Anything that ever found an audience will receive a second and probably even a third act. “Mission Impossible,” a clever TV show from the spy-mad \'60s, was the inspiration for the big budget Tom Cruise movies of the \'90s and the \'00s. In between came the forgotten act two, the 1988 television revival of “Mission Impossible,” out now on DVD.
The remake featured the star of the original series, an older and more creased Peter Graves, as the pokerfaced head of the Impossible Mission Force. The self-destructing instruction cassettes of old gave way to self-destructing video discs, but the hair-trigger tense theme music was retained along with the basic concept: impossible-to-pull-off-in-reality skullduggery on behalf of the good guys in scenic settings across the globe. The Secretary still vowed to disavow their missions in case of failure, yet this was network television, and the only failure was cancellation.
