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Mission: Impossible

Plot

Debuting September 17, 1966, the CBS action-adventure series Mission: Impossible generally adhered to a formula as rigid and unswerving as a Kabuki dance. Most of the series' 171 hour-long episodes opened as the head of the top-secret "Impossible Missions Force" -- Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) during the first season, Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) thereafter -- arrived at an out-of-the-way location, where he would immediately find a tiny tape recorder. Flipping on the machine, the IMF leader would receive the instructions pertaining to his latest mission from an anonymous voice (actually an uncredited Bob Johnson), his words sometimes complemented with photographs of the "target." Some five seconds before the recorder self-destructed, the IMF head would be admonished, "As always, should you or any member of the I.M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." The scene would then shift to the leader's posh apartment, where he would thumb through the 8 x 10 glossies of his top IMF agents, the better to choose the people best suited to assignment at hand. Outside of the occasional "guest agent," the leader's selections would be exactly the same, week after week.

During season one, the IMF team consisted of Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), professional actor and master of disguises and dialects; Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), demure "mystery woman" who could impersonate anyone from a worldly femme fatale to a trembling damsel in distress; Barney Collier (Greg Morris), a genius at electronics and computer technology; and Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus), a professional bodybuilder who provided the necessary "muscle" for the mission. In season four, Rollin Hand was replaced by The Great Paris (Leonard Nimoy), a professional magician who, like his predecessor, was adept at disguises; Paris remained with the team for two years. After Cinammon left the IMF at the end of season three, she was replaced by a number of female operatives, notably Dana Lambert (Lesley Ann Warren), Lisa Casey (Lynda Day George), and Mimi Davis (Barbara Anderson). And in season five, Dr. Doug Lane (Sam Elliott) joined the team. (By the time the series ended, the opening "tape" sequence, and the ritual of shuffling through the photographs, had pretty much been abandoned in favor of a weekly "teaser" which set up the situation prior to IMF's arrival on the scene.)

The IMF's covert assignments took them all over the world, often to a fictional Eastern Bloc "people's republic," a mythical South American dictatorship, or an imaginary African-Asian kingdom. The team pooled its individual talents and skills to topple despots, discredit scientists bent on taking over the world, infiltrate and destroy neo-fascist organizations, thwart and smash sinister drug cartels, or simply force the villains to kill off one another. To make things easier for the American viewers, the languages in these ersatz countries usually consisted of a smattering of Latin, a dash of Esperanto, and a sprinkling of English -- which explains the many buildings and vehicles bearing such emblems as "Kompanie der Gaz" and "Companea de Agua." In a handful of the earlier episodes, the IMF remained in the U.S. to take on the minions of organized crime; in later seasons, the team was almost exclusively devoted to thwarting domestic bad guys. Other than its formulaic storylines and highly stylized action sequences, Mission: Impossible is most fondly remembered for its pulsating theme music, written by Lalo Schifrin. Released as a single, "The Mission: Impossible Theme" made Billboard magazine's Top 100 charts for 14 weeks in 1968. Ending its CBS run in September of 1973, Mission: Impossible was revived with brand-new episodes in 1988. Mostly filmed in Australia, the 35 "new" episodes brought Peter Graves back to the fold as IMF leader Jim Phelps, but otherwise boasted a brand-new cast. Interestingly, the new team's electronics expert, Grant Collier, was the son of Barney Collier -- and was played by Phil Morris, son of Greg Morris! Finally, two theatrical-movie adaptations of Mission: Impossible were released in the 1990s, both starring Tom Cruise. All of these latter-day Mission: Impossible incarnations sagaciously retained Lalo Schifrin's classic theme tune. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Episodes

Mission: Impossible: Season 01 (1966)
Season one of Mission: Impossible finds Steven Hill heading the cast as Dan Briggs, head of the top-secret Impossible Missions Force. Issued instructions at the outset of each episode by that famous "self-destructing" tape recorder, Briggs proceeds to select the IMF operatives best suited to the covert assignment at hand. There are three "permanent" members of the team during season one: versatile femme fatale Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), electronics expert Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and muscle man Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). As originally conceived, the fourth member of the team, master of disguise Rollin Hand (played by Martin Landau, then the husband of Barbara Bain) was supposed to have been an infrequent guest star, but audience response was so positive to Rollin that Landau ended up a series regular. However, there are instances during season one in which a guest actor is recruited by Dan Briggs for a specific assignment, notably Wally Cox in the opening episode, Eartha Kitt in the episode "The Traitor," and Mary Ann Mobley in the two-parter "Odd Man Out." In the course of the IMF's