Mission Impossible - The Fourth TV Season | 
 enlarge | Directors: Max Hodge, Reza Badiyi, Barry Crane, Leonard Horn, Paul Krasny
Actors: Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Barbara Anderson
Studio: CBS Paramount Domestic Television
Category: DVD
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $34.98
You Save: $15.01 (30%)
New (37) Used (9) from $34.98
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 3030
Format: Ac-3, Box Set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 7
Running Time: 1314 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 1.3
MPN: 132634
UPC: 097361326344
EAN: 0097361326344
ASIN: B0012Z36FI
Theatrical Release Date: September 17, 1966
Release Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW sealed shipped daily.100000s of DVDs, Cds, Blu-Ray, HD-DVDs in stock!
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Product Description
The head of the "Impossible Missions Force" a top-secret government group of operatives starts a tape recorder and finds out about his latest assignment. Throughout most of the series they would have to stop some petty dictator or powerful bad guy from whatever evil plot they had against the U.S. or Democracy in general. The elaborate use of electronic gadgetry masters of disguise and detailed plans that require split-second timing made this tv show an "on the edge of your seater"!System Requirements:Running Time: 1314 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097361326344 Manufacturer No: 132634
Amazon.com
Foil the invasion of a democratic country? No problem. Rescue members of a royal family from their would-be usurper? Piece of cake. Replace the irreplaceable Martin Landau and thrice-Emmy-winner Barbara Bain, who departed Mission after its third season? Now that's impossible! But in this classic series' fourth season, the veteran and rookie members of the Impossible Mission Force still put on a good show. The most prominent new addition to the IMF dossier is Leonard Nimoy as Paris, magician and master of disguise. Lee "Catwoman" Meriwether appears in several episodes as Tracey. Other guest stars make less of an impression; Alexandra Hay makes her only appearance on the show in the season opener as Lynn, who, in the course of an elaborate plot to shatter an alliance between two would-be dictators is caught, strip-searched, and thrown into prison (she disappears mid-episode and is never seen again; viewers never do get to see her sprung). An unintentionally hilarious moment that would have made Mad magazine proud comes in the three-parter, "The Falcon," in which IMF leader Jim Phelps' (Peter Graves) dossier of agents at his disposal includes the eponymous trained animal! Lending Mission: Impossible its international intrigue are the villains from such exotic sounding countries as Nueva Tierra. Great character actors, including John "Dean Wormer" Vernon, Harold Gould and Pernell Roberts portray accented bad guys to the hilt. Each bafflingly complex mission unfolds precisely to plan. Everything must go like clockwork, and usually does, even a lame bit in "The Falcon" in which strongman Willy (Peter Lupus) disguised as a peasant, delays a priest from a coronation by transporting him via horse-driven cart in a roundabout route. Like the previous season's "The Exchange," one mission hits closer to home. In "Death Squad" electronics expert Barney (Greg Morris) is arrested by a brutal and corrupt police chief who also happens to be the brother of the man who was killed while attacking Barney's girlfriend (Cicely Tyson, by the way). Mission: Impossible has yet to self-destruct, but this season doesn't exactly deliver on Paris's promise to his audience to deliver "excitement you haven't seen before." We have seen this before, but watching the IMF in episode after episode pull off the impossible is still smart and suspenseful fun. --Donald Liebenson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Mission Impossible 4 October 12, 2008
M. Clough (Montana)
I just love the old MI series and they keep getting better. The stories were so much better as the years went by and the acting in this set was superb.
 New cast, more impossible missions October 6, 2008
Simple Simon (Brampton, ON)
Season 4 of Mission: Impossible continues the intricate missions and cerebral plots of the previous seasons. With the departure of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain after season 3, there's some new blood in the IMF this year: Leonard Nimoy joins the cast as new master of disguise Paris, while various guest stars are recruited to fill the female agent role.
Watching this series for the first time, I find the introduction of Paris to be a nice change of pace. While none of the agents are ever developed much and Paris is pretty much Rollin Hand, a fresh face does draw attention from what are the increasingly noticeable flaws in the series - the repeated use of the same backlot sets and California locations, stories that strain believability with the IMF predicting every thought and action of their targets, and cliffhangers that are resolved almost immediately. The fun is still there, and the payoff at the end of each episode is still worth it, but the show isn't quite as fresh as it was a few seasons back.
