I was in high school when this series came out. I found it extremely dragged out and boring so I only watched a few episodes until now. I have since bought the entire series and have watched every show.
Everyone thought this was a spy thriller series. James Bond was a big hit at the time. But there is nothing "Spy" associated with this show. This show turned into a group of Scam artists as the IMF team who stole money, kidnapped & tortured people, lied, falsely arrested, impersonated authorities and deprived their targets of their constitutional & human rights. The audience began rooting for the bad guys because the supposed good guys were so rotten, setting up people to be killed, blatantly abusing authority and smiling at their own cold blooded acts of violence. The only saving grace was the intro format of the instructions and the technology and cosmetic expertise. But even the taped directives are left in ridiculous, unsecured locations.
The first 4 seasons, all of the shows were either Nazi organizations trying to rebuild the Nazi regime or some nameless East European or UPC gov't seeking world domination or WMD or some nameless Hispanic country with dictators & internal rebellions or drug cartels.
Season 5 turned into a ridiculous hippy protest season. They hired Lesley Ann Warren who clearly fit the role of a hippy. She was a terrible actress with a deadpan expression and no discernible acting skills; lacking any class or beauty for the role. Fortunately, they stopped these Atypical violent hippy protest themes after season 5. Unfortunately, they exchanged hippy for mafia.
Seasons 6 and 7 were nearly all syndicate and mafia episodes with IMF team stealing from the syndicate and setting them against each other. There were multiple casino and gambling story lines, drugs and stealing money from their vaults in at least a dozen different episodes. The IMF team even resorted to drugging and hypnotizing victims to commit crimes or setting them up to believe they had killed or committed a crime as in "Crackup". The only bright side of these last two seasons was the addition of Lynda Day George to the cast, until she poorly chose season 7 to have a child.
There were few impersonations after season 4. They used their own faces for 6 & 7. The idea that no one would notice substitutions without cosmetic alterations was too absurd to be believable. Season 6 & 7 technology consisted of transmitter tone boxes and a phone number translator. Mostly just scams, lies, stealing, kidnapping, false arrests and elaborate hoaxes. The MI scam team were quite cold blooded about getting their targets killed. The things they did to the "bad guys" was so awful and hateful and totally in contradiction with constitutional rights, that the audience was sympathizing with the criminals. Phelps role became cold blooded, hateful and merciless exceeding any criminality of the targets. Willy also became cruel & cold blooded and their female counterpart would do a spine chilling grin as they heard one of their targets being shot.
Most of the scenes were overly long, drawn out and boring. Especially those "pursuit" scenes which spent nearly 5 minutes watching someone run, crawl, drive or swim from point A to B. There was an episode "Ultimatum" where Phelps acting as a thief on the run was holding a scientist hostage with less than 2 hours to disarm a nuclear bomb in LA. It made no sense as Phelps deliberately delayed the scientist from disarming the bomb until the last minute.
There were also too many duplicate stories with Casino, Chess matches, breaking into vaults, Syndicates, kidnapping, imprisonment, torture, drugging & stealing themes, etc.
Of the entire series, there were only a half dozen truly fresh stories. But even those were laced with cruelty such as "Two Thousand". "Crack up" was one where they tormented the victim into believing he had committed murders.
The loss of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain after the 3rd season really hurt the show. Clearly, the show producers failed to honor the actor's contracts such as Landau's guarantee that no other actor's salary should be higher than his or Hill's contract which stated he would never work past the Sabbath which is very important for his Jewish religion with strict rules about being at home before dusk on Friday for this weekly observance. When the actors complained, their careers suffered from being blackballed.
Greg Morris actually carried the entire series as the genius engineer. He was very likable as the technology genius until the last two seasons where his role changed from hiding in false file cabinets, under cars or in some HVAC duct using impressive technologies to impersonating a variety of nationalities, police officers, thugs, pilots, doctors, etc. While it gave him a chance to show off his skills as an actor and the variety of colorful personalities he could provide, his attitude in these roles became very snide and quite unlikeable. Where his genius key role was an opportunity seldom available to ethnics in a prime time series of that era, the last two seasons served to undo the achievements accomplished by degrading his likable character into a stereotype tough hood attitude for the final 2 seasons.
While I love the cast of Star Trek, I found it very disturbing to see Nimoy (Spock) with these scary grins and bizarre roles or Shatner as a mafia kingpin.
Most of these reviewers are remembering the recorded directives, impersonations and technology with some impressive trickery, particularly in the first 4 seasons, but have not seen the show recently.
I recommend rewatching all 7 seasons. It should have been a spy series. Not a bunch of scammers, thieves, kidnappers and cold blooded liars. If you rewatch the series, you will see how much different it was from what you remember 45 years ago.