first year on the air, the team steals a pair of nuclear warheads possessed by a Latin American despot; convinces an enemy agent (Fritz Weaver) on a deadly mission that he has been in a coma for two years; thwarts the development of a plague virus by posing as spy trainees in a replicated American town somewhere behind the Iron Curtain; foils the scheme of a Communist filmmaker to fake a documentary depicting American atrocities in Indochina; infiltrates a group of neo-Nazis bent on creating a Fourth Reich; creates a phony 27,000-carat diamond in order to oust a greedy African dictator; and rigs a high-stakes poker game to retrieve a cache of secret government documents. Although Mission: Impossible's ratings were good during its inaugural season, the series never cracked the Top 30, prompting CBS to move the show from Saturday evenings to Sundays in season two. However, the series managed to win three Emmy awards, for Outstanding Actress (Barbara Bain), Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama (Bruce Geller), and even for Outstanding Dramatic Series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 02 (1967)
Season two of Mission: Impossible found a new man at the helm of the top-secret Impossible Missions Force: Peter Graves as Jim Phelps, replacing the first season's Steven Hill, who played Dan Briggs. At the time, there was much speculation in the industry over the reason for Hill's departure, with some sources citing creative differences between the actor and the production staff. The most widely accepted theory was that Hill, an Orthodox Jew, refused to work on the set between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. (Over two decades later, Steven Hill became an audience favorite all over again in a role that never required him to work on weekends: District Attorney Adam Schiff on the long-running Law & Order. Otherwise, the rest of the familiar IMF crew remains the same as in season one: sultry Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), master of disguise Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), electronics whiz Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and all-around athlete and muscleman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). Beginning with the season opener, "The Widow," wherein the IMF team pools its talents to force the customers of a vicious heroin dealer to do away with the man, this year's "impossible missions," like the previous year's quota, rely heavily upon labyrinthine schemes, elaborate facial makeup, state-of-the-art gadgetry, and an acute understanding of human nature ("bad" human nature, that is) to mete out just desserts to a dizzying array of international villains. Among the season's best episodes are the two-part "The Slave," in which the team utilizes kidnapping and subterfuge to destroy a vast Middle Eastern slavery ring; another two-parter, "The Council," wherein Rollin poses as a Mafia don to prevent the collapse of the American banking system; "The Photographer," featuring Anthony Zerbe as a madman bent on spreading bubonic plague throughout the world, who is thwarted when the IMFers convince him that a nuclear war has begun; "The Killing," in which Cinnamon tricks a band of assassins into "killing" Phelps as part of a scheme to get them to confess all their past misdeeds; "The Money Machine," comprised of a "sting" operation to hoist an African counterfeiter on his own petard; and "The Town," in which a vacationing Phelps must prevent a political assassination all by himself. Mission: Impossible's move from Saturday to Sunday evenings for its second season proved to be extremely beneficial to the series' ratings, though it would not be until season three that the show would finally crack the Top 10. In other developments, series regular Barbara Bain won her second Emmy award in a role for her ongoing portrayal of Cinnamon Carter, and the show once again won the award for Outstanding Dramatic Series. Additionally, the series' legendary theme song, written by Lalo Schifrin, enjoyed 14 weeks on Billboard magazine's Top 100 charts when it was released as a single. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 03 (1968)
After two years of playing to respectable but not spectacular ratings, Mission: Impossible finally attained the gold ring in season three, when it was ranked as America's 11th most popular series by the A.C. Nielsen Company. At this point in time, the series' formula had been committed to memory by its faithful fans. In virtually every episode, Jim Phelps (Peter Graves), head of the Impossible Missions Force, would be assigned by an anonymous governmental higher-up to undertake a covert mission in the interests of world peace, international security, the thwarting of big-time crime, or a combination thereof. After the self-destruction of the tape recorder from which these instructions emanated, Phelps would choose the IMF operatives best suited to the task at hand. Almost invariably throughout season three, these worthies would include sexy "mystery woman" Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), master dialectician and makeup artist Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), electronics wizard Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and general-purpose muscleman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). Journeying to an exotic locale (usually in a fictional country run by despots or controlled by crooks), the IMFers utilized an astonishing array of disguises, props, and meticulously preplanned schemes (but seldom weaponry) to foil the villain of the week -- generally through the simple process of getting the villain to trip himself up with his own ego or greed.

