Mission: Impossible (TV Series) The Choice (1970) User Reviews

Occasionally Sloppy

[aramis-112-804880 · 6/10 · 1 October 2022]

The I:M Force must keep a Rasputin-like figure from taking over a Duchy and allying it with the Commies.

What they do best. Enter a Ruritanian east European country that somehow survived two World Wars and use their tricks to keep thugs and despots from seizing control.

It does make them a bit of a cabal, but it's only fiction and hard to take seriously. Great fun. Usually.

Naturally (and it was the same with Rollin) the bad guy they want to replace bears an eerie resemblance to Paris. That's the hinge and it's always very convenient. No wonder Rollin/Paris always get chosen for these missions. Everyone looks like them. And there are enough twists to excite and enjoy the proceedings.

One caveat. I am personally against the death penalty, if not for reasons usually cited. But a frontloaded exhibition with an electric chair is just too preachy. I don't like entertainment littered with social commentary or partisan views, transforming fun entertainment into polemics, even when I agree with it. Shame.

Shades of Rasputin monk character and Empress Alexandra

[CCsito · 4/10 · 9 August 2013]

*SPOILER ALERT* Season 4 of the series was one of a transition with the departure of Cinnamon and Rollin from the team. Most of the female agent guest stars from this season had a very limited involvement in the overall mission. This was an episode without a female agent and was one rather poorly executed. The villain monk character for this episode looked like an identical twin to Paris (how convenient). The monk is a manipulative one like Rasputin and trying to take over a country from a female duchess. The mission has Phelps and Paris as a magic act who try to dupe the monk into using them to perform a magic stunt to make the duchess believe that the monk (with Paris as his double) is invincible. The monk tries to double cross the IMF team and derail their mission, but is thwarted. When the "identical twins" appear before the duchess and everyone else, no one is sure which is the true monk. Paris, who arrived on the scene first, tells the others that he is the real monk (after having performed his stunt on being shot). The actual monk tries to convince the others that he is the real one, but to no avail and then inexplicably runs off and is shot. Paris then tells the duchess that he is going back to being a hermit, so the minister can become the new ruler. Nobody questions him nor attempts to determine if he is the actual monk or not.