My wife and I compiled this list of favorite episodes of Mission: Impossible, the TV series created by Bruce Geller and which ran for seven seasons. For those unfamiliar with the series, it details the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), a secret agency enlisted for more sensitive assignments, both domestic and foreign. The following selections do not include any episodes from either season of the 1988-90 series update.
1. “The Seal” (Season 2, Episode 9/Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter; Directed by Alexander Singer) The team is tasked to recover a jade seal from a tycoon (Darren McGavin). Cinnamon (Barbara Bain) as a TV reporter and Rollin (Martin Landau) as a psychic provide a distraction as Barney (Greg Morris) and Jim (Peter Graves), the latter in a rare position of handling grunt work, pilfer the seal. The real star, however, is Rusty the cat, who is coaxed by Barney to walk across a makeshift plank and carry the item back to the IMF agents. The always reliable Barney must bypass a sonar alarm and pressure-sensitive floor, a seemingly impossible burglary that’s reminiscent of Brian De Palma’s 1996 feature film. (For dog lovers, Season 4 offers “Chico”, in which the four-legged titular hero has to squeeze himself into a small air duct to recover an item and has to return it. Interestingly, the bad guys are after a list revealing agents’ names, which is legible only when two separate lists are placed together, another plot device taken for the ‘96 movie -- though they’re the names of IMF agents in the film, not in the episode.)
2. “The Heir Apparent” (Season 3, Episode 1/Written by Robert E. Thompson; Directed by Alexander Singer) To stop a villain from taking power, Cinnamon poses as a long-lost blind princess. To prove that she is who she claims, she must solve a complicated puzzle box. Barney and Willy (Peter Lupus) dig and crawl through walls to reach the puzzle box, which Barney has to solve and mark for Cinnamon mere moments before the woman is asked to open the box. Equally impressive is Rollin, who alters his disguise and changes identities while sitting in a crowd of onlookers.
3. “Old Man Out: Parts 1-2” (Season 1, Episodes 4-5/Written by Ellis Marcus; Directed by Charles R. Rondeau) Acrobat Crystal Walker (Mary Ann Mobley), who has history with team leader Dan (Steven Hill), is recruited for a mission to extract an 80-year-old priest from a high security prison. The team poses as circus performers who set up just outside the prison walls, while Rollin gets himself arrested and subsequently imprisoned. Though Landau was still only credited as “guest star” in Season 1, this two-parter is a showcase for Rollin, who not only skillfully escapes his cell, but, due to the priest being moved without anyone’s knowledge, must sneak back into the cell and execute the jailbreak again.
4. “Hunted” (Season 5, Episode 10/Written by Helen Hoblock Thompson; Directed by Terry Becker) While freeing a man from captivity in Africa, Barney is critically injured and left behind. After ensuring that the hostage is safe, the team returns to save Barney, who has been taken in by a deaf-mute seamtress (Ta-Tanisha). The scenes shared by Barney and his savior, Gabby, including one in which Gabby digs a bullet out of Barney’s leg, are wholly engaging and sweetly romantic. Suspense is heightened when Paris (Leonard Nimoy), acting as a decoy (to mislead authorities on the search) and feigning an injury similar to one which Barney sustained, is genuinely wounded in the process. The episode is an expression of both Barney’s versatility and the team’s loyalty. Other members, such as Cinnamon and Paris, have been captured or hurt during assignments, but, despite the knowledge that they will be disavowed if caught or killed, there’s never a debate as to whether or not a team member will be forgotten. It quite simply becomes another mission.
5. “Encore” (Season 6, Episode 2/Written by Harold Livingston; Directed by Paul Krasny) The team makes an aging gangster, Thomas Kroll (William Shatner), believe that he’s 30 years younger and in 1937, all to obtain any evidence linking him directly to an unsolved murder. Each member portrays a figure in Kroll’s life, including Casey (Lynda Day George) as the murdered man’s sister and Doug (Sam Elliott) as the murdered man, with the hopes that the gangster will lead them to the body. One of the team’s more elaborate missions, it thrives on the atmosphere and surroundings (there’s a great moment when Jim removes an extra’s too-modern sunglasses), and the episode has an appropriately apocalyptic ending.
Honorable Mentions: “A Spool There Was” (S1, E9) -- Cinnamon and Rollin work an assignment with just the two of them, searching for a wire of recorded audio well hidden by a murdered agent. A solid pairing of the couple, made all the more watchable knowing that actors Landau and Bain were husband and wife. “Charity” (S2, E10) and “The Mercenaries” (S3, E4) -- Both of these episodes feature an immensely entertaining and memorable method of theft, as well as ingenious ways to deceive the villains who have just been robbed.