Among the season's most memorable episodes are the two-part "The Contenders," in which Barney poses as a boxer making a comeback to destroy a bout-fixing syndicate (also seen in this episode is real life boxing champ Sugar Ray Robinson); another two-parter, "The Bunker," wherein the IMF must rescue the wife of a scientist who is being blackmailed into conspiring with the enemy; "The Elixir," featuring Ruth Roman as an Evita-style Latin American dictator who is duped into turning her country over to a democratic government; "The Freeze," in which the team convinces a mobster that he has been cryogenically frozen for 14 years to trick him into revealing the whereabouts of some stolen loot; "The Mind of Stefan Miklos," guest-starring Ed Asner as an enemy agent who is hoodwinked into trusting his worst enemy; "The Exchange," a tour de force for series regular Barbara Bain, in which Cinnamon is kidnapped and subjected to her worst fear -- being confined in a tiny place -- as a means to get her to betray the IMF; "Illusion," another showcase for Bain as she impersonates a dead nightclub singer; "The Execution," with Vincent Gardenia as a paid assassin who rats on his boss after the IMF stages a realistic gas-chamber execution before his very eyes; and "Live Bait," featuring a young, bespectacled Martin Sheen as a cloddish enemy operative who is literally seduced into helping the IMFers rescue a double agent from a diabolical torture device. Although the series' lofty ratings, coupled with a third Emmy award win for regular Barbara Bain, should have been occasion for celebration, all was not champagne and roses backstage at Mission: Impossible. Both Bain and her husband, Martin Landau, were publicly clashing with series producer Bruce Geller over their working conditions and the quality of the scripts, and by the end of season three, the series' two most popular actors had ankled the project, never to return. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 04 (1969)
Fans of Mission: Impossible greeted the start of the series' fourth season with fear and trepidation. To be sure, the series was still second to none in serving up exciting action sequences and labyrinthine counterespionage plotlines. And, yes, most of the familiar cast members were still in attendance, including Peter Graves as IMF leader Jim Phelps, Greg Morris as electronics expert Barney Collier, and Peter Lupus as "house athlete" Willie Armitage. But how, asked the fans, would the series be able to survive the defection of its two most popular regulars, Barbara Bain and Martin Landau? In the case of Landau, the series' producers wasted no time in finding a suitable substitute. Replacing Landau's character of Rollin Hand, a professional actor who skill with disguises and dialects made him indispensable during the IMF's many "infiltration" assignments, the producers came up with professional magician "The Great Paris," who shared Rollin's expertise at makeup and vocal dexterity and could fulfill the same function on the IMF team. Better still, Paris was played by Leonard Nimoy, an actor whose popularity was at its peak by virtue of his recent three-year stint as Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Although Paris could easily have been a Rollin Hand clone with a lesser performer, the brilliant Nimoy came up with a characterization -- and a variety of false identities -- uniquely his own, and would continue doing so until he himself left the series at the end of season five. Unfortunately, the producers were never able to come up with an entirely successful replacement for Barbara Bain; indeed, no fewer than four actresses would be tried out as the "new" Cinnamon (albeit under different character names) for the remainder of the series' run. Although not officially a regular during season four, the talented Lee Meriwether would show up from time to time as "Tracey," a lovely if nondescript Cinnamon substitute. Despite the cast shakeups, Mission: Impossible continued to turn out first-rate episodes during its fourth year on the air, notably the two-part "The Controllers," and the series' only three-parter, "The Falcon," arguably the best-ever showcase for series newcomers Nimoy and Meriwether. Unfortunately, the loss of Landau and Bain proved highly detrimental to the show's ratings: after an all-time-high during season three, the show didn't even crack the Top 30 during season four. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 05 (1970)
Season five of Mission: Impossible finds only two of the series' original regulars still in the cast: Greg Morris as the IMF team's electronics genius Barney Collier and Peter Lupus as muscle man Willie Armitage. Peter Graves, cast as IMF leader Jim Phelps, had been with the series since season two, when he'd been brought in as a replacement for Steven Hill; and Leonard Nimoy was entering his second -- and as it turned out, his last -- season in the role of magician and master of disguise Paris, a character created to fill the gap left by the defection of former regular Martin Landau. Although the producers had not found a suitable replacement for another ex-regular, Barbara Bain, during season four, they obviously felt they'd solved this problem in the fifth season with the hiring of Lesley Ann Warren as new IMFer Dana