Mission: Impossible is back. Peter Graves is back (as master spy Jim Phleps). Bob Johnson’s distinctive voice (on the tape) is back, too. And look, M:I regulars Greg Morris (as gadget/electronics wizard Barney Collier) and Peter Lupus (as the big dumb strongman Willy Armitage) have returned, as well. Lesley Ann Warren and Leonard Nimoy on the other hand are nowhere to be seen in Mission: Impossible - The Sixth TV Season — and frankly, neither Cinderella or Spock is missed. This, the second-to-last season Bruce Gellar’s hit series, wisely condensed the master of disguise character and the token female character down to just one part, to which up-and-coming actress Lynda Day George took over as Lisa Casey — and succeeded admirably, earning a nomination for a Golden Globe in the process.
Towards the end of the Fifth Season (as ratings began to drop), the members of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) began to slow down with taking the occasional trek across the globe in order to stop power-hungry madmen from starting a nuclear war — apparently, they were spending excessive amounts of U.S. dollars on first class airfare, some positively bangin’ hotel accommodations, those big buffets to satisfy Willy’s huge appetite, and of course Jim Phelps’ habitual boozing and late-night rendezvousing with hookers (and so forth). And so, most of Season Six has the IMF team going up against members of “the Syndicate,” domestic terrorists, and other dastardly evils such as smugglers and corrupt politicians that “conventional law enforcement agencies” were unable to lay a finger on (if only the Impossible Missions Force was active today: they could put an end to all of this bail-out bullshit.).
Each episode of Mission: Impossible - The Sixth TV Season finds our crew once more accomplishing, the unfeasible (or the “highly improbable,” the “very unlikely,” or even the “pretty much unattainable, really”) by either turning the tables against the leaders of the underworld or by setting up some of the most elaborate schemes ever devised in order to convince the bad guys that it’s time for a change — and boy, let me tell you, some of the schemes in the Sixth Season break the delicate border of nuttiness, including convincing aging gangster William Shatner that he has somehow gone back in time to relive the murder of his rival (using silicone to smooth out the wrinkles in his face); setting up rat fink Kevin McCarthy (who has sold his own country) out to thinking that the bad guys have invaded and conquered America (which kinda takes us back to those wonderfully bad Red Scare films of the '50s — hey, they come complete with a McCarthy, too.); and (the winner here) trying to con a UFO-obsessed news guru Steve Forrest into believing the aliens have in fact landed so that he will renounce his ties with the Syndicate (which is done with a light, a collapsible fog machine, and by wearing white clothes).
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