One team of crime-fighters you don't want to mess with! Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) and his force are back in the new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series of the eighties. Images: CBS DVD/REVELATION FILMS. |
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE COMPLETE ’88 TV SEASON
Starring Peter Graves
Released on UK DVD by CBS DVD/REVELATION FILMS
Reviewed by Scott Weller
Prepare to feel genuinely sorry once again for
all the warlords, overlords, henchmen, killers and blackmailers that get
completely overpowered and defeated by the legendary master manipulator Jim
Phelps and his Impossible Missions Force in
the premiere UK release from CBS DVD/REVELATION FILMS of the first exciting and
highly enjoyable 1988 season of the modern MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series, based
on the original and iconic seven-year series created by Bruce Geller.
The classic motifs, IMF team member skills and
series technology are all nicely upgraded, and, though Jim Phelps may have
silver hair these days, original series veteran and main star, the late,
much-missed Peter Graves, incredibly seems to facially de-age as the nineteen
episodes of the new season go on, ably assisted by a fine American/Australian
cast including Thaao Penglis as face changing Nicholas, Antony Hamilton as all-action
hero Max, Phil Norris as techno-wizard Grant, and lovely ladies Terry Markwell
and Jane Badler as diversions and all-round helpers Casey and Shannon, in a
time when eighties technology hadn’t yet become the size of an iPod, and when
big hair and shoulder pads on women were still considered fashionable!
Replacing the original's mostly studio and
backlot bound adventures, the all-filmed look of the new series on location has
held up pretty well, with the Australian behind the scenes talent, headed by
Jeffrey Hayes Productions, having done a good job overall in taking over the
heavy production burden of the American created series and the various
worldwide settings it has to recreate, of which new and old talent from the
original series generally mix well.
Picture quality-wise, these episode releases
are the best you’re going to get (the series originally made on film but
converted to video), of which some of them look surprisingly good up-scaled compared
to the way they were transmitted in late nineties repeats on the UK’s GRANADA
PLUS channel and very poor late eighties VHS rental tapes.
So, sit back and enjoy, as Lalo Schifrin’s
great, pulse pounding MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE theme once more brings in a new set
of adventures for fans old and new to enjoy.
Light
the flame!
The new IMF team: Casey (Terry Markwell), Max (Antony Hamilton), Jim (Peter Graves), Grant (Phil Norris) and Nicholas (Thaao Penglis). |
Here’s a KOOL TV look at some of the most
notable episodes of the first season…
KILLER (SERIES/SEASON PREMIERE)
Brought out of retirement, a revenge fuelled
Jim Phelps, keeping the exploding video disc industry in business for a few
more years, assembles a new IMF team to seek out the men responsible for the
murder of one of his ex-team mates: the killer known as Scorpio (STAR TREK’s
John de Lancie) and the unknown conspirator who hired him to do the job.
A solid start reintroducing the series, the
decision to re-imagine one of its most popular episodes is a
good one, and its realisation, now set in London rather than the US, is
reasonably good. Our Aussie compatriots also get the look of British Taxi Cabs
right, too, and in a far better way than Hawaii ever did for the British Empire
in LOST!
Like father, like son. Phil Morris is the series new techno-wizard, Grant. |
HOLOGRAMS
The team has to lure a dictator (Gerard Kenney)
off his island stronghold by lure of a supposed long lost son.
THE CONDEMNED
Framed for murder by a corrupt police boss,
classic series veteran Barney Collier has to be rescued from a lethal Turkish prison
and the real culprit uncovered.
It’s great to have the late Greg Morris back in
this series re-working of another classic seventies episode, though his
characters involvement in the scenario feels a little bit shoe-horned at times.
THE PAWN
The team have to smuggle a Russian scientist/chess
master (Brian Marshall) and his daughter out of Czechoslovakia via an
international chess tournament, and through the use of both a little bit of
magic and a genuine moment of inspiration! By no means a classic episode, but
it has some notable moments of inter-action for our IMF team.
THE HAUNTING
A double task for the team this week as they
have to locate the body of a missing oil sheik’s princess daughter, murdered
and buried at a closed down Hawaii amusement park, and reveal the culprit, whom
they believe to be a wealthy socialite and Ted Bundy-ish serial killer of
wealthy women, Champ Foster (Parker Stevenson). Directed by BABYLON 5 veteran
Mike Vejar, Tony Hamilton gets to have some fun portraying a fellow serial
killer taunting Foster.