Lambert. Like Bain's character Cinnamon Carter, Dana was a bit of a femme fatale, albeit more on the vulnerable side; and also like Cinnamon, Dana could impersonate a wide variety of familiar female "types," from wide-eyed ingenue to worldly courtesan. Alas, despite her talent, beauty and versatility, Warren was unable to supplant Barbara Bain in the hearts and minds of the series' fans, and by the end of season five she too had left the show. Another addition to the cast this season is Sam Elliott as Dr. Doug Lane, who is from time to time brought into the IMF's various counterespionage and infiltration schemes because of his medical knowhow and his understanding of the criminal psyche. Although Dr. Doug Lane was also dropped from the show at season's end, he would make an unexpected return appearance in the sixth-season episode "Encore." Suffering from progressively diminishing ratings since the departure of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, Mission: Impossible continued to be plagued by viewer drop-off during season six, even though it had moved to a "safe" Saturday evening slot opposite such soft competition as The Andy Williams Show, Let's Make a Deal, and The Newlywed Game. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 06 (1971)
Still being seen on Saturday nights -- albeit in a later time slot -- Mission: Impossible entered its sixth season with hopes that its ever-diminishing ratings (brought about by the defection of its two most popular regulars, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain) would take an upward turn. In this spirit, the series offers some of its best-ever episodes during season six, notably "Encore," in which the IMF team literally recreates the year 1937 on a Hollywood backlot in order to convince an aging gangster (William Shatner) that he has gone back in time, thus coercing him to confess to a long-unsolved crime; "The Visitors," wherein the team stages a disturbingly realistic extraterrestrial invasion to expose the mob connections of a powerful media mogul (Steve Forrest); and "Invasion," with Kevin McCarthy as a traitor who is hoodwinked into believing that the United States has become a military dictatorship. Of the familiar series regulars, Peter Graves still heads the cast as IMF leader Jim Phelps, Greg Morris continues to essay the role of electronics whiz Barney Collier, and Peter Lupus remains on hand as muscle-man Willie Armitage. Missing this season are Lesley Ann Warren as the team's versatile female member Dana Lambert, replaced by Lynda Day George as Lisa Casey; and Leonard Nimoy as master of disguise Paris, replaced by nobody. Although the six-year-old Mission: Impossible easily out-rated its NBC and ABC competition -- Saturday Night at the Movies and The Persuaders, respectively -- the series was still a far cry from its 11th place ratings peak during the series' third season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mission: Impossible: Season 07 (1972)
Halfway through its seventh and final season on CBS, Mission: Impossible moved from its 10:00 p.m. Saturday-night slot to an earlier berth on Friday evening. Nor was this the only change implemented during the series' terminal year on the air. Having sent the Impossible Missions Force all over the world to thwart a variety of evil dictators, international drug lords, and other such exotic vermin, the series' producers spent most of season seven in the United States, where the IMF team focused on the minions of organized crime -- a reflection, perhaps, of the popularity of the theatrical feature The Godfather. Also, the series' familiar, ritualistic opening sequence, in which IMF leader Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) would receive his instructions via a self-destructing tape recorder, then methodically thumb through a stack of photos to pick the team members best suited for the job at hand, was by now a relic of the past. Most of the seventh-season episodes begin with a "teaser," usually violent in nature, which sets up the premise before the IMF team has even entered the scene. Of the cast members, only Greg Morris as electronics whiz Barney Collier and Peter Lupus as all-purpose muscleman Willie Armitage have been with the series from its very first season in 1966. Peter Graves is now in his sixth season as Jim Phelps, while Lynda Day George is only two years into her portrayal of the IMF's female member, Lisa Casey. As it turned out, George would be unavailable for a number of episodes this seasons, obliging the producers to bring in Barbara Anderson, late of Ironside, as Lisa's off-and-on replacement Mimi Davis. Although the series' final episodes are not quite of the same caliber as its earlier installments, a handful of seventh-season episodes are still well worth having. Highlights include "Break!," in which Phelps relies upon Barney's electronic knowhow to pose as a pool hustler and infiltrate a vicious gambling ring headed by guest star Robert Conrad; "Leona," with singer Robert Goulet cast against type as a cuckolded mob boss; "Encore," offering the equally unorthodox casting of William Shatner as a cocaine dealer; and the series finale, "Imitation," with Barbara McNair as a sleek jewel thief who falls in love with Barney. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi