CBS Press Release: Mission Impossible: The Original TV Series (2 Viewers)

[Gary Seven]

I assume the HD masters are for streaming. While the DVDs are pretty good, this series does look and sound better in HD. It's a bummer as it is a grail for me (one of the few I have left).

 

[bmasters9]

I assume the HD masters are for streaming. While the DVDs are pretty good, this series does look and sound better in HD. It's a bummer as it is a grail for me (one of the few I have left).

I didn't understand when I asked-- now, everything seems to be quite clear; still, I wish Blus had come out.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If they had all those chances, why wasn't it done?

The sad truth is the CBS/Paramount was slow to embrace Blu-ray, and when they did, we were both in a recession and the general audience had already chosen to adopt streaming as their preferred vehicle for HD content. The market wasn’t there. CBS also drastically overpriced what they did put out on Blu which further harmed sales. (A single season of I Love Lucy on Blu has a retail price of over $100 at a time when the complete series on DVD was going for $50.)

CBS lost a fortune on their I Love Lucy releases and their Star Trek: The Next Generation releases. (The last season of TNG only ended up selling something like a thousand copies for them.) They never finished Lucy, and it’s a miracle they finished TNG.

CBS has a lot of complete series DVD sets out now that sell for well under $100, many for under $50. That’s great for us collectors but it’s bad for the industry. It devalues the product so that the remaining collectors are conditioned not to pay more than that, and it shows that the market for those titles is so small that it left the studio with no choice but to liquidate the inventory at bargain basement pricing.

I understand the business economics of it but it frustrates me as a fan because CBS has a ton of great stuff in their library that they haven’t figured out how to market.

 

[bmasters9]

(A single season of I Love Lucy on Blu has a retail price of over $100 at a time when the complete series on DVD was going for $50.)

That's not the only thing that had outrageous prices for single seasonal releases-- the individual gos of Star Trek: Voyager also had that kind of high prices (as did others of the Trek family, IIRC); I remember when I was at the Best Buy in Greenville and saw those sticker prices, and I thought that such a price would be good for the all-in-one, but not for a single go.

 

[Mark-P]

I guess there is little chance of this coming out on Blu-Ray. First, the series was on Netflix, then it moved to Amazon, now it's on CBS Access. If this came out on Blu, I would not have to put up with this nonsense.

If you want to own it in HD, you needn't rely on subscription services, it is after all available for purchase at iTunes and Vudu in all its HD glory. I picked up the entire series for $10 per season during a sale that was a tie-in to promote one of the Tom Cruise movies.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And the thing is, Trek has always sold well, but the Trek audience just isn’t the same as almost any other audience. Which means that no studio should look at a season of Voyager selling for $100 and take away that all shows will do that. CBS was greedy and dumb to think that.

And then another factor when Voyager sold for $100 was that there was no other way to see it. When TOS and TNG came out on VHS, it was $20 an episode, so $100 for a season was still a bargain compared to past prices. But once streaming came out with $10 a month or less to watch anything, that was the end of the $100 season set market being viable.

CBS was extraordinarily, irresponsibly slow in recognizing this change.

 

[bmasters9]

And then another factor when Voyager sold for $100 was that there was no other way to see it.

In that sense, I can see some justification-- at the time, the only real way to see it, IIRC, was on UPN or Fox or other independent stations (that, or get insanely priced releases).

 

[Lord Dalek]

If they had all those chances, why wasn't it done?

Cheap laziness on CBS' side I guess.

EDIT: Bleh. Already answered better by others.

 

[bmasters9]

Cheap laziness on CBS' side I guess.

EDIT: Bleh. Already answered better by others.

Josh Steinberg being one of those others.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Lord Dalek’s more concise version better expressed my frustration at the situation

 

[Jeff Flugel]

It is, and I wonder how many others have employed that technique.

I Spy, for one, also had snippets from the upcoming episode playing during the credits, one year before Mission: Impossible hit the airwaves (though it must be said, M:I did it in a more exciting manner, with a better theme tune).

 

[bmasters9]

I Spy, for one, also had snippets from the upcoming episode playing during the credits, one year before Mission: Impossible hit the airwaves (though it must be said, M:I did it in a more exciting manner, with a better theme tune).

And the picture quality on the O-R CBS M:I releases was nothing short of stunning (far better than I Spy, as well)!

 

[Dave Moritz]

I have not seen the original tv series in a very long time but I remember it being very good. But I honestly have to wonder why this series did not get a Blu-ray release and only a dvd release? Anyone know the source that this show was mastered from? If it was tape then I could understand the dvd only choice and I would go ahead and purchase it even though I do not support dvd anymore. But if the source is film then it should have received a Blu-ray release. So who here has this box set and how is the picture quality even though it is only 480p?