THE LIONS
The IMF team must stop the assassination of the
young heir to his rightful throne of a Himalayan-type principality, of which
the would-be king must also solve a clever and dangerous ceremonial test
designed to stop any pretenders. Dangers all manipulated by the late king’s
regent, his power greedy brother (James Shigita), who has ultimate plans that
could threaten East/West relations, in this fun tale which, despite some wonky
special effects and back projection work here and there, uses the whole IMF
team generally well.
THE GREEK
It’s time to wear garish eighties suits and
costumes and become shady businessmen again, as the team infiltrate and destroy
from the inside out an international drug smuggling cartel, whose members
include SPIDER-MAN TV series star Nicholas Hammond.
V's Jane Badler is a most welcome new addition to the series as Shannon. |
THE FORTUNE
One of the season highlights. A veteran guest
star of the original series, the glamorous Barbara Luna, plays a nasty Imelda
Marcus type figure, Madame Berezone, living as an exile in Florida with her
almost gaga dictator husband (Michael Pate), whom the IMF must recover stolen
money from and destroy their credibility as returning leaders to their South
American country. This episode sees the first appearance of ex-V star Jane
Badler as new IMF member Shannon Reed, assisting the team when Casey is
captured in a memorable and quite shocking for its time pre-title sequence,
murdered at the cruel hands of Madame Berezone. The idea of an IMF
team member being killed never happened in the original series, so this was a
clever surprise from the eighties series production team that certainly gives
the series a dramatic boost mid-season…
THE FIXER
The team has to destroy the credibility of a
powerful journalist/broadcaster, Arthur Six (Richard Romanus), who possesses a blackmail
database that must be retrieved at all costs.
From this mid-point on, the series has found
its feet. The productions feel more comfortably assured, the lead stars are more relaxed and
the villains better written and cast.
THE DEVILS
Satanic worship and blackmail by British Lord
Holman (John Stanton) on his Druid estate have to be exposed by Jim and the
team in this daft but enjoyable episode, which sees our beloved Jane B.
becoming a gypsy fortune teller who looks like she's escaped from an eighties
Fleetwood Mac concert, whilst Jim become Lucifer himself to trap their
opponent.
Australian star Tony Hamilton as the heroic Max. |
THE PLAGUE
A deadly age-accelerant virus is stolen from a
secret Paris laboratory, which the team must retrieve from the clutches of a
beautiful but deadly weapons merchant, played by Roger Moore's 007 friendly
adversary, OCTOPUSSY’s leggy Swedish lovely, Maud Adams.
It’s not one of the series greatest episodes
but it’s fun: Tony Hamilton gets to do some 007 style antics early on, whilst
Jane Badler gets to start her soon real-life singing career in the villains Parisian
nightclub lair.
REPRISAL
Female members of Jim’s earlier IMF team
are bring killed off by a lunatic serial killer, Russell Acker (David Cameron),
who has close past ties with the crime-busting organization and Jim Phelps. Can
Acker and his accomplice be stopped from reaching their next victim: the now
retired Lisa Casey? An enjoyable episode from writer Walter Brough that works
around the series regular format yet manages to include its popular series
elements, too. There’s also some nice continuity to the past with the return of
popular early seventies team lady Lynda Day George as Lisa.
SUBMARINE
Another classic seventies episode gets an
eighties upgrade, as the IMF must trap a bitter and corrupt naval boss (Mitchell
Ryan) from selling high-tech underwater canisters boasting a computer virus
capable of destroying the worlds sea based technology. To do this, Jim must create
another one of the show’s classic world catastrophe scenarios to ensnare their
prey. Nicely directed by Australian series veteran Colin Budds.
THE BAYOU
Jazz and voodoo make an effective combo for the
IMF team, as they take on a white slavery ring in the deepest depths of the
Louisiana everglades.
Frank Thring does a fine impersonation of
Sidney Greenstreet, whilst ex-dancer Paula Kelly is a fine second-in-command,
Pepper Le Veaux, whom the team skillfully uses to destroy the criminal enterprise.
Plus, we get Jane Badler playing a sultry snake dancing Voodoo high priestess.
Things don’t get better than that!
A fine season finale, confidently handled by by British TV series veteran director Don Chaffey.
Get the new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE here: Mission Impossible 88 [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Film & TV
Look out for Season Two of the eighties
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE on UK DVD in the not too distant future.
With thanks to REVELATION FILMS for their help and assistance in the writing of this feature.
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