The A-Team: Hot Styles
episode number: season 3, episode 11 (1984)
viewing setting: home DVD, 2/11/06
episode synopsis: The team steps in when Face's latest girlfriend turns out to be involved with a mobster.
impressions: They did the best they could with a dumb plot, and it turned out okay. See, there was something else going on: the mobster wanted to steal the hot new styles from a leading fashion designer. Interesting notes: early use of computers by the security company, Face getting the tables turned on him as far as scamming some good-looking member of the opposite sex, and the absence of B.A. This last point got me to thinking: was Mr. T absent for some reason, and was this episode an attempt to show that the team could have an adventure without him? I mean, they did all their usual things (fistfighting, building/fixing something, even dealing with electronic surveillance) without him. I wonder. Note that B.A. _did_ appear at the very end, but I suspect that this was stock footage from an older episode. Now I really wonder. On another note, this one also featured an annoying staple of the action-series plot: a woman who's in trouble and double-crosses the good guys - repeatedly - because she trust that the bad guy will actually let her go when it's all over.
notable guest star: Richard Lynch, who's made a career out of playing bad guys, is the mobster boss here.
what the team builds in this episode: Technically, nothing, but they do recruit a group of little old ladies to sew up some fashions for their plan, and later they (just two of them, and no B.A. !) clean up/fix an old boat to disguise it as a Harbor Patrol boat.
Hannibal wisecrack highlight: Holds the mobster boss at gunpoint and lets him know that their next meeting will be fatal.
B.A. toughness highlight: None, because he doesn't appear in this episode.
Murdock insanity highlight: For a while, he thinks that he's the missing B.A., then later he poses as a French fashion designer.
Face scam highlight: Secures "models" for the team's fake-fashion-designs plan.
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