Leonard Nimoy…on Mission: Impossible
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
We get a little of Paris' backstory in My Friend, My Enemy, but other than that episode, I find that Nimoy's acting is a lot less energized than it was on TOS when he was playing a Vulcan. That's not his fault--I just don't think the writers were as much interested in the characters themselves as they were in the fanciful plots (some of which I can't even understand). I wondered if it was due to the large cast, but Star Trek's cast was large, and I have a sense of Scotty, Sulu, Chekhov, etc. Everyone seems flatter in M:I. As a Nimoy fan, rewatching these is just disappointing in some ways. I checked out Seasons 4 and 5 from the library, and after watching a few of them, I'm ready to send them back. I much prefer watching old TOS episodes.
Bruce Geller actively discouraged developing the main characters on M:I, since he wanted them to disappear into their impersonations. Season 5 was just about the only time, other than the first half or so of season 1 and later the '88 revival series, where the team members got any character development at all.
As @Christopher said upthread, Executive Producer Bruce Geller actively discouraged any character development, and it was only after his dismissal from the studio, did Paramount bring in producers who would try to humanize the M:I force.
You also picked the two seasons