Mission: Impossible (1966)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   Season 1: Sadly, Paramount doesn't do justice to its classic television series. Star Trek had few extras compared to the material that is surely available, and an unrealistically high price point. MI is even worse (though I did get the series on sale) with no extras whatsoever, not even subtitles. Picture and sound quality is excellent, but otherwise, nada. And it's too bad too, because there's lots to tell about the creation of this landmark series, surviving actors to speak to, and stories to tell. The character of Briggs was replaced by Mr. Phelps after this season, but I still like him and the more jovial camaraderie of the cast early on. Towards the middle, the show settles down to the format we remember well, and we're not told too many details of the mission, allowing the audience to be as surprised as the duped guest characters. The sweet spot, for me, is The Short Tailed Spy, a wonderfully directed and acted Cinnamon Carter episode that must've been a large part of why she won the Emmy that year. Oh, I've got a thang for lady spies alright.
   
   Season 2: ikely where the show really hit its stride. Peter Graves as Jim Phelps replaces Steven Hill's Dan Briggs and is immediately more iconic, but it's all look and voice, because the characters are basically ciphers (no explanation is given as to how the change happened or why Jim's even got Dan's apartment). Cinnamon, Rollin, Barney, and Willy become less and less reliant on guest agents (aside from the occasional trained cat), and the show manages to veer away from its formulaic structure a couple times over the course of the season's 25 episodes. For me, MI is all about outrageous con jobs perpetrated on generic communist countries and criminal syndicates, and as long as that's delivered, I'm entertained.
   
   Season 3: Mission: Impossible's third season is its last with what we consider the iconic cast - Phelps, Rollin, Cinnamon, Barney and Willy - before Martin Landau and Barbara Bain leave the program. It's really the show at its best, and having resolved to mostly use these agents, it doesn't feel the need to do the old (and ultimately silly) sequence were Phelps chooses his team with 8x10 glossies each time, and changes things up once in a while by starting on a mission gone bad, then having to spend the bulk of the episode on rescuing the lost agent. It does hark back to an older way of making television, showing all the nitty-gritty of, say, Greg Morris fiddling with screws or wires. There are a lot of silent sequences in Mission: Impossible. In this age of bingeable TV, it's not something you'd necessarily chug, but if I'd need just a small shot of iconic IMF adventure, this is probably the season to get it from.
   
   Season 4: It seems that every time a new Mission: Impossible movie comes out, I chug a season of the old show. If Seasons 2 and 3 were the height of the program, with its iconic cast, Season 4, though it has lost both Rollin and Cinnamon (Landau and Bain) shows the confidence of a hit show. It doesn't skip a beat, with Leonard Nimoy very ably filling in for Landau as the Great Paris. He's probably getting old scripts meant for Rollin Hand, but Paris comes into his own when they inject a bit of magic in there. The character is more showy and has more fun than his predecessor, setting him apart. No one replaces Bain though, and we're instead greeted by various female guest-stars of varying quality (Lee Meriwether makes repeat appearances, happily) based on the "type" required. As we head into the 70s, the show feels more comfortable with sexual innuendo and violence, with most episodes ending on the bad guy getting shot off camera (this IMF is responsible for a LOT of killing), but the biggest sign of the show's confidence is that it offers several two-parters and even a THREE-parter. "The Falcon" is in fact a high point because it dares to have the mission go tits up! For once, we're not sure if IMF team members won't be captured, killed and/or disavowed. It also features one of two animal agents this season, which is something I wish the movies were bold enough to do. Mission: Impossible could have floundered after losing its main cast, but Jim Phelps bounced back and found a new stash a glossies to drop on his glass table, no problem. 6 years 2 months ago

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