Pilot

This is the pilot episode for "Mission: Impossible" and if you didn't know this, you might just suspect that it's a typical season one episode. This is because all the story elements of are there--and it's amazing how little the series changed after. Like other season one shows, the tape recorder isn't necessarily a tape recorder and its destruction isn't exactly the type you'd see in the Peter Graves episodes (starting with season two). Otherwise, it begins as usual with the leader picking the team members (this omitted in the late episodes), a fictional country (Santa Costa) and those cool masks. All in all, well worth seeing.

When the show begins, the team is dispatched to Santa Costa to steal two nuclear warheads that a Castro-like dictator has in his possession. And, coincidentally, Dictator Dominguez just happens to look an awful lot like Rollin (Martin Landau). The trick is to have Rollin impersonate the General and sneak an expert (Wally Cox) into the vault to disarm the warheads before they are stolen. The only problem is that this agents hands are crushed--and someone else will need to do this very delicate part of the mission.

An excellent story and some very typical sorts of plots make this one not only an excellent plot but an excellent show. Like most of the episodes starring Steven Hill, this one is a winner.

The pilot for Mission Impossible. A series that runs even today but as a series of films starring Tom Cruise that kicked off in 1996.

Here there is no Peter Graves as Jim Phelps. The lead is Steven Hill as Dan Briggs. Returning to the IMF. His mission handed out from a record that will soon disintegrate.

His mission is go to a small Latin American country of Santa Costa to disarm a pair of nuclear warheads.

Briggs assembles his own team together that includes master of disguise Rollin Hand (Martin Landau) who uses a face mask to impersonate the leader of the country.

However his safe cracker injures his hands. Briggs has to take his place. While the staff at the hotel where the leader resides get suspicious.

A cracking opener. Very much a daring caper. For the time a diverse cast although Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter is very much there for sex appeal.

Without a doubt, the Impossible Mission Force could not have gotten off the ground without their leader, Daniel Briggs (Steven Hill). Fortunately when he left, Peter Graves (nee Aurness) as IMF leader Jim Phelps was able to take up the slack. In 1955 he directed Gunsmoke in which his brother James Arness (nee Aurness) starred in the main lead. As another side note, he played Martin Davis in Bayou, retitled POOR WHITE TRASH in 1957. In 2003 he played Noah Poole a former Nazi officer who passed himself off as a Swedish Jew in COLD CASE, he still looked in good form and turned in an excellent performance at age 77 too! Steven Hill looks quite different now on LAW AND ORDER as District Attorney Adam Schiff, but also quite distinguished at age 84! Martin Landau (1966-1969)was Rollin Hand and in 1969 Leonard Nimoy as Paris until 1971, both actors added a lot to the series as did Peter Lupus who played Willy Armitage did well with the limited parts given him. Greg Morris as Barney Collier was great with gadgets and made using them look very professionally done and quite believable too! Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter was more memorable than Lynda Day George as Lisa Casey or Lesley Ann Warren as Dana Lambert or Barbara Anderson as Mimi Davis. Sam Elliott as Doug Robert seemed forgettable and appeared to myself as playing a very limited role. Poor old Bob Johnson who was the voice on the tape never appeared before the camera and I wondered to this day what he looked like? Sad to say, the recent crop of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE motion pictures just do not seem to cut it, this is definitely a series that cannot be replaced nor more than I LOVE LUCY, SERGEANT BILKO, CAR-54, and a host of other great t.v. series! I am looking forward to the day they release the Mission Impossible series on either video-tape, DVD, or both formats! Steven Hill was and is a great actor! Sarge Booker of Tujunga, California

The imminent use of atomic weapons at the hands of a South-American despot seems a bit far-fetched, but it sets the tone for the import of the IMF's missions. Straight out of the gate, the format is established with leader Dan Briggs (Stephen Hill) getting his orders from a disintegrating LP and then choosing his agents from the leather-bound IMF agent portfolio. (I remember, as a kid, I always thought those first few minutes of every episode were awesome.) Martin Landou as Rollin Hand, master of disguise, establishes the series soon-to-be-famous motif of impersonations. Barnier Collier, played by Greg Morris, is the original McGyver. His gadgets and tricks, a bit underplayed in this pilot episode, always added to the IMF team's trickery in an interesting way. We're also introduced to series regulars, Barbara Bain and Peter Lupus, one of only two actors (Greg Morris) who were with the series entire run. The great Wally Cox makes his only series appearance in the pilot as a safe-cracker. While not one of the series strongest episodes, it was suspenseful and compelling enough to make you want to see more. The potential for where the stories could go was limitless.

The story: a Latin American country has a couple of nuclear weapons for possible use against the U. S. The team must take them out without exploding them.

Only a few years after the Socialist USSR placed missiles in Cuba this story would play into a genuine fear.

Binging "Mission Impossible" from the beginning is eye-opening, as it starts out pretty well (if crudely, with more strong-arm tactics) to become (arguably) the best show on the air. Almost always tightly written (my father never liked the show because one had to watch it every minute), its start was fairly crude because of the exigencies of TV at the time.

The original team leader, Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) isn't as charismatic as the later Jim Phelps, but the first viewers of the show wouldn't have known better.

Otherwise, everything we came to love about the show (the exciting montage opening with TV's most evocative theme music; the briefing by the Voice giving us all the expostion we need; the dossier scene followed by a gathering of the cast with teasers of what's coming) is in place from the start.

The team's behavior is more brutal than we become used to but the stakes are high as we learn the team is willing to suffer any hardship or humiliation to achieve their goal. They're even willing to be blown to smithereens for their country if necessary. The ever-present warning of disavowal by the Secretary (never made clear in the original series) proves from the first how high the stakes are.

Though some of the early episodes aren't very good ("a spool there was" is frankly boring) this pilot episode kick-starts the series, if I may use the term, with a bang.