 

[Harry-N]

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, the original series was film-based and easily remastered in 1080p HD. Those 1080p masters were used for the existing DVDs and they look great - for DVDs. The Hi-def episodes on Amazon of course, look a bit better, but the DVDs aren't horrible unless you're trying to blow them up onto 50-foot screens. (I exaggerate!)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was resurrected in the late 80s on ABC with Peter Graves reprising his role as Jim Phelps. Those episodes were filmed and then composited onto videotape for broadcast, so the DVDs of those are all we're ever going to get - and they look fairly miserable.

I'm thankful that we got what we got for this series. While the HD versions are on Amazon, I tend to stream those when I want to see one, but I also know that the moment they get pulled from the current availability, my DVDs will serve nicely.

CBS takes a lot of flak for its pricing policies in those Blu-ray instances. But I think they were trying to properly figure out the real price point that would work. Once they determined that the market wasn't all that eager to spend on Blu-rays for favorites, they simply closed up that shop. I think we'd all do much the same in their place.

 

[Lord Dalek]

^No longer on Prime Video (got put behind the CBS All Access Paywall).

 

[sidburyjr]

I hope they don’t screw it up like they did the dynamite stick version from several years ago. They converted the early episodes (and maybe all of them??) into widescreen 1.77 AR. Had I known that I might not have purchased the set.

 

[The Drifter]

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, the original series was film-based and easily remastered in 1080p HD. Those 1080p masters were used for the existing DVDs and they look great - for DVDs. The Hi-def episodes on Amazon of course, look a bit better, but the DVDs aren't horrible unless you're trying to blow them up onto 50-foot screens. (I exaggerate!)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was resurrected in the late 80s on ABC with Peter Graves reprising his role as Jim Phelps. Those episodes were filmed and then composited onto videotape for broadcast, so the DVDs of those are all we're ever going to get - and they look fairly miserable.

Agree with all of this. The existing DVD's of the original M:I series are fantastic - some of the best PQ I've seen for an old show. Though I may upgrade to Blu if this series ever gets remastered for this format (less & less likely each day, as physical media becomes less popular), I'm still very satisfied with these DVD's.

I am also a fan of the short-lived & underrated 1988-1990 resurrected M:I series; this is one of those "if you blink, you'll miss it" shows, since I think even some fans of the original may not even remember there was an updated series. I won't call this a re-boot because it's actually a legitimate sequel to the original series. Nice continuity with the original by having Peter Graves reprise his role as Jim Phelps, and having Grant Collier as one of the new characters. In the context of the show, Grant was Barney Collier's son...and was played by Phil Morris, who was Greg Morris' son in real life.

I remember seeing some episodes of this on TV in my late teens, and really enjoying it; at that point, I hadn't seen much of the original show - so was happy to at least be able to watch a newer version with updated tech. (as of the late '80's, of course). Also, I did find the stories & acting to be well-done.

The only complaint(s) I had/have with the newer series is that, as stated above, the PQ on the DVD's is garbage. It suffers the same fate as a lot of '80's shows that were transferred to tape, unfortunately. It's ironic that the original M:I DVD's have much better PQ than the later show.

 

[Neil Brock]

I found that the newer version of the show in the late 80s really dumbed down the show for modern audiences. Instead of putting the plans into place and letting the viewers figure out what the team was doing, they would have to go through a detailed explanation of the plan so that the idiot crowd could understand it.

As we all know, the IMF is really a pseudonym for the CIA. A show celebrating the interference of our government in the affairs of sovereign nations. Too bad they never showed how the CIA got involved in our own government's affairs.

 

[Harry-N]

^No longer on Prime Video (got put behind the CBS All Access Paywall).

Ah, yes. You're right. As an All Access subscriber, I hadn't noticed that.

 

[The Drifter]

I found that the newer version of the show in the late 80s really dumbed down the show for modern audiences. Instead of putting the plans into place and letting the viewers figure out what the team was doing, they would have to go through a detailed explanation of the plan so that the idiot crowd could understand it.

It's been almost a decade since I've re-watched the 1988-1990 M:I series. However, you're right - I do seem to remember that the show had more exposition than the original version.

That being said, I still felt that this re-booted series was fantastic. Not nearly as great as the original (of course), but still interesting & well-done. And, I would definitely like to see this remastered to HD - though I think that is probably impossible at this point.