Mission: Impossible – The Complete Second Season (DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B+
Though it
seems like he was there from the beginning, Peter Graves actually joined Mission: Impossible in its second
season as Jim Phelps after Steven Hill left the show as IMF head Dan
Briggs. The rest of the original cast
returned including Barbara Bain as model Cinnamon Carter, Greg Morris as
electronics expert Barney Collier, Peter Lupus as strongman/good henchman Willy
Armitage and Martin Landau now established as a regular playing master of
disguise Rollin Hand. This set contains
the entire second season of shows as follows:
1)
The Widow (9/10/1967) – William Windom
plays a heroin kingpin who has just made a record purchase he intends to unleash
from an unnamed Asian country, but the team is asked to stop him at all costs.
2)
Trek (9/17/1967) – The late, great
Daniel O’Herlihy (Robocop) plays a
man who steals some very rare gold, only to land up in a prison out of U.S. reach
where its head (Mark Lenard from Star
Trek) knows he stole it, knows where it is and wants to know how to get
it. The IMF is asked to free him and
recapture the gold. Michael Pate also
stars.
3)
The Survivors (9/24/1967) – Albert Paulsen
returns as a different agent this season, one the IMF who is trying to kidnap
the proper combination of agents to get a priceless, deadly formula. Another good show.
4)
The Bank (10/1/1967) – The team has to
stop a communist from taking over his own satellite country and turning into
The Fourth Reich, as he is a secret Nazi.
Plays better than it sounds and holds up well for its age.
5)
The Slave (1; 10/8/1967) – The IMF battles
white slavery by becoming directly involved in this cleverly-penned two-parter
that has them traveling to The Persian Gulf.
Percy Rodriguez, Sid Haig and Peter Lorre Jr. make up the many of the
supporting cast.
6)
The Slave (2; 10/15/1967)
7)
Operation “Heart” (10/22/1967) – Michael Strong is
a Stalinist-style chief of secret police ready top overthrow his government
unless the IMF can stop him. Pernell
Roberts plays the imprisoned doctor who may know these plans when the rest of
the government there does not. Arthur
Rowe co-wrote one of the more interesting episodes of this season here.
8)
The Money Machine (10/29/1967) – Brock Peters plays
an evil African financer going in for the kill unless the IMF can stop him from
overthrowing a democratic government already having its own troubles. A very good show with some real twists that
work.
9)
The Seal (11/5/1967) – This all time
masterwork of the series influenced the first Tom Cruise film as the team has
to retrieve a 2,000-year-old jade figure that should go back to its country of
origin, but a very wealthy and powerful business man played to perfection by
Darren McGavin becomes one of their best adversaries. The statue is under one of the tightest
security set-ups ever built, but it will take more than a team member in a cat
suit to get it, so they train an actual cat!
10) Charity (11/12/1967) – Fritz Weaver and
Hazel Court are an evil married couple who rob from the defenseless and poor,
then give to themselves, partly by running illegal charities. When their activities cross the further line
and threaten some unsuspecting millionaires who cannot be told outright about
this, so the IMF has to intervene and get the stolen money back.
11) The Council (1; 11/19/1967) – Paul Stevens is
a syndicate head and Vincent Gardenia surprisingly good in this two-parter
about how the IMF is sent to break up their biggest operation by attacking
their Swiss bank accounts. One wonders
if a theatrical film release was considered for either of these two-parters.
12) The Council (1; 11/26/1967)
13) The
Astrologer (12/3/1967) – Cinnamon pretends to be a lady who can see the
near future as the IMF infiltrates another dictatorship, but this time, its
leader is superstitious a bit and they intend to make that his undoing.
14) Echo Of
Yesterday (12/10/1967) – Hans Gudegast, know known as Eric Braeden, plans
to bring back the Nazis with the help of Otto Kelmann (Wilford Hyde-White
playing a bad guy for a change, and well) who owns a huge munitions business
and is ready to turn it over to Col. Marcus von Frank (Gudegast) to make this
all possible. One of the better
thrillers of this season.
