The IMF are taking on the criminal underworld (again) in Committed. Written by Arthur Weiss from a story by Laurence Heath this episode first aired on 22 January, 1972.

It seems Nora Dawson (Susan Howard) is the only one brave enough to testify against crime boss Chandler (Bert Freed). Unfortunately for her, it seems Chandler owns everyone else and has had her locked away in a corrupt mental institution, and loaded up with drugs to ruin her credibility.

Phelps (Peter Graves) and his team have to find a way to get the truth out of Dawson, replace her with Casey (Lynda Day George), and bring Chandler’s empire crumbling down around him by setting him up for a final fall.

It’s a fairly standard tale, and as mentioned previously, I’m tiring of these fairly domestic-based stories. I missed the hint of global intrigue, even if every other place in the world looked like Southern California.

There are a couple things I did like about the episodes, and that was in the nature of a pair of guest stars. James Sikking was in there (one of his future Hill Steet Blues co-stars was on last week), as was iconic character actor Geoffrey Lewis.

I miss the spy nature of the series, now it seems to be a game of cops and robbers, even with all the tech and scheming the IMF gets up to in their plans. Will they get back to it before the end of the season or the series? I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out.

Bag Woman is another domestic crime story, this time dealing with corrupt politicians and the faceless, and eternal villain, The Syndicate. Written by Ed Adamson and Norman Katkov, it first aired on 29 January, 1972.

The IMF is working to discover the identity of a corrupt politician who is working for The Syndicate and is the source of countless bribes to other politicians. Once discovered, they will bring him down. Unfortunately, they can only find him through the money delivery, so the plan begins, with Casey going in as the bag woman.

But things go sideways pretty quickly, unusual for the team to be sure when Casey ends up handcuffed to a suitcase full of dynamite, and Barney (Greg Morris) not only has his cover blown but is wounded in the process.

Phelps needs to find a way to save not only the mission, but his team, and he needs to do it before time runs out.

It’s a bit of a different episode, and it’s neat to see the IMF on the backfoot a bit, but, obviously, they are going to be able to find a way to save the day.

We’re coming up on the end of season six, and we’ll see what changes are coming for the final season as I continue to explore Paramount Canada’s release of Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series on blu-ray.