Mission: Impossible (TV Series) Pilot (1966) User Reviews

Standard-setting episode

[ingemar-4 · 8/10 · 2 September 2010]

As I remember typical Mission Impossible episodes, the pilot is very mainstream, but that is hardly a negative thing for a pilot. Rather, the pilot was so good that many later episodes mimics it.

And it is a good episode. The guest star has a big role as the safe-cracker, and also carries the very important change of plan. But Landau has even more to do. He has as much as four roles (and in a way five, although that is faked): Rollin Hand as himself, Rollin as the dictator, the dictator, the old man... and for a brief moment he plays Rollin who is just taking off his Steven Hill mask. They can't do magic, so the dictator looks very much like Landau, but it is still a nice plot. Quite a bit over the top, of course, as most MI plots. Overall, this makes Martin Landau is the big star of the show, and the rest rather supporting him. No bad thing; Landau was a great asset to the show.

It's amazing how the show hit its stride right from the outset.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 10 January 2014]

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.

An Auspicious Beginning That Promised...and Delivered

[Jimmy-128 · 8/10 · 13 October 2012]

Dan Briggs visits a music library...and one of the best action dramas in television history kicks off. The mission involves a small Latin American nation and a pair of nuclear warheads; the world was far enough removed from the Cuban Missile Crisis for such a plot to be given a chance by American audiences. Briggs and his team have to get those warheads out of the country--and not incidentally, get themselves out, too.

The pilot establishes early that the episodes will focus mainly on Dan Briggs (and later Jim Phelps), Rollin Hand (Paris), and Cinnamon Carter (who cares?); Willy Armitage's role is mainly to lift heavy things (including people), and though Barney Collier the government comes up with the tech that makes the mission possible for the first of many times, Greg Morris the actor isn't given much to do or much screen time.

Landau gives a tour de force performance as Hand, and it's especially compelling to watch him go through the hard work of trying to get every nuance of General Dominguez's persona down to the point where he does it without thinking about it. Steven Hill is quite good and tastefully understated as Briggs, and we get to see his resourcefulness (when an unexpected turn of events renders part of the mission plan impossible) and his courage (when he must risk blowing himself to ashes by tampering with the warheads).

Strong kick-off.

[bobbyf · 18 June 2007]

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.

Steven Hill's contribution to Impossible Mission Force

[hhbooker2-1 · 10/10 · 28 May 2006]

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

"TWO ATOM BOMBS!"

[profh-1 · 8/10 · 17 April 2024]

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!

Mission (more or less) accomplished

[Fluke_Skywalker · 7/10 · 12 January 2017]

Plot; The IMF team is tasked with recovering stolen nuclear warheads from a Latin American despot.

Having grown up in the era of Nick at Nite and TV Land in the 80s, I certainly got to experience my fair share of "classic" TV, but I still don't know for certain if I've ever seen an episode of the original Mission: Impossible TV series. Of course I'm familiar with the theme song, tropes and the iconography of it, and was so even before the Tom Cruise led film series. So, curious for a sample, I decided to start at the start.

This first episode is reasonably tight by pilot standards and more or less what you'd expect from the series in general. A team is selected, a plot is hatched and the focus is on them pulling it off. There's not much in the way of character development and IMF isn't really explained in any detail. Of the cast, I only knew Martin Landau and his then wife Barbara Bain. Landau is great, playing the actor of the group; the one tasked with impersonating the (fill in the blank) of the week. HD certainly does his make-up no favors, making him look like a diseased potato in his dictator prosthetics. The real surprise here was Bain. I only know her from another series she did with Landau, Space 1999. In the latter I often found myself looking for her lobotomy scars as she often looks dazed in her role as a supposedly brilliant Dr. But here she's sexy and assured, stealing every second of every scene she's in. I'm not the least bit surprised to learn that she won three consecutive Emmy's for her role as the deliciously named Cinnamon Carter.

There's enough here for me to want to explore a bit further. Check out some of the more well regarded episodes from S1. 

• Absolutely everyone in this episode smokes. The main cast, the extras. Random animals and small children. I kept waiting for one of our heroes to stop midmission and wax poetic about how smooth Lucky Strikes were.

• When I thought about Mission: Impossible the series I thought of Peter Graves. He's absent here and come to find out he doesn't join the series until S2.

The episode that started a franchise

[aramis-112-804880 · 7/10 · 17 January 2023]

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.

Pilot

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 26 February 2024]

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.

Meh. Not so good.

[kdjohn3 · 3/10 · 28 June 2014]

I watched Mission: Impossible reruns as a kid in the '80s. I loved it then. It's on Netflix so I decided to see if it holds up. Not so much in the pilot. Why the heck does everyone in what is obviously supposed to be a Spanish speaking country speak English throughout the entire episode? Why can't the General's right hand man recognize that he's been replaced by a double? Why the heck would the bad guy General keep his nuclear bombs in a bank vault instead of on a military base? Why would hotel guests be allowed anywhere near that vault? Why does the nuclear warhead look like an oversized drain pipe fitting? So many things made no sense whatsoever.