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tv_talk2023-09-29 02:23 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote in tv_talk2023-09-29 02:23 pm
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Have you watched Mission Impossible?
Over the past year we've subscribed twice to Paramount+ so one thing I watched a lot of was the Mission Impossible series. I'd not quite finished S1 during our last subscription to Paramount+. The second season not only finally brought in Peter Graves -- and after 10 episodes or so, less use of the time wasting "picking your crew" scene -- but it seemed to me they developed better plots. Perhaps the extra minutes made a difference, but I also think having the regular crew meant more of a focus on the characters as well. Thus we got the "everyone saves Jim" and "everyone saves Cinnamon" episodes.
My first time tryi9ng to watch the show I only got as far as episode 26 despite watching several a day because seasons back then were close to 30 episodes long! I had really wanted to get to S2 to see what changes there were. For one thing, I'd never realized the first season had someone else instead of Jim Phelps leading the team. And secondly, I'd never realized that only some regulars were used in each episode despite being in the credits.
I can only assume that contracts were different back then, because these days I understand that a series regular gets paid whether they appear in an episode or not. Yet a number of episodes had only 2 of the regulars in it (with a brief appearance by the lead, Dan Briggs). At the same time, Martin Landau, who is a guest star, is in almost all of them and even served as the team lead once. In fact in one episode, where he co-starred with Barbara Luna, there wasn't a single regular in the episode! I think it was episode 10 too, so very early in the series, although it seems they aired a lot of episodes out of order.
I read up on why this was, and apparently I guessed correctly that the reason was so that Landau could be available for film work. However he ended up working regularly because the lead, Steven Hill, was so often absent and was eventually fired.
That meant that in Episode 23 Cinnamon gets the assignment and Briggs was missing from the episode entirely. In the next episode they re-used old footage of the tape disposal scene. In the last few episodes they also re-used footage for the selection process scene (something which was always a tedious waste of time) which was obvious because color photos of Greg Morris and Peter Lupus had been substituted for the earlier black and white ones in earlier episodes and suddenly they were back to b&w.
Funny how the tape (sometimes vinyl record!) often said "dispose of this recording in the usual manner" -- but sometimes it's by fire or by tossing in water and sometimes the tape self-destructs on its own. So there is no usual means!
This was a show with no memory. You could have Rollin Hand appear on TV, even in events broadcast in countries around the world (such as while he acted as a defense attorney). Yet he could later take part in missions undisguised and with no concern about being recognized!
I was incredibly amused when their greatest opponent appeared in Episode 19 –- a cat who just wanted to play while they were trying to heist a diamond. Most realistic part yet of any MI episode!
It was an odd experience because on the one hand the show was so slow a lot of the time. The worst was the two-parter with the circus early in S1. Apparently they ran too long for one episode but didn't have enough footage for two so we had endless repeating shots of the audience and performers doing not terribly interesting stuff.
But I did get fond of the characters themselves, which is strange given that we really don't get to know much about them. I guess it became a comfort view.
When it moved on to S4 and Leonard Nimoy came in, it became more of a sausage fest. There was often a female guest member of the team, but we knew nothing about them and there's obviously less connection there. They also tended to have more disposable parts. One exception was when Jessica Walter guest starred with a substantial role.
Given how long seasons used to be I am still several seasons away from finishing the series, but there were at least some episodes in S4 that broke the mold. I am thinking in particular about the one set in London, where there was no taped mission at all, presumably because the team was very much on the record with their work there.
Although it made sense, I am generally also not fond of the "series regular falls in love" type stories (in MI or other shows) since the lack of serialization means you're very unlikely to see the storyline continued, so it's always rushed and improbable. And given the nature of the MI show, these tended to end poorly or just weren't referenced again.
One thing I always enjoy is seeing who the guest stars are. Many of them pop up in other TV shows from the time, and there are also a number of them who have appeared in more than one MI episode. Perhaps my favorite of these occurrences in S4 was when we have both Spock and T'Pring in the same one, although they unfortunately never meet.
My first time tryi9ng to watch the show I only got as far as episode 26 despite watching several a day because seasons back then were close to 30 episodes long! I had really wanted to get to S2 to see what changes there were. For one thing, I'd never realized the first season had someone else instead of Jim Phelps leading the team. And secondly, I'd never realized that only some regulars were used in each episode despite being in the credits.
I can only assume that contracts were different back then, because these days I understand that a series regular gets paid whether they appear in an episode or not. Yet a number of episodes had only 2 of the regulars in it (with a brief appearance by the lead, Dan Briggs). At the same time, Martin Landau, who is a guest star, is in almost all of them and even served as the team lead once. In fact in one episode, where he co-starred with Barbara Luna, there wasn't a single regular in the episode! I think it was episode 10 too, so very early in the series, although it seems they aired a lot of episodes out of order.
I read up on why this was, and apparently I guessed correctly that the reason was so that Landau could be available for film work. However he ended up working regularly because the lead, Steven Hill, was so often absent and was eventually fired.
That meant that in Episode 23 Cinnamon gets the assignment and Briggs was missing from the episode entirely. In the next episode they re-used old footage of the tape disposal scene. In the last few episodes they also re-used footage for the selection process scene (something which was always a tedious waste of time) which was obvious because color photos of Greg Morris and Peter Lupus had been substituted for the earlier black and white ones in earlier episodes and suddenly they were back to b&w.
Funny how the tape (sometimes vinyl record!) often said "dispose of this recording in the usual manner" -- but sometimes it's by fire or by tossing in water and sometimes the tape self-destructs on its own. So there is no usual means!
This was a show with no memory. You could have Rollin Hand appear on TV, even in events broadcast in countries around the world (such as while he acted as a defense attorney). Yet he could later take part in missions undisguised and with no concern about being recognized!
I was incredibly amused when their greatest opponent appeared in Episode 19 –- a cat who just wanted to play while they were trying to heist a diamond. Most realistic part yet of any MI episode!
It was an odd experience because on the one hand the show was so slow a lot of the time. The worst was the two-parter with the circus early in S1. Apparently they ran too long for one episode but didn't have enough footage for two so we had endless repeating shots of the audience and performers doing not terribly interesting stuff.
But I did get fond of the characters themselves, which is strange given that we really don't get to know much about them. I guess it became a comfort view.
When it moved on to S4 and Leonard Nimoy came in, it became more of a sausage fest. There was often a female guest member of the team, but we knew nothing about them and there's obviously less connection there. They also tended to have more disposable parts. One exception was when Jessica Walter guest starred with a substantial role.
Given how long seasons used to be I am still several seasons away from finishing the series, but there were at least some episodes in S4 that broke the mold. I am thinking in particular about the one set in London, where there was no taped mission at all, presumably because the team was very much on the record with their work there.
Although it made sense, I am generally also not fond of the "series regular falls in love" type stories (in MI or other shows) since the lack of serialization means you're very unlikely to see the storyline continued, so it's always rushed and improbable. And given the nature of the MI show, these tended to end poorly or just weren't referenced again.
One thing I always enjoy is seeing who the guest stars are. Many of them pop up in other TV shows from the time, and there are also a number of them who have appeared in more than one MI episode. Perhaps my favorite of these occurrences in S4 was when we have both Spock and T'Pring in the same one, although they unfortunately never meet.
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Something to look forward to!