Have you noticed the final two episodes of The A-Team are seemingly out of order?

Which episode do you consider the true ending?

The A-Team will always be remembered for the firepower, explosions, resilient theme music and the heroic acts from Hannibal, Howling Mad, Face and B.A.

The show spanned five seasons and nearly 100 total episodes. It took off in popularity the very first time it hit the air, premiering Jan. 23, 1983, "reaching over 25% of the television audience and placing fourth in the Nielsen Top 10," according to NBC.com.

Over those five seasons, The A-Team earned three Emmy nominations along with plenty of spinoff content such as novels, comic books and a 2010 feature film version.

Though the show certainly had its highs, there were some lows as well. Cast changes at times were abrupt and in season four, ratings were on the decline. Ultimately, the drop in viewership caused NBC to cancel the show halfway through the fifth season, after just 13 episodes.

During the original run of the final season, only 12 episodes were played, with the last one being titled "The Grey Team."

"The Grey Team," which premiered on Dec. 30, 1986, seemed to be the abrupt but feasible ending to the series, with several cues that things could wrap up by episode's end. 

The Team openly discussed what the next steps were, even if they were to break away from Stockwell's grip and risk losing their pardons. 

Murdock tells a couple of elderly gentlemen who want to join the A-Team, "the truth is we might not even be in the bad guy fighting business much longer."

He says this while wearing an open jacket, revealing the word "fini" on his shirt, meaning "finished" in French.

The episodes ends with a wholesome sound and a freeze-frame of the team smiling. A rather clear indication that the series could be over, all while fitting that classic Eighties TV sequence. 

That's where things get interesting.  

After the show was off the air, one thing stood out as reruns began; the last episode. An episode titled "Without Reservations" was shown as the last episode of the series, following "The Grey Team" episode.

"Without Reservations" hadn't been seen before and was aired for the first time on March 8, 1987, three months after the show had seemingly come to an end. 

Strangely, it was also aired after "The Grey Team" but was much more of a traditional A-Team episode, not really drawing to the conclusion of the series as "The Grey Team" seemed to do. It's believed the episode "Without Reservations" was aired out of order.

In the "Without Reservations" episode, "Murdock is seen wearing a shirt saying 'Almost Fini' - meaning 'Almost Finished' - further proof that 'Without Reservations' was supposed to be the second-to-last episode," according to A Classic Rock & Culture article.

In episode lists on both IMDb.com and Wikipedia, the final episode is listed as "Without Reservations," though all the signs suggest that "The Grey Team" was intended to wrap up the series. 

So it begs the question, do you think ''Without Reservations'' is the series finale because it was technically the last episode to air new, or is it "The Grey Team" because of how the plots in each episode play out? You be the judge!

The ''Finished'' T-shirt Murdock is wearing in ''The Grey Team'' which aired on Dec. 30, 1986.


The ''Almost Finished'' T-shirt Murdock is wearing in ''Without Reservations'' which aired on March 8, 1987, after ''The Grey Team.'' Seems like this one should've aired first!


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36 Comments

Malenka102 11 months ago
Not to mention that “without reservations” opens with footage from a previous episode. MeTV please keep “The A-Team” in syndication. Your commercials advertise that beginning in May there will be two hours of M*A*S*H (another of my favorite shows) for one month that’s a wonderful tribute-yet please do remove A-Team from your line up. My family and I watch it nightly on MeTV.
Glaze1 13 months ago
I loved ATeam growing up and I watch it every week night now. Thank you ME TV ! Keep it rolling!!! Please 🥺
ttenchantr 20 months ago
Same thing happened with Night Court. The two part finale "Opportunity Knock Knocks" aired May 13, but a never before seen episode "The 1992 Boat Show" aired on May 31.
Coldnorth 20 months ago
I have always enjoyed watching the A Team but I have only watched season 5 once on tv and once on dvd. I don’t even remember what happened to them to end the series
Coldnorth Coldnorth 20 months ago
The first 4 seasons had so much humor. I will watch them even after their run on MeTV. Thanks to dvds. Hope everyone has a nice day. It could be nicer for me if MeTV added fantasy island
F5Twitster 20 months ago
"[Murdock] says this while wearing an open jacket, revealing the word 'fini' on his shirt, meaning "finished" in French."

