planktonrules

Season three of "Mission: Impossible" featured an episode which made you wonder WHY it was done in the first place. After all, the team usually dealt with evil foreign powers in these earlier episodes. In this episode, the IM team infiltrates the boxing industry to show it's corrupt and run by mobsters. It seemed like a subject that had little to do with previous or later episodes and although enjoyable, it's not exactly something I loved. However, now in the show's final season, they essentially have the same plot with "The Fighter"...another episode about mob influence in boxing. With episodes like this, it seems pretty obvious the show was running out of steam (and plot ideas) towards the end and, perhaps, they were just going through the paces.

Jay Braddock and Paul Mitchell essentially run the boxing industry, forcing boxers to throw fights in order to make them richer. And, if the boxers don't play nice with them, 'accidents' happen. The team's job is to destroy this partnership and make the pair pay for their not-niceness.

This is an okay episode...very familiar and lacking originality. If you're going to skip an episode, why not skip this retread of an episode?

Thomas Bachman (George Maharis) has stolen two computer reels filled with incriminating information about the mob. Matthew Drake (Cameron Mitchell) tried to chase him and got his legs severely damaged from a bomb planted by Bachman. Suffice to say, Drake is not exactly a member of the Thomas Bachman fan club!

Bachman is sneaking back into the US by plane. The plan is to convince this guy that he's stumbled into a small community of folks who can seemingly live forever thanks to magic water. And, using this water, they appear to make Bachman about 20-30 years younger. What's next?

The advanced folks who can live forever and even revive the dead or dying is taken from season six's "The Visitors" and making a person seem to lose many years is from "Encore"...and both feature heavily into this episode. It's very enjoyable but also derivative. In other words, the show seemed to be running low on originality and resorted to recycling plot ideas. If you've never seen these other episodes, you'll no doubt enjoy "The Fountain" more.

I was about to score this one a respectable 7 when I remembered just how awful the makeup job was on Maharis in the show. You need to see it to believe how terribly it's been done.