Mission: Impossible - 5x20 - Kitara

    The military has captured a black rebel freedom fighter named Kitara.  The IMF gets involved to get Kitara out of holding, and free up the gold he has hidden.  In order to accomplish this, the IMF plans on turning the military leader into a black man.
    There was a series of Bloom County strips that had Oliver creating an "electro-photo pigment-izer" which was mostly a flash bulb that would turn the subject black.  His goal was to hit a South African apartheid leader with it.  Of course, those strips were during the 80s.  This was the 60s.

    It's a typical, well-handled episode.  The audience is rarely given enough information to know how things will play out, or what the team has planned for.  So we usually can't tell if something has gone wrong.
    The racial angle is the interesting one.  The episode aired in 1971.  At least some of the reviewers felt like this handling was a little too heavy handed.  I suppose the biggest problem is that it brings out certain racial distinctions more than it should.  We see that he doesn't look like a convincing black man, because his face doesn't look right.  The photo that gets doctored shows a substantial difference, and just calls attention to all the ways that blacks legitimately are different.