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| 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 series mostly studio and backlot bound adventures, the all-filmed look of the 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Picture quality-wise, these episode releases are the best you’re going to get (the series originally made on film but converted to video), and some of them look surprisingly good up scaled compared to the way they were transmitted in late nineties repeats on the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!
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| 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 (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 the original series 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!
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| 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.
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| 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, who assists the team when Casey is captured in a memorable and quite shocking for its time pre-title sequence, which sees her death at the cruel hands of Madame Berezone. The idea of an IMF team member being killed never happened in the original series and this was a clever surprise from the eighties series production team that certainly gives the series a dramatic boost in it’s 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 comfortably better, the lead stars feel more relaxed and the villains much 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.
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| 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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