Mission: Impossible - Season 6

Good morning. This is the sixth season (1971-1972) of "Mission: Impossible" which is again produced by Bruce Lansbury (from season 4 and 5) and supervised by top writer Laurence Heath who also produces six episodes. The series returns to its genesis (the original theme music, a sophisticated leading lady) and solely focuses on the American gangsters threat also known as the Syndicate: the IMF now does Feds jobs instead of Secret Service operations.

There're substantial changes: find a small crew of four IMF agents, a new and real "glamorous" leading lady named Lisa Casey (played by Lynda Day George) who also replaces the master of disguises Paris, the departure of Dr. Doug Robert (which appears once in "Encore") and character Barney who becomes a major asset for the plots and displays his acting knacks, especially in "Mindbend" as a brainwashed fugitive, "Blues" as a junky soul music performer in which he sings twice: "Judy's Gone Now" and Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay", "Image" as a Tarot dealer and he plays twice a master of disguises (actually, his new talent was first shown in the season 5 "The Hostage"): in "Underwater replacing a gangster's henchman and in "Bag Woman" replacing a gangster's right-hand man. A brand new director popsup named Leslie H. Martinson who achieves the masterpiece "Invasion" and will blossom next season.

Above all, this is a showcase for actress Lynda Day George who not only act--her best efforts are highlit in "The Bride" and in "Committed"--but performs a song ("The Gentle Rain") in "Trapped" and we witness her husband Christopher George in "Nerves".

Top episodes are still here as "Encore" (guest starring William Shatner as an old gangster who believes traveling into his own past: June 30, 1937), "Invasion" (an unusual espionage intrigue, guest starring Kevin McCarthy as an American defector who thinks that America has been taken over by the Soviet army), "Mindbend" (a disturbing plot, guest starring Donald Moffat, about brainwashed small-time criminals trained like Pavlov's dogs to kill politicians which foreshadows Alan J. Pakula's "The Parallax View") and fine episodes are numerous as "Blind" (in which Peter Graves gives his best performance as a corrupted Federal agent by simulating the pathology of blindness combined with alcoholism), "The Tram" (from a story written by scripts genius Paul Playdon and guest starring Victor French), "The Miracle" (guest starring Joe Don Baker as a Christianism-hating drug dealer who is conditioned by the IMF to become his moral opposite: good!), "Underwater" (guest starring Fritz Weaver and Jeremy Slate), "Blues" (guest starring William Windom), "The Connection" (guest starring Anthony Zerbe), "The Bride" (guest starring James Gregory), "Committed", "Bag Woman" (guest starring Robert Colbert and Georg Stanford Brown), "Casino" (guest starring Jack Cassidy). As usual, the music scores are inspired, especially "Blind" by Benny Golson who launches the sound of the Syndicate, "Run for the Money" by Robert Drasnin, "Encore" and "The Miracle" by Lalo Schifrin, "Mindbend" by Robert Prince who composes a modernist electronic music.

Ok,looking at the series objectively, Season 6 is the best season so far released on DVD. The early seasons evoke more nostalgia in some people, and that's ok. However, if you look at the early years of Mission: Impossible it seemed that almost every episode took place in some make-believe east bloc communist country,with phoney accents and uniforms. Season 6 is different and more exciting, it takes place mainly in the USA and brings organized crime into the element. The scripts are tight, more believable, and the cast works together like a fine swiss watch. Great viewing, even thought the episodes are almost 40 yrs old. Highly recommend.

Bruce Geller was the creator and Executive Producer of Mission: Impossible which is probably the finest dramatic television series of all time. Unfortunatley, his perfectionism grated on the studio and the network and he was finally forced out. The results of this and the consequent serious decline in the show's quality becomes apparent in this Sixth season.
The first problem was due to "political correctness" of the period which was the early 1970's. At that time, US involvement in the War in Vietnam made many people feel the United States shouldn't "interfere" in other countries' affairs and the producers of the show decided to respond to this by ending the show's emphasis on international intrigue which was the staple of the shows's first four seaons and which was still visible in season 5, although less so. It was decided to switch to having the Impossible Missions Force concentrate on the fight against "the syndicate" (it was politically incorrect also to use the word "Mafia" at the time) in ways the "conventional law enforcement agencies" couldn't utilize, as the voice on the opening taped message would point out. Of course, the Watergate scandal a few short years later would make these types of activities which infringed on the constitutional rights of the subjects of the IMF's activities also "politically incorrect" as well, but the show had been cancelled by that time.
As a result, the large majority of episodes became endless repeats of the theme of taking two partners in an organized criminal enterprise and turning them against one another. For me, seeing a small team of experts taking on a tyrannical, totalitarian regime from the inside is much more exciting than using the same abilities to incriminate a couple of pathetic criminals who often seem like a bunch of saps for falling for the obvious frame-ups concoted by the IMF. This simply becomes overkill and one occasionally ends up feeling sorry for the bad guys simply because they don't have a chance. A good example of this is the ridiculous "Encore" episode starring William Shatner, where he is somehow convinced that he is suddenly 30 years younger.
Even an episode written by Mission: Impossible's most imaginative writer, Paul Playdon ("The Tram"-his last for MI) was ruined by poor directing, exemplified when we enter a room where a gathering of the top Mafia (oops, I meant to say "syndicate") people in the US are planning their operations for the future, and every single one of the men has a really mean scowl on his face as if they are saying to each other, "yes, indeed, gentlemen, we really are bad guys!". I burst out laughing when I saw that, it looked so unnatural-in real life, even mobsters can joke around. Other episodes which had fine actors and had potential for interesting stories had things ruined by introducing artifical "excitement" created by unlikely coincidences and occurrances . One example is "The Connection" starring Anthony Zerbe who had made several appearances in MI in previous seasons. This time, the writers came up with a story that was really uninteresting, and which didn't use Zerbe's outstanding acting abilities, so in order to juice things up for the audience they writers came up with a "stowaway" which introduced nonsensicle "crises" for the IMF to overcome.
Having said all this, by and large, the stories are still fairly entertaining and still better than most of the dramatic stories on television. If you are new to Mission: Impossible, I would recommend starting with seasons 2-4, then seasons 1 and 5 and only then, for the sake of completeness would I purchase this Sixth Season.