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Rating: - A Less Than Exceptional Season
This 1985-86 Season of THE A-TEAM was okay, but not nearly as great or as phenomenal as it was during its first 2 seasons, which was proven in the Nielsen ratings, since there was obviously a big decline in where The A-Team ranked in the ratings, since the ratings weren't nearly as high as they were in the first 2 seasons, which especially made a big difference in the ratings between the 1st Season and the 4th Season, especially since the honeymoon phase of this show was already long gone and the show was running out of steam on top of that.

Therefore, when The A-Team hit its Fourth Season, the excitement of the action and uniqueness of this show wasn't nearly as good as it was when The A-Team made it's debut in it's First Season on NBC in January of 1983, especially since the action wasn't as impressive and the car chases and stunts seemed to have become phonier along with the fact that the 1985-86 Season didn't have a female co-star for the team in this season either, unlike they did in the first 2 seasons.

This was also the season when the A-Teams overzealous Army nemesis Col.Decker(Lance LeGault) ends up getting replaced by the rigid equally incompetent Army nemesis Gen. Fullbright(Jack Ging) after Decker's unsuccessful 2-year pursuit of The A-Team, which was an interesting transition, despite the fact that I preferred Decker to Fullbright, even though Fullbright practically made Decker look like a wuss, especially after Decker's last appearance in the "Blood, Sweat, & Cheers" episode, which is the episode prior to when the equally incompetent Fullbright replaces Decker as The A-Team's new military nemesis in the "Mind Games" episode when Fullbright makes his first appearance and insults Decker before his first confrontation with the A-Team, except Fullbright ends up dying off in the season finale episode of this 1985-1986 Season("The Sound Of Thunder")when Fullbright sends The A-Team to go on a mission to Vietnam with him to help Fullbright find his long lost Vietnamese daughter and to help Hannibal, B.A., and Face find the person who could finally help clear them of their charges from being on the run after being falsely imprisoned for the crime they didn't even commit in the first place, except Fullbright and the A-Team ended up biting the dust again at the end of the episode after rescuing Fullbright's daughter in Nam.

Therefore, Fullbright was the first nemesis of The A-Team's that ever ended up dying off, especially after having an unsuccessful pursuit with The A-Team for less than a year, since Col. Decker(Lance LeGault), Col. Lynch(Bill Lucking), and Col.Briggs(Charles Napier) never died off, even though Lynch, Decker, and Briggs all ran out of steam since The A-Team was able to break Decker's spirit after an unfortunate 2-year pursuit with The A-Team and was able to break Lynch's spirit after a failed 10-year pursuit of The A-Team and then they broke Briggs spirit after only one episode, except none of those nemesis died off, unlike Fullbright.

It was also intriguing how General Fullbright put down his predecessor (Colonel Decker) in the "Mind Games" episode during Fullbright's first appearance, since Fullbright had vowed to succeed where Decker had failed, except Fullbright turned out to be just as incompetent and unsuccessful as Decker and Lynch were, since Fullbright was obviously never any closer and was no more successful than Decker or Lynch ever were.

The truth is as the 1985-86 Season progressed, it started becoming less and less interesting and the car chases and stunts seemed to have become less and less convincing and more and more phony, although it was kind of interesting seeing Gen. Fullbright chasing The A-Team in some of these episodes during the last 6 months of this season just like it was interesting watching Col. Decker chasing The A-Team in the first few months of this season, but had unfortunately departed after 5 episodes when Decker got replaced by Fullbright in November of 1985 since Decker had so-called ran out steam after biting the dust with the A-Team for over 2 years.

Therefore, the first half of The A-Team's 1985-86 Season was actually better and more interesting than the second half of the Fourth Season, especially since there was no more Decker in the 2nd half of the 4th Season and no more lady co-stars on the team anymore since there was no more Amy or Tawnia on the show anymore, plus it was almost as if the producers were running out of steam and running out of ideas to make this show continue to be interesting along with the fact that this was the last successful season of The A-Team throughout it's whole 4-year run on NBC as if the A-Team was starting to lose their touch as if all the co-stars were starting to get tired as if this show was reaching a saturation point, since the ratings bombed in the following season when Hannibal, BA, and Face was no longer on the run from the military and was no longer for hire to the public since the A-Team had started working for the hard nosed retired Gen. Stockwell(Robert Vaughn) in the Fifth Season which assigned Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Murdock on missions instead, which obviously stole the A-Team's thunder.

Therefore, the last 3 seasons of The A-Team weren't as strong as the first 2 seasons were, since the ratings weren't nearly as high nor as strong as they were in the First and Second Seasons of this show, which was another reason why this show bit the dust in the 1986-87 Season of The A-Team.

Another thing I didn't like about this A-Team-Season 4 DVD was it didn't provide a brief summary with it's original airdate posted for them, unlike Universal did with the first 3 seasons of The A-Team DVD's nor put a brief summary with it's original air date on the DVD package or DVD case like Warner Bros. did with both the CHiPs DVD's and The Dukes Of Hazzard DVD's, which really sucked, because it's harder to know or find out when each episode was shown for the very first time on NBC.

In addition to that, I also noticed that about half the episodes on this A-Team's 4th Season DVD didn't have any previews before the episode either, but I don't know if it may have been perhaps due to budget cuts or if Universal started getting kind of lazy or what, since just about every episode I can recall of had a preview before each episode started when they were shown on their original air dates on NBC throughout the A-Team's whole 1983-87 run on NBC.

This 1985-1986 Season also takes me all the way back to memory lane when NBC's motto was "NBC: Let's All Be There", since that was the slogan for NBC from the Summer of 1984 thru the Summer of 1986, which also takes me all the way back to the days during my early teenage years of adolescence when I was living in my hometown(El Centro, CA), which not your typical city since the whole Imperial Valley is mostly just a small intimate community with very little to do for fun or entertainment, which is why being an Imperial County resident is only okay if you're married or a cop.

It was also interesting seeing
-Della Reese in the "Lease With An Option To Die" episode before her co-starring days on TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL
-Noble Willingham in the "A Little Town With An Accent" episode before his co-starring days on WALKER TEXAS RANGER
-Ismael Carlo in the "Lease With An Option To Die" episode during his co-starring days on DAYS OF OUR LIVES
-Dana Elcar in the "Judgement Day" episode during his co-starring days on MACGYVER
-David Hedison in the "Mind Games" episode after his co-starring days on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
-Richard Anderson in "The Dr. Is Out" episode after his co-starring days as Oscar Goldman on THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN & THE BIONIC WOMAN
-Singers Rick James & Isaac Hayes in "The Heart Of Rock & Roll" episode
-Hulk Hogan in the "Bodyslam" episode
-John Aprea in the "There Goes The Neighborhood" episode after his co-starring days as Houston's cop buddy on MATT HOUSTON
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