Everyone thought this was a spy thriller series. James Bond was a big hit at the time. But there is nothing "Spy" associated with this show. This show turned into a group of Scam artists as the IMF team who stole money, kidnapped & tortured people, lied, falsely arrested, impersonated authorities and deprived their targets of their constitutional & human rights. The audience began rooting for the bad guys because the supposed good guys were so rotten, setting up people to be killed, blatantly abusing authority and smiling at their own cold blooded acts of violence. The only saving grace was the intro format of the instructions and the technology and cosmetic expertise. But even the taped directives are left in ridiculous, unsecured locations.
The first 4 seasons, all of the shows were either Nazi organizations trying to rebuild the Nazi regime or some nameless East European or UPC gov't seeking world domination or WMD or some nameless Hispanic country with dictators & internal rebellions or drug cartels.
Season 5 turned into a ridiculous hippy protest season. They hired Lesley Ann Warren who clearly fit the role of a hippy. She was a terrible actress with a deadpan expression and no discernible acting skills; lacking any class or beauty for the role. Fortunately, they stopped these Atypical violent hippy protest themes after season 5. Unfortunately, they exchanged hippy for mafia.
Seasons 6 and 7 were nearly all syndicate and mafia episodes with IMF team stealing from the syndicate and setting them against each other. There were multiple casino and gambling story lines, drugs and stealing money from their vaults in at least a dozen different episodes. The IMF team even resorted to drugging and hypnotizing victims to commit crimes or setting them up to believe they had killed or committed a crime as in "Crackup". The only bright side of these last two seasons was the addition of Lynda Day George to the cast, until she poorly chose season 7 to have a child.
There were few impersonations after season 4. They used their own faces for 6 & 7. The idea that no one would notice substitutions without cosmetic alterations was too absurd to be believable. Season 6 & 7 technology consisted of transmitter tone boxes and a phone number translator. Mostly just scams, lies, stealing, kidnapping, false arrests and elaborate hoaxes. The MI scam team were quite cold blooded about getting their targets killed. The things they did to the "bad guys" was so awful and hateful and totally in contradiction with constitutional rights, that the audience was sympathizing with the criminals. Phelps role became cold blooded, hateful and merciless exceeding any criminality of the targets. Willy also became cruel & cold blooded and their female counterpart would do a spine chilling grin as they heard one of their targets being shot.
Most of the scenes were overly long, drawn out and boring. Especially those "pursuit" scenes which spent nearly 5 minutes watching someone run, crawl, drive or swim from point A to B. There was an episode "Ultimatum" where Phelps acting as a thief on the run was holding a scientist hostage with less than 2 hours to disarm a nuclear bomb in LA. It made no sense as Phelps deliberately delayed the scientist from disarming the bomb until the last minute.
There were also too many duplicate stories with Casino, Chess matches, breaking into vaults, Syndicates, kidnapping, imprisonment, torture, drugging & stealing themes, etc.
Of the entire series, there were only a half dozen truly fresh stories. But even those were laced with cruelty such as "Two Thousand". "Crack up" was one where they tormented the victim into believing he had committed murders.
The loss of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain after the 3rd season really hurt the show. Clearly, the show producers failed to honor the actor's contracts such as Landau's guarantee that no other actor's salary should be higher than his or Hill's contract which stated he would never work past the Sabbath which is very important for his Jewish religion with strict rules about being at home before dusk on Friday for this weekly observance. When the actors complained, their careers suffered from being blackballed.
Greg Morris actually carried the entire series as the genius engineer. He was very likable as the technology genius until the last two seasons where his role changed from hiding in false file cabinets, under cars or in some HVAC duct using impressive technologies to impersonating a variety of nationalities, police officers, thugs, pilots, doctors, etc. While it gave him a chance to show off his skills as an actor and the variety of colorful personalities he could provide, his attitude in these roles became very snide and quite unlikeable. Where his genius key role was an opportunity seldom available to ethnics in a prime time series of that era, the last two seasons served to undo the achievements accomplished by degrading his likable character into a stereotype tough hood attitude for the final 2 seasons.
While I love the cast of Star Trek, I found it very disturbing to see Nimoy (Spock) with these scary grins and bizarre roles or Shatner as a mafia kingpin.
Most of these reviewers are remembering the recorded directives, impersonations and technology with some impressive trickery, particularly in the first 4 seasons, but have not seen the show recently.
I recommend rewatching all 7 seasons. It should have been a spy series. Not a bunch of scammers, thieves, kidnappers and cold blooded liars. If you rewatch the series, you will see how much different it was from what you remember 45 years ago.