MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE The '88 TV Season

The 1980's marked the beginning of the period when the concept of the weekly adventure/drama television series that started in the 1950's began to be exhausted so television producers came up with the idea of redoing popular old series in a more modern venue. Among those that appeared were old favorites of mine like Star Trek, Columbo and later the Rockford Files in a more restricted "TV movie" format. In my opinion those three revivals were sadly far below the original series in quality, even though the last two had the original stars. Rockford and Columbo, although they had highly charismatic stars as actors, failed in the revival because the actors had visibly aged and had less energy to put into their roles in addition to the fact that they knew the series could not be made without them.
Fortunately, the revival of Mission: Impossible in 1988 is a whole different story. Peter Graves is back in the role of Jim Phelps as head of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force). Graves did not have the "charismatic" image that the other two had and, as a consequence, we see his steady hand in the role which molds the rest of the team, all of whom are new actors. I can say that this revival series, unlike all the others, remains true to the outstanding original series. The other actors all hold their own with the original stars of the series. The one possible exception was the original woman on the team, played by Terry Markwell, who was weaker in the role, but fortunately she was replaced by Jane Badler who is a more versatile actress. Thaao Penghlis is fine in the role originally filled by Martin Landau and later by Leonard Nimoy as the impersonator and language expert of the team. Tony Hamilton has a much wider range as an actor playing the role of "strong man" originally portrayed by Peter Lupus. Finally Phil Morris, the son of Greg Morris who played technical genius Barney Collier is actually a much better actor than his father in fulfilling the same role on the IMF team.

One interesting aspect of the revival series that could have been a weakness actuallly turns into a strong point was the fact that there was a writer's strike when filming began of the revival series, so several scripts taken from the original series were simply remade with the new cast and with some minor changes. I found the new, more modern interpretation using different directors of the old stories very interesting, and not at all simply a boring rehash of the original. For example, the first episode of the revival is based on the original episode "The Killer" and it is superior to the original. In the original, Leonard Nimoy seemed to be distracted and did not put in a very good performance, but Thaao Penghlis, in the same role is outstanding. I would say the same about John De Lancie who is "the killer" and is more memorable than Robert Conrad was in the original.

As the season progressed new scripts were introduced and, facing the problem that all long-running series face with the challenge of coming up with fresh material there was slippage in the quality of the series. Therefore, for someone who is new to the whole Mission: Impossible concept, I would recommend starting with the original series, particularly seaons 1-5, but this 1988 season is a worthy follow-on and I would recommend it to fans of the original series.

so, at long last the 1988-1990 revival of mission impossible comes to DVD...

i've been waiting for this for a very, very long time. i used to tape the show when it originally aired on ABC and i practically wore out those VHS copies by the mid nineties. then in around 2003 or 04, someone began offering VHS rips burned to DVD-R, so i picked up the whole series and was able to watch it straight through, tracking fuzz lines and half-edited out commercials and all.

now, just like airwolf and the late 80s columbo murder mysteries, i've got another fix of my favorite nostalgia television series on DVD.

people are going on and on about the picture quality. yes, like most shows of the mid eighties to mid nineties, the mission impossible revival was shot on film but EDITED on video (just like star trek TNG). thus often the only masters that have survived to the present are video tape.

i've seen horrible video masters and this ain't it (airwolf season 4 ouch!). as another reviewer noted, it looks exactly like it would have aired. and having watched these episodes over and over again (with commercials!) on my own VHS copies and then later DVD-R rips, now having the shows as they were originally shown is a blessing.

i don't have a CRT standard def television, so i can't comment, but on my oppo BD player + panasonic plasma display, mission impossible 1988 looks bigger and better than i remember.

as for the show, yes peter graves is older and slower, yes the budget is lower and yes it was shot in australia. however many of the stories are quite good and internationally set, and the gadgets are quite fun. best of all is the MUSIC. i think the version of the opening theme for this show is far superior to the original. if you're a die-hard fan of the original 60s/70s show, then yes, this is going to seem like a cheap, almost soap-opera xerox copy of your beloved classic.

but for me, this was the show i grew up with. bring on the 89-90 season!

Faced with a potentially lengthy writers strike in 1988, several producer groups decided to revive old shows where they already owned the rights. Mission Impossible fared better than most of these attempts, due to the use of original series plots and Peter Graves. Graves reprised his role as Jim Phelps with an all-new team only faintly resembling the previous group. His on-screen presence, and better writing, carried the show. It ran up against the Cosby Show and ratings eventually plunged.
Note that this is only the 19 episodes from 1988. The 1989 episodes (16) have yet to be released.

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