MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: (Pilot)“TWO ATOM BOMBS!” (
8 of 10)
Daniel Briggs, leader of a mysterious covert government group known as the "IMF" (Impossible Missions Force) is assigned to go to the Central American country of Santa Costa, break into an impregnable vault in a lavish hotel, disarm and REMOVE a pair of atomic bombs to prevent their threat of use by the military dictator, "General Rio Dominguez", and get out alive with the bombs.
This is certainly as different as you could get from the movie
WRONG IS RIGHT (1982).
Bruce Geller had a dream: get into feature films by producing a TV pilot that was SO complex, SO tight, SO involved, it would act as his resume to become a film producer. And there was no way this thing could ever get on TV. But the plan backfired when the seeming-impossible happened: the pilot SOLD! Suddenly-- he had to do it EVERY WEEK. I suppose we can "thank" Lucille Ball for this, as that year she used every bit of her power and influence in the business to virtually strong-arm network executives into buying not one but TWO of the shows created by her small, family-owned studio, DESILU. The other show was
STAR TREK. Does it blow anyone else's mind that both these series debuted on TV the SAME week?
Very much following in the footsteps of such earlier productions as
RIFIFI (1955),
21 BEACON STREET (1959-- there was actually a lawsuit involved!),
THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (1960) and especially
TOPKAPI (1964-- check out not only the similar format but the similar characters), the series showcased incredibly-complicated plots, storytelling and editing-- usually at the expense of characterization, as Geller wanted his team members to be ciphers, as most of the time they would be undercover portraying fictional people.
Steven Hill is "Daniel Briggs", who each week gets his assignments in odd places via recordings that "self-destruct" after use (in the pilot, it's a record LP that "decomposes" one minute after the air seal is broken). In his long career, he appeared in many things, but no doubt will always be remembered for his 28 episodes of
M:I and his 230 episodes of
LAW AND ORDER.
Barbara Bain is "Cinnamon Carter", who admits her job mostly uses her "natural talents". I honestly don't remember her being as sexy as she was in this, so I'm really looking forward to the rest of her 78 episodes here. I've also seen her as David Jansen's girlfriend in 5 episodes of
RICHARD DIAMOND, appearances in both the Darren McGavin AND Stacy Keach versions of
MIKE HAMMER, an early
GET SMART (done shortly before this), as well as her unfortunate 2 seasons on
SPACE: 1999 and the final
GILLIGAN'S ISLAND movie in 1981.
Greg Morris is "Barney Collier", the tech wizard who's usually working in the shadows and rarely has much dialogue. Ironically, he's the only actor on the series who appeared in all 9 seasons (including guest-appearances in the late-80s revival, for a total of
174 episodes). He also was a regular for 57 episodes of
VEGA$. Crazy enough, his son Phil, a regular playing his son in the revival, made his acting debut in a 1st-season
STAR TREK not many weeks after this.
Peter Lupus is "Willy Armitage", a strongman who gets to lift 2 suitcases, which will contain not only the nuclear weapons, but also a man, without anyone watching being the wiser. He lasted 161 episodes, and also made 4 appearances as "Norberg" on the short-lived
POLICE SQUAD! with Leslie Nielsen.
Martin Landau is "Rollin Hand", a combination stage magician and master of disguise. He gets to play an old man in a wheelchair, and impersonate General Dominguez (who, coincidentally, is also played by Landau). He also flirts quite a bit with Cinnamon in this, which she brushes off while trying to focus on the mission. Landau was originally scheduled for only a certain number of episodes in the 1st season, to allow him to appear in other projects and on stage, and so was listed as "special guest star". But, by season 2, he became a regular like the other 4 team members. Landau almost certainly has the most prestigious list of acting credits, having appeared in such things as
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959),
CLEOPATRA (1963), 2 episodes each of
THE UNTOUCHABLES and
THE OUTER LIMITS,
THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS! (1970),
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1979),
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989),
ED WOOD (1994),
SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999), the hilarious
READY TO RUMBLE (2000), as well as all 48 episodes of
SPACE: 1999 and 76 episodes of
M:I.
Wally Cox is "Terry Targo", a professional safe-cracker who has to figure out how to break OUT of an impregnable vault. Things get really tricky when his fingers are broken during the capture of "el presidente", and Dan has to do his job for him. Mostly known for comedy, Cox appeared in 104 episodes of
MISTER PEEPERS, 26 episodes of
THE ADVENTURES OF HIRAM HOLLIDAY, 119 episodes of
UNDERDOG, as well as
THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1972) and a
LOST IN SPACE.
Preumably, director Bernard L. Kowalksi's work on this set the whole style and tone for the series. He'd previously done 25 episodes of
THE REBEL and later did 10 of
BARETTA, 5 of
MAGNUM, P. I., 4 of
COLUMBO and 4 of
BANACEK. It's that last one that grabs my attention, as that show's "heists" were carried out in similarly-complex, mind-blowing fashion to the ones here.
I understand
M:I burned out more writers in Holywood than any other series on TV, because of its excess complexity. I came in on the 2nd season, and was instantly hooked. But, strangely enough, until today, I had NEVER seen a single episode of the 1st season. But now I have the 2020 Blu-Ray set. Suffice to say, I've got a lot of "work" in front of me!
