel like this was one of those things where back in the early days of computers, a lot of people still sort of believed they were this magic thing, so of COURSE this Intermode place had All Teh Info About All Teh Thingz Evar or something...
yes - I don't fully understand why Tawnia was working undercover at Intermode - what was she looking to expose?
Ah, good point though... whatever was so important, why wasn't it resolved? Or was it the whole "sheikh" thing?
I really don't mind Tawnia either but it does bug me that they try to pass her off as an Amy substitute. the writers were like " hey we need to add a pretty girl to the show but we don't want to waste any time coming up with a credible back story for her - I know - lets' just make her another Amy - only we'll make her more ditzy"
Yup. She's an Amy substitute, but not a "dangerous" one-- as in, not one who's going to want to be a badass (well, she does want to but sort of fails at it) or will be too well-liked so people will want to keep her on/give her a bigger role.
True. Like I've said before, she reminds me of an overeager puppy who wants to tag along everywhere.
YES. That's it. Or she's that kid in middle school who always wants to hang out with the "cool kids" and tries too hard, or the little sister who always wants to tag along with you and your friends.
And Amy had the - oh what is the right word - spunk? initiative? or gumption to manipulate or back mail her way on to team - whether you agree with her methods or not, it took a lot of guts to do that to the guys
Tawnia basically whines her way on the team
I mean, I guess Tawnia has guts in how she meets them, too-- she knows there's a big risk she'll get picked up by Decker, too. Plus, I think it takes some chutzpah to cold-approach a bunch of guys you don't know but have a sort of hero-worship platonic crush on and ask them to let you hang out with them, basically...
Don't you wish we could know what was ad-libbed and what was scripted?
It would be pretty cool to see the original scripts, and to see how the actors interpreted the lines and the scenes.
Yup. I've always had the impression DS might just come up with stuff on the fly. And I've often thought MT probably influenced a lot of B.A. I always wonder on some shows if after a while the writers start writing more to the actors... I mean, you probably get a good bead on how someone plays a character and it influences how you write the character. I would think in a TV show especially, that would happen, since it all evolves over time (unlike a movie where it's basically all written even before casting.)
(Then again, I do tend to wonder sometimes how movie or TV characters would be different if played by different actors. I think that can make SUCH a difference.)
My hunch is that many fans believe that Dwight ad-libbed much more than he actually did. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that the writers did write much of what Murdock said and did, although the interpretation of the character surely was made perfect through Dwight's acting skills. It would be interesting to know how much of "Murdock" is due to Dwight and how much due to writers and others involved in the show. I think we fans perhaps sometimes fail to give as much credit to the writers (and others) as is actually due to them and we perhaps tend to focus too much on the actors or even equate the actors with the characters.
Possibly. But I've said before that sometimes I get the same vibe from DS as Murdock as I did from Robin Williams as Mork. I'm not certain why (most people seem to compare him to Jim Carrey, and just... no, I don't see that. But maybe those are people too young to remember Robin Williams' early roles like Mork). But Robin Williams ad-libbed a LOT on that show-- like, a lot of the time if you see Mindy laughing at Mork, it's Pam Dawber genuinely laughing at whatever Robin Williams just pulled out of thin air that wasn't in the script-- so maybe the fact that I'm somehow reminded of that is what makes me think there's a fair amount of improvisation going on.
And some of it, too, the way he does it just makes me think, "No way someone else wrote that and then he delivered it so perfectly." Like, some stuff you just have to think came out of the actor's head because it's so wacky or perfect or something. (In Murdock's case, wacky... some of the stuff, it just seems like "no way the writers and DS could both be on the exact same page with how this is supposed to go," y'know?) But that could just be me.
Yeah, for a laugh his females are ok, like playing the pregnant woman, it was just for necessity. Dressed as the bride he just looked like a man in a wedding dress! (I know that's essentially what he is, but there wasn't a lot of effort put in to look like a woman). Even friends of mine who aren't big A Team fans know that scene, it's a pretty well known A Team scene.
Yeah, that was always a sort of unbelievable scene. 1. That the dress of a skinny, average-height woman somehow immediately fitted a 6-foot-tall man (I mean, these days, women go in for multiple fittings for a wedding dress... it probably wasn't quite like that back then but they must have had at least one to make sure it fit them well). 2. How did he hide his height? I don't recall that it really shows him slouching or anything. 3. You don't grab your fiancee's arm and not notice it's way bigger than a woman's arm would be... But it was funny. (Maybe part of what was supposed to be funny about it was how unbelievable it was yet everyone still falls for it... human psychology, I guess: you see what you expect to see, not necessarily what's really there. I bet a lot of people afterward were going, "You know, I thought there something weird about 'her' but I thought it was just my imagination...")
But why on earth did Hannibal agree Tawnia could go with them? Amy had many good qualities, she was strong and stood her ground and I can see why Hannibal would be impressed by those qualities, but Tawnia didn't really do anything that would make him think it would be good to have her around.
Yeah, I always kind of thought that, too. They got blackmailed into taking Amy along, but what did Tawnia really do for them? Especially since they're so untrusting of her in the beginning, but then suddenly they do.
Decker is always fun to watch and I love that he tackled the dummy even though Hannibal had zero time to get into that disguise.
Ha, yeah. Shows he doesn't underestimate Hannibal, though...
The Face/Tawnia scene is still a little cringeworthy for me, but I tried to appreciate it more.
It's kind of dorky, but I always saw it as a very contrived test-- Face is sent to "seduce" Tawnia to get past her defenses and find out what she's about and if she's on the up-and-up... (the question is: is it also a game for her-- since she knows what Face is like, since Amy told her-- or is she taken in by him?)
I think one of the biggest mistakes that the show made with Tawnia was having her basically try to be an Amy replacement. I think that they should not have had her connected with Amy or the paper. If they really wanted another female character as a recurring one, they should have made her connected with the team through some completely different source, in my opinion.
Ooh, yeah. I don't see a reason why they couldn't meet up with someone another way. (My OC meets them the same way Amy does-- hires them and then asks to stay on. Inspired partly by the fact that she does know about Amy and Tawnia, which is probably what gives her the idea as well as ammo for argument when Hannibal tries to say they don't do "sidekicks." I admit it was sort of lazy to use the same idea, but it was partly because she came along with that idea I had for a job for them.)
I mean, I suppose I "get" why they did it that way-- makes it plausible for Tawnia to have found out about them, including a possible reason to trust her (she knows someone they know and trust), and makes it plausible for her to be able to run around with them. But... "I'm a friend of this other person you know!" Really?
I agree - why another reporter? There are plenty of other ideas they could have used.
I would love to hear other ideas if anyone has them-- I struggle with this.
I'm surprised they chose to have another female recurring character at all after the behind the scenes arguing that went on over the character of Amy. Amy was great until they ran out of ideas for her, Tawnia was just not necessary.
I sort of was, too. I assumed they (at least slightly) liked the idea of having a female sidekick, just not the direction MC went...
I didn't feel like they ran out of ideas for Amy, though (although maybe they ran out of ideas for how Amy is able to come with them... how many special features can she write about the team and/or the situations they get into*)... just that they ran out of patience for the differences of opinion between them and MC about where Amy was headed.
*Along that vein, maybe they could've decided for her to quit the paper and become a freelancer... some episodes could maybe feature a side story that she manages to pick up while on a job, or something... (LOL, or I just had the idea that she could be a columnist... I'm imagining her with an advice column, and asking the guys for help writing it. Mwa ha ha. Face is all, "tell her to dump that jerk. Oh, and if she's cute, to call me." B.A.'s like, "Tell that sucka don't be nobody's fool!"
)
Do you think when they hired Marla Heasley that they were upfront with her about the purpose of her character and told her from the start not to expect to get too involved in the action scenes? Also, she was never included in the opening credits. I don't know if that is all worked out in contracts or not.
I'm absolutely certain that was the case. In addition to, maybe they screened out hiring anyone who may've expected more.