Still the addition of Paris works, and the rotating female agents mix things up too (since it makes more sense to change agents as needed by the mission, and it also brings some relevance back to the dossier selection scene that precedes most of the stories). Notable is Lee Meriwether, who appears in a handful of episodes, and you end up wishing if they'd selected a permanent female agent this season, it would've been her. She certainly matches Bain in style and beauty. Standout episodes this season include a faked submarine voyage in "The Submarne," "Lover's Knot" and "Death Squad" which break the usual story mold, and "The Falcon" which is a well-paced 3-parter with some genuine twists. If you're in the mood for more classy 60's spy action that takes itself seriously, season 4 of Mission: Impossible still delivers the goods.
Mission Impossible - The Fourth TV Season September 17, 2008
Harry Brewer (S'port, La.)
The fourth season of Mission: Impossible finds the series making a second major change in cast. After season one Stephen Hill was replaced by Peter Graves which was a very positive change. After the third season the team loses Martin Landau (Rollin Hand) & Barbara Bain (Cinnamon). To the best of my knowledge Landau wanted a big raise but CBS wouldn't give it; Bain quit in support of Landau, they were married at the time. So in season four Leonard Nimoy joins the cast replacing Martin Landau but no permanent replacement was made for Bain. I distinctly remember this change & looked eagerly toward the new season. I was a big fan of Leonard Nimoy after his portrayal of Mr. Spock from the legendary series Star Trek. I didn't have anything against Landau, I enjoyed his performances very much &, honestly, CBS made a wise decision in not attempting to replace Bain.
The fourth season of Mission: Impossible has a total of 26 episodes &, like any series, there are some good episodes & some weak episodes. The opening episode, "The Code" was a good choice for the premiere introducing the character Paris to the viewing public. "Numbers Game" is one of the team's most complicated efforts. "The Submarine" is even more elaborate. "The Falcon" is a three part episode that has no padding; this story is a strong one. I think that casting could have cast someone else in the role that Noel Harrison does, he's not the best actor in the world. It seems to me that with this episode CBS was making a conscious effort to appeal to younger viewers. "Gitano" has a young Barry Williams (Greg Brady from The Brady Bunch) portrays a 12 year old king. "Lover's Knot" might be the set's weakest episode in which the team goes to London. Paris falls for a foreign agent & doesn't like the consequences the lady will have to face. I'm not saying it isn't possible for an agent to become romantically involved but this was a VERY professional team. Some of it might be because I didn't feel that Nimoy was very convincing in this episode. "Death Squad" is an unique episode in the Mission: Impossible catalog; Barney is accused of Murder while on vacation with Jim in a Spanish speaking locale. It dispenses with the normal "Good Morning, Mr. Phelps..." bit & shows the team at their ad-libbing best having to create a plan on the spot. Pernell Roberts guest stars making his second appearance in a Mission: Impossible episode. Season four closes with "The Martyr" another weak episode that makes a strong appeal to younger viewers.
There aren't any bonus features unless you include subtitles. There is a warning that "some episodes may be edited from their original network versions" though, honestly, I can't tell. It's been a long time since I have seen these episodes. Of course this IS CBS/Paramount who became notorious with their release of The Fugitive, Season 2, Vol. 1. But the tampering as in the previous season releaes has been kept to a minimum.
 Not only actors got flushed August 6, 2008
Claudio Puviani
Many fans will miss the presence of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in this fourth season. They both added a very distinctive flavor to the show.
Replacing them were Mr. Spock... sorry, Leonard Nimoy... and a stream of guest actresses, some good, others very much of "guest star" stature or worse.
Nimoy starts out rough. His acting for the first handful of episodes is flat and insipid. Later, he starts to show more range and variety and it becomes interesting to see different sides of him. I suspect that this is at least in part due to bad directing in the early episodes. It doesn't take long for Nimoy to relinquish the title of worst actor among the regulars to Peter Graves.
Once the new cast hits its stride, it's back to being enjoyable, but Landau and Bain weren't the only ones who got dumped. So was plausibility.
In the first three seasons, the scenarios mostly tended to be built around highly improbable situations and confluences of favorable events, but while extremely unlikely, they were still plausible. In the fourth season, plausibility is thrown to the wind and you find our happy-go-lucky crew instantly writing 200-page books that pass muster when experts in the field read them and wielding sci-fi gadgets like holographic projectors. Sticking to the plausible made the first 3 seasons seem clever. Gone is the cleverness, replaced by cheap theatrics and so much divine intervention that the ancient Greek thespians themselves would cringe at the abuse.
It's still fun to watch, but it's a lower form of art than the previous seasons.
M I the t-v series July 22, 2008
thom sea (south jersey)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Interesting to see dial phones, lots of smoking and occasional drinking and of course all vehicles had no seat belts. But the extremely dated technology was overshadowed by the clever plots and were geographically usually in places you can't find on a map, Polonia? Costa Verde? looked like California to me
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