"Finished" in French is "achevé"; the French word FINIS (not "fini") means "end."

Don't write about things you don't know or understand.
ncadams27 F5Twitster 20 months ago
FINIS is Latin for The End (as in a movie)
FINI is French for Finished

RichLorn ncadams27 20 months ago
What about "Kaput"?
JoeGuenther 20 months ago
The final season was awful.
BrittReid JoeGuenther 20 months ago
Along with the four prior to it.
JoeGuenther 1 month ago
This comment has been removed.
BrittReid 1 month ago
This comment has been removed.
SteveMcnary 20 months ago
The show Just Shoot Me ended up showing what should've been the last episode 2nd to last. Miami Vice had an episode shown after the show had already ended.
vinman63 20 months ago
After quiting the ATeam, Murdock would later find work as a chef Mung and have to play second fiddle to a mutated cat/rabbit by the name of chowder.
LynCarceo vinman63 20 months ago
Plus, he got to go where no man has gone before, and helped bring Voyager home.
vinman63 LynCarceo 20 months ago
I missed that should check into it
Runeshaper 20 months ago
Seems like they are out of order. Perhaps ''Without Reservations'' was dropped and then added on later as an accident or a "whatever".
Pacificsun 20 months ago
The article above reads like true AT fan wrote it, who also happens to be a MeTV Staff Writer! How fun!

The discussion is continued through one of the fandom sites at the link below. So before a reader settles on a particular opinion, some information helps to explain the confusion. While "production order" seems most logical, it's not always the indicator, as the site explains. Only the network and producers know the true fate of a series, for the reasons of budgeting and scheduling craft and acting talent. And that particular episodes can be shown for the purposes of Nielsen Ratings (in the day).

https://theateamforum.proboards.com/thread/567/production-order-episodes
BuckeyeBeth 20 months ago
I agree with the article. Considering what actually goes on in the episodes Almost Fini is the next to last episode and Fini should be the last episode.

I knew Murdoch used to wear a lot of crazy shirts but I had never noticed the ones in these last two episodes. But then again I’ve only seen a handful of episodes since they originally aired so if I did noticed I had forgotten it. That’s quite clever that the wardrobe department did that. From what I’ve watched with YouTube convention videos Dirk and Dwight were very much in tune with the gags and enjoyed being a creative with them.
Pacificsun BuckeyeBeth 20 months ago
That they were good enough sports to participate in those conventions shows how much talent they invested in the series, with an appreciation for their fans.

It always amazes me when a series is so clearly popular, developing it's own cult fandom (even in the day) and then ends ONLY because of a relative decline in the ratings. The ratings then were based on 3 major networks, and while networks banked on habitual viewing for their bread & butter, the network "game" was to challenge another network's popular show, with one of their own. So, ultimately, DA's as they were, both lost. Viewers didn't like having to search for their favorite show. Nor did they appreciate having to choose among favorites. A better approach would've been to refresh a lagging show with added talent (as the AT tried in the 5th season) or a twist in the storyline to make watching the episodes even more compelling.
BuckeyeBeth Pacificsun 20 months ago
Unfortunately the problem was the A-Team was fighting the network heads. From what I understand listening to Dirk and Dwight the studio hated the show because it was juvenile humor (and apparently because it also showed Vietnam veterans in a good light) and the studio really wanted to be known for intelligent content. The drop in ratings in the last season seem to be just the excuse they needed to get rid of the show. Dirk said by the fifth season Mr. T was kind of concentrating on other projects and he thinks George, being older, was just getting tired, although he thought it could have gone 7yrs if the producers had just supported it. Apparently they would take their good writers at the end of the season and allow them to jump to other shows. Because of that it was hard to get good consistent writing. Dwight and Dirk both say it was not that uncommon they had to improvise parts of scenes because nothing had been written. They have talked about actually enjoying being creative and writing scenes together in these instances. It really is a shame the show didn’t get the support it should have had.

And apparently the Netherlands have really love the A-Team from the start. I’ve seen videos of the guys over there doing promotion for the show in the 80s and convention footage in the 2000s. The last convention footage I’ve seen I think is from 2017. The pandemic has screwed all conventions up lately. But Dwight has said it was more popular there than it ever was in the US. The guys seem to genuinely really appreciate the fans whether it’s for the A-Team, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.
Pacificsun BuckeyeBeth 20 months ago
Thank you for sharing! And hearing from the co-stars helps rise above rumors and hearsay. Only my hunch (𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 if you will) is that Universal was a cash-cow studio, with a lot of projects in the fire (no surprise). One thing about a series continuing season-after-season (though it's such a popular choice of fans) is that salaries and compensation goes up exponentially. Because nothing kills a show worse than losing what made it popular in the first place. And the notable actors/personalities were high salaried. Even if one star gets their way with an increase, means competitively compensating in some fashion all around. If it can't be done though dollars, actors expect other perks to keep them happy. We were just having a discussion about MASH's finale (after 11 seasons). And even the craft-talent behind the show said it was the worst one they'd ever worked in terms of demands and conflict. "𝒜𝓇𝓉𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒾𝒸 𝓉𝒶𝓁𝑒𝓃𝓉, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌!"

As an A-Team trivia fan, here's a link to a brief discussion about another fun point! I can tell you the answer, but it's always fun to speculate!!
https://filmboards.com/board/t/Weird-gloves-on-The-A-Team-1990786/
Zip 20 months ago
Obviously, "The Grey Team" should have been the last episode by the looks of it. But then studios have this weird habit of mixing up episode orders for some reason.
They did the same thing with Mama's Family. On episode 11, "Alien Marriage," Vinton is not yet married to Naomi, and Naomi is even in the episode still as Mama's neighbor and not as Vint's wife(which happened in episodes 2, 3&4 - they get engaged in #2, and married in the two-part episodes 3 & 4).
Alien Marriage "should have" been episode #2.
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Pacificsun cperrynaples 20 months ago
(Smile!) While these aren't university level classes, didn't we already have the discussion about the HD episode confusion? Didn't it have to do with the Olympics taking over the timeslot, so those episodes had to be put off. But even so, a network can and will choose which episodes better serve their interests. In the day, they would run the most appeal choices during Sweeps months (usually May and October). My hunch is that appropriate themed storylines go better near certain holidays.

Not in reference to yourself, but I'm not sure why the order of episodes makes much difference. But I used to argue to the final bell with a particular contributor who swore the production order of ST:TOS was more important than how they were played. There is no such reality in the continuity of sitcoms and most dramas, unless they are intentionally laid out in advance for that purpose. Even Dallas invented episodes to fill in their story arc lapses (illness, death, retirements).
LoveMETV22 Zip 20 months ago
Yes that was it, the back and forth was on when the last episode was filmed. It wouldn't make sense if they had broadcast it last.
LoveMETV22 Pacificsun 20 months ago
PS; Just a quick add. Both would have been good endings, however " As Time Goes By" only works
if they didn't have GF&A. So in the end it was good they had both. GF&A was a better conclusion.
Pacificsun Zip 20 months ago
Re: more emotions

That's a good point, which I now remember was part of some story written, where the actors talked about it. I do believe that ardent M-fans would've been very disappointed without a definite finale. Which IMO the producers did a definite job about emphasizing the point (thus the phrase).

It should be noted lest too much sentimentality be assumed, that it was the 11th season for churning out a very complicated show. And somewhere along the line those behind the scenes said it was one of the worst shows they'd worked on. Due to incessant demands and creative clashes. While it's tough to say goodbye to any dependable paycheck, I would also read into some portion of their presence honest-to-heavens, relief.
LoveMETV22 20 months ago
Good story MeTV. If going by visual cues of the t-shirts Murdock was wearing, then
''Without Reservations'', should have been the second to last episode with ''The Grey Team'' as the final episode. It wasn't as if their costuming department on up to the director of the series would miss something that obvious. According to the Wikipedia page Season 5 of the A-Team:

"Despite being aired last, 'Without Reservations' is, in fact, the penultimate episode, but was aired out of order three months after this episode, the reasons for which are unclear."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_A-Team_(season_5)
Pacificsun LoveMETV22 20 months ago
VERY good story!! I really enjoy these discussions for expanding the conversations!! And it's where the ultimate-fans can be helpful because they've probably already gone through this.
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