15) The Photographer (12/17/1967) – Anthony Zerbe is
in villain mode again as the title character, actually bringing in tons of
spies into the U.S., then leash a deadly virus.
Then the destruction of New York City is planned. Very interesting and John Randolph (Seconds) also stars.
16) The Spy (1/7/1968) – Joseph Campanella
plays a traitorous captain who might be able to get the rest of NATO’s missile
plans unless the IMF can stop him. They
also want to recover the first part, which leads to a complicated plan, but once
again, this is laid out well. Kate
Woodville and Karl Swenson also star.
17) A Game of Chess (1/14/1968) – The IMF must stop a
huge shipment of gold from going back to the USSR, so they turn to the
country’s favorite game to foil their plans.
Another interesting show that has aged better than expected.
18) The Emerald (1/21/1968) – Michael Strong
stars (already?) as a different USSR figure, a deadly KGB type out to get the
tile item, which has plans to devaluate the U.S. dollar contained within
it. Very good and more like the outright
tête-à-tête spy show you would expect.
19) The Condemned (1/28/1968) – Solid show where an
old friend of Phelps is condemned to death and he gets the team to help save
him. A season highlight.
20) The Counterfeiter
(2/4/1968) – Edmund O’Brien is a man who uses his clinics chain to make
counterfeit drugs, but his new scheme to replace a new wonder drug with fakes
could kills thousands, so the IMF has to expose him without him knowing it.
21) The Town
(2/18/1968) – Will Geer shows up in shades of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds as
Phelps is kept against his will in a small town where he is marked for murder
and told he had a stroke when he has not.
Worth seeing for Geer alone.
22) The
Killing (2/28/1968) – Phelps is set up as a fake target to get a top
Gangster assassin in this decent show with its share of wit about it.
23) The Phoenix
(3/3/1968) – East Bloc chairman Stephan Prohosh (Alf Kjellin) has been demoted
to working in a museum, but in one of the many artifacts is a stolen secret
alloy substance that he will use to regain power unless the IMF can stop his
mad plans. Another interesting show.
24) Trail By
Fury (3/10/1968) – The team goes to South America to help the fledgling
head of a new democratic party stay alive and gain power, but one of his
assistants (Michael Tolan as Santos Cardoza) is in prison and if he is seen as
a snitch, will be instantly killed. Not
unless the IMF gets in first. Sid Haig
and Victor French also star.
25) Recovery
(3/17/1968) – Bradford Dillman is a U.S. scientist who has defected and when
two U.S. SAC bombers crash in USSR territory, he is the key to breaking the
U.S. fail safe system unless the IMF can get here first. Another Cold War story that holds up well.
Yes, that
is less shows that the first season, but they likely spent more money on them. The show was still in peak form, but it
become a little talkier and a little sentimental in a way that did not hurt
this season, but both would eventually hurt the series in the long run. This is still the show that caused colleges
across the nation to cease activities every week to watch it and was still in
top rate shape. Graves had been bashed
for his lack of acting skills often before, but he is very good on this show
and it assured a long career to come.
The 1.33
X 1 image is in color and again from a round of new transfers, but is just
lacking the total detail throughout one would hope for throughout. However, the clarity and color on these uncut
shows is so good, that they are a constant pleasure to watch with visual
surprises throughout. Though the
original show was monophonic and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track is included for
each show, Paramount has upgraded each show to Dolby 5.1 and the results are
not bad. You can hear sonic limits, but
it is a nice alternative. Some episodes
were previously released on VHS and even a couple of 12” LaserDiscs, but these
are the best copies to date, looking pretty ready for both HD formats.
Sadly,
there are no extras again, but this
is a must-see set. Remember, this was a
show so bold in its time that it even showed a compilation of shots from the
entire show before it began and was never matched in this respect. It still falls a tad short of the amazing
first season, but is very close. We
highly recommend this box and the first show, which you can read more about at
this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4632/Mission:+Impossible+–+The+Complete
- Nicholas Sheffo
