"This tape will self destruct in five seconds..." - Bob Johnson as the voice on the tape after giving agent Jim Phelps his assignment
Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season DVD Review
By Jude Clement
In Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season, Impossible Missions Force leader James Phelps (Peter Graves, Airplane!) faces his greatest challenge yet: replacing “Man of a Million Faces” Rollin Hand and Elite “Model of the Year” Cinnamon Carter as part of his Impossible Missions team. (Husband and wife duo Martin Landau and Barbara Bain left the show in a contract dispute after the third season.) How will he fill up his team? Very logically, of course.
When Phelps receives a secret, self-destructing communiqué detailing a touchy situation the government needs solved swiftly, effectively, and clandestinely, he leafs through a portfolio of IMF operatives to determine the best roster for the latest assignment. The team usually consists of electronics expert Barney Collier (Greg Morris, Vega$), world record holding muscleman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus, Police Squad!), and for a feminine touch, a female guest of the week (often played by Barnaby Jones’ Lee Meriwether). Replacing Hand is Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, as Paris, a noted magician and master of disguise.
The faces may have changed, but the scope of IMF's covert assignments are still the same: pull a con to prevent a global incident or stop a larger crime. When an alliance of two countries threatens the invasion of a third, Jim and the team must crack a sophisticated code in a matter of minutes (“The Code”). When one nation threatens to bankrupt another by forcing them to exchange perfectly counterfeited money for gold in their reserves, the IMF must destroy the counterfeit bills and the plates used to make them (“Fool’s Gold”). When a soon-to-be-released war criminal plans to bankroll neo-Nazis with stolen loot, the team uses a fake submarine and psychological games to trick him into revealing the Swiss bank account (“The Submarine”).
The most ambitious storyline in season four is the three-part “The Falcon.” The IMF must stop a rogue general from marrying the king’s sister and then wiping out the remaining heirs so that he can rule the country himself. Fake diamonds, a magic act, double-crosses, a trained falcon, and Meriwether as a “seer” make “The Falcon” must-see viewing for fans of the series.
Some of the plots are a little repetitive and...frankly...don’t make much sense. But it is also this Rube Goldberg-style that makes the series so fun to watch. Who cares if these plans would never work in real life? The sheer ingenuity rarely becomes dull.
And here’s another admirable trait that we rarely see in television these days: the series relies heavily on visuals rather than dialogue. How many other shows would be daring enough to spend five or so minutes simply watching Barney set up one of their ruses? It challenges viewers to figure things out for themselves rather than have everything explained to them.
Familiar faces in season four include A. Martinez (L.A. Law), Harold Gould (Rhoda), Michael Constantine (Room 222), Karl Swenson (Little House on the Prairie), Sid Haig (Jason of Star Command), Larry Linville (M*A*S*H), Anne Francis (Riptide), Anthony Zerbe, John Vernon (Acapulco H.E.A.T.), Noel Harrison (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.), Gregory Sierra (Barney Miller), Fernando Lamas, Barry Williams (The Brady Bunch), Jessica Walter (Arrested Development), Booth Colman (Planet of the Apes), Carl Betz (The Donna Reed Show), Pernell Roberts (Trapper John, M.D.), and Cicely Tyson.
The twenty-six episodes that make up Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season are divided onto seven discs. The discs are housed in four slim, clear plastic keepcases, three of which hold two discs. The fronts of the cases feature photos of the series' stars...including the lit fuse that begins each episode's opening credits. The backs of the cases include titles and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases include a stylized map of the world. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The static DVD menus are simple and easy to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose them individually. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
