Mission impossible, 20 ans après

In a series rebooted 20 years after the original, obviously a few things were going to change. They went for more action, and this MI team got involved in frequent shootouts, something seldom seen in the original.

The original MI plots were tighter and with fewer plot holes than these stories, except for the few they reshot ... which happened because of a writer's strike in 1988.

Finally, you just don't replace Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, and they couldn't on the original series, either. Leonard Nimoy was close, but still not Landau.

However, we enjoyed rewatching this series last summer, and were sorry when we got to the last episode. The actors were engaging enough in their roles to involve us.

As good as the original? No. But decent in it's own right? Yes.

I was a huge fan of the original series and couldn't wait to see this new show when it debuted. I found the cast very attractive (and I was a big fan of Tony Hamilton's, may he rest in peace) but disappointed that they recycled scripts from the original series. Nevertheless, though it wasn't the original, I did enjoy it and would have loved it if they'd kept it going.

I especially liked that they brought Peter Graves back and had him use a lot of new-fangled devices. I don't know why they got rid of the first actress, but Jane Badler was wonderful - and I guess she's since made Australia her home.

When this series originally aired, I remember watching it with my father. I remember being enthralled by the gadgets.

Now that the series is available on DVD, in two sets, it was a pleasure to watch through the whole thing.

As an adult, I'm much more able to see the weaknesses the show had, but I also can appreciate some of the more responsible approaches that the show had, especially in the sense of being a largely peaceful team.

The budget isn't great. Some sequences appear to have been shot on video. Several episodes use stock footage, especially later ones.

The cast is remarkably attractive.

The area where the show falters is later in the first season, and during much of the second. The writing got lazy. The plots got more linear, more predictable. And in some cases, the gimmick for the episode got in the way of making a decent plot.

Another thing that gradually got on my nerves was the laziness in writing the opening scenes, when Phelps retrieves the mission. In many of these, he winds up retrieving the disc, and watching it, in a place much more public than usual. In one of them, he watches it on an amusement park ride, and we see people walking around in the background. Hardly a secure location.

I've been watching episodes from the original series, and while the writing was more careful, and better plotted, the biggest improvement that the 88 Mission Impossible had was the pacing. The episodes felt like they moved along very quickly.

This series is entirely worth watching. But, especially with the reliance on stock footage, the show looks far more dated than it should.

Apparently not all Mission Impossible fans are happy with the 1988 remake. As someone who IS old enough to remember the original, I can tell you that it's actually a pretty good show, and a damn sight better than the movies! The new and old casts are comparable. Let's face it, you don't get to flex a lot of acting muscles on a show like this, so in terms of thespic efforts, I'd say the '88 cast matches the classic cast (Landau/Bain/et.al.) pretty well, and had its own charisma.

Yes, some of the plots are recycled -- a necessity because of a writers' strike at the time. That's the only reason this show got remade in the first place. We're lucky it didn't get yanked after only ONE season when the writers went back to work. But ABC had some modest success with this, and we got an extra year out of it.

Critics have correctly pointed out that one difference between the Missions is that the original was more cagey regarding the information it gave to the audience. For instance, you might see Barney with an electronic device, and Cinnamon and Rollin discussing some bit of trickery, without them explaining what the purpose behind them was. You just had to wait to see the show play out to find out where these things fit into the plot. The newer show, however, had a tendency to want to explain more: "Okay, now we're gonna use these projectors and mirrors to make Mr. Badguy think someone's trying to assassinate him." Another flaw was that some episodes got a little outlandish. Jane Badler in space comes to mind. And the writers had this unnatural love for overlaying supernatural themes on their espionage missions. More than a few plots revolved around spooking some international thug by means of "ghosts" and other hauntings. It was a bit much to believe that so many dictators and terrorists were superstitious enough to fall for this stuff. And one last carp: sometimes the IMF's technology was a bit TOO sci-fi. In one episode, for example, they "un-erased" a videotape while double-talking about some "infrared" layer underneath that could be recovered. That's scientifically illiterate. You'd have as much luck trying to unscramble an egg.

Yet despite these flaws, the show was a delight. The tape recorder sequences were wonderfully updated with a miniature DVD device. The "cons" were still exciting. And the music was just as good as you remembered it...maybe even better. Just the opening title sequence alone was worth tuning in. While it didn't change from week to week as the old show's did, it was very high-tech and very well-cut, like a good music video, and gave the show a welcome face-lift.

And of course it was nice to see Jim Phelps again every week. Even if he had a different supporting cast. Tom Cruise can screw up the franchise all he wants. Mr. Phelps will always be our hero.

I am a huge fan of the new version of Mission Impossible. I am sorry to say I have never seen the older version. I grew up in the 80's and this was one of my favorite shows. I am also a huge fan of the V miniseries which starred Jane Badler and the tv series Cover Up which starred Tony Hamilton. The cast was great and got even better when they added Jane Badler to replace Terry Markwell. The show had amazing locations and special effects. The movies with Tom Cruise were good with the sequel being better than the first. I didnt like the fact that they used the character of Jim Phelps that way. Especially since they didnt have Peter Graves. They should have used a different character name. I too wish the series had lasted longer than two seasons; it deserved to. I have the episodes on tape from where Jane Badler first appeared, but I would like to have all of the new version. I hope they release it on tape or DVD. My copies are showing their age a little.