Mission: Impossible

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I've mentioned this, my newest obsession, on a couple of recent topics, but I saw that it didn't have its own topic and I felt it was about time.

I've been familiar with the TV series Mission: Impossible since childhood... but, despite my love of spy fiction, I had never actually watched it until recently, for no reason other than the fact that I'm the world's worst procrastinator and it takes me years to get around to anything. But I've remedied that mistake recently and have so far watched about a third of both the original 1966-1973 series and the 1988-1990 continuation, and I can't get enough.

Everyone knows the basics: "good morning, Mr. Phelps," "your mission, should you choose to accept it," "any member of your team caught or killed will be disavowed by the secretary," "this tape will self-destruct in five seconds," et cetera. As much as I enjoy the Tom Cruise films, none of them (with the exception of maybe Ghost Protocol) capture what's so good about the TV series: the films are mostly about loud action and they focus on a single spy, while the show is more about psychological trickery and it's an ensemble: there is no main character. It's all about teamwork here, and the sometimes Philip K. Dick-ish mindf**ks that the team pulls over on their targets, while doing their best to get in and out without anyone noticing.

How crazy do the mindf**ks get? In one episode they turn a white racist black ("Kitara"). In another they fool William Shatner into thinking that time has reverted 30 years into the past ("Encore"), and in others they use cats and dogs as tools to grab whatever they're after ("The Seal", "Chico"). Obviously not every episode is this crazy, but I haven't seen a single one in which the team hasn't gone to ridiculous lengths to pull some kind of elaborate con over on some criminal who has it coming.

The cast is great, particularly in the first few seasons. Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) is the team leader who most people are familiar with, but the show started with Dan Briggs (Steven Hill, later of Law & Order) at the helm. The team agents in the first three seasons were usually Cinnamon (the looks, played by Barbara Bain), Barney (the electronics expert, played by Greg Morris), Rollin (the master of disguise, played by Martin Landau), and Willy (the strongman, played by Peter Lupus). Starting with Season 4, Phelps, Barney, and Willy stayed on but the others were replaced by actors such as Leonard Nimoy, Sam Elliott, Lee Meriwether (Catwoman from the Adam West Batman film), and Lesley Ann Warren (Miss Scarlet from Clue).

As with every TV series, there are good and bad episodes, but the good ones are wonderful entertainment and even the few that are lousy have their moments. I'm the guy who hates everything on TV (I completely fail to understand how anyone could enjoy 30 seconds of The Big Bang Theory, let alone an entire episode), so an endorsement for anything means a lot coming from me. I feel like I should be getting paid to advertise it.

The whole series is on Netflix streaming, but for those who don't care about things like "patience" and "paying for content" and "copyright," you can also find pretty much every episode on YouTube. Here are my suggestions for the first episodes for you to check out, in addition to the ones I listed above, which are all good:

* "Pilot" (Season 1, Episode 1) - Most TV shows take awhile to get going, to find out what they're all about. Watching an episode from the first season of a TV show can sometimes be quite boring. But Mission: Impossible hit a home run on the first swing. This may be my favorite episode of all the ones I've seen, the first I would recommend to a newcomer. It involves the theft of a nuclear device from a Castro-like dictator (via sneaking in and out of a bank vault that's under constant guard), and it really gets interesting when the plan goes wrong and the team has to improvise.

* "The Legacy" (Season 1, Episode 15) - The descendants of Nazis looks for hidden treasure. It's more interesting than it sounds. Rollin takes the place of one of the group, and he does his best to BS his way through their dealings while the rest of the team tries to get to the gold first.

* "The Council" (Season 2, Episodes 11 & 12) - This two-part episode was so good that it was released in Europe as a movie, titled Mission Impossible vs. the Mob. It's basically The Godfather with a lot more trickery involved. Especially good is the scene in which Cinnamon must appear to be giving a plastic surgery operation to Rollin (by the way, this was her real-life husband) while being watched by members of the Mafia. It also includes what is, in my opinion, the best trick ever pulled by Jim Phelps. (At least, that is, based on the episodes I've seen.)

* "The Town" (Season 2, Episode 21) - This is one of those missions that the team has to improvise after stumbling upon some sort of plot. An entire small American town is full of foreign sleeper agents, and Phelps has been taken captive by them and drugged into a coma. It's great fun watching the team slowly discover what's going on and play everything by ear. It guest stars the grandpa from The Waltons, whose character is taken away and impersonated by Rollin.

* "The Heir Apparent" (Season 3, Episode 1) - I could write all day about why I love this episode, but I'll be brief and say that one of the best moments involves Rollin taking off a disguise right in view of a whole room full of people, with not a single one of them noticing. It's good stuff.

* "The Killer" (Season 5, Episode 1) - How do you stop a hitman from killing his target? You manipulate him every step of the way. The only problem occurs when he might be more clever than the team that's out to catch him.

* "Kidnap" (Season 7, Episode 11) - Another episode involving an improvised mission, Phelps is kidnapped and the team has to figure a way both to rescue him and totally screw over the people holding him. Spoiler alert: they do it.

As for the revival series that ran from 88 to 90, it's a mixed bag for me. Some episodes are quite good and can stand with the best of the original series, but most of them fail to capture the same magic. On more than one occasion I've found myself saying at the end, "That's it? That was your impossible mission?" A handful of these episodes are remakes of ones from the 1960s, and it's probably a bad thing that these are the best episodes I've seen so far... but there are still some good originals, like "Reprisal" and "The Fortune." That last one holds the distinction of being the only episode in which an agent was killed and disavowed by the government... it's very good, and worth a watch.

Anyway. The point of this topic is twofold: to connect with any existing fans and to introduce newcomers to the show. To the former group, please post and let me know about your psychotic fandom, and let me know about your favorite episodes. To the latter, what are you waiting for? Get to watching. This show kicks ass.

Last edited by Jory on 15 Oct 2012, 5:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I loved the show, but felt it lost a lot when it left the espionage angle and went after organized crime instead.

I'm torn on this. The show was clearly getting long in the tooth by the later seasons and I understand why they wanted to change things up a bit, but there are so many damned episodes that focus on the Mafia that you just say, "Jesus, you guys, find something else to write about." There are also way too many episodes about Nazis, the sons of Nazis, or some neo-Nazi group. It's a problem that every TV show inevitably suffers from: the "we're running out of ideas" problem. Still, some of these domestic crime episodes, like "Cocaine" (guest starring Shatner again) and "Speed" are good, albeit not outright masterpieces.

Last edited by Jory on 15 Oct 2012, 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I love Mission: Impossible, especially the first 3 seasons. The OP's suggestions are great. Some of my favs are:

The Legend (season 1) - It's a nazi episode, but I love how they mess with the main opponent and his group of aging nazis.

The Trial (season 1) - The team sets up and knocks down an iron curtain head of police(Carroll O'Connor!) who wants to convict an innocent American.

The Carriers (season 1) The team destroys a plan to release plague in America, with the help of George Takei (Sulu from Star Trek)

Sweet Charity (season 2) I love the campiness of this, also I like Fritz Weaver and Hazel Court who run a charity scam. And Peter Graves as a gigolo is hilarious.

The Photographer (season 2) The team goes to extremes to trick and stop a spy/terrorist.

The Recovery (season 2) The team fools and kidnaps a genius American scientist who's defected.

The Cardinal (season 3) They run rings around a foreign general who's replaced a cardinal with an imposter to gain power. The general is left speechless in the end.

The Mind of Stefan Miklos (season 3) - The team destroys a brilliant foreign agent, but their plan is almost too clever to work.

The Brothers (season 4) - A Middle Eastern king who's friendly to the west is restored to the throne after his playboy brother has him drugged and seizes control.

This, so far, is the only episode of the original series that has made me say, "Are you f**king kidding me?" The bad guy uses the fakest looking mannequin in the world as a decoy, one that a child could spot as a fake from across a football field, and Briggs is actually surprised when he moves a few feet closer to it and sees that it's not a real man! After that, though, it does get quite good. Rollin appearing in disguise as the real deal and screwing with the guy responsible for the ruse, right in front of his friends while he can do nothing about it, is priceless.



The guest stars are sometimes pleasantly surprising. I loved seeing Eartha Kitt, Ricardo Montalbon, William Shatner, George Takei, John Vernon, and Grandpa Walton.



He guested quite a few times. My favorite of his episodes that I've seen is "Operation Rogosh" (S1E3), in which he's tricked into thinking that he's suffered from amnesia and three years has passed, in order to get him to reveal the details of a future terrorist attack that he thinks has already happened. Another good elaborate mindf**k episode.

I remember seeing the first episode the first night it was broadcast. I didn't realize until much later that it was the very first episode. Back then, things didn't get repeated on tv like they do today -- the first repeat would have been months later.

But after that first episode, I didn't miss very many of the shows.

Yes! the mannequin was hilarious. I also love old b-grade movies so I enjoyed the poor effects in this episode. And Rollin coming in and shocking the bad guy was great. I loved it when he ordered him around and threw the plans at his face

And yes Operation Rogosh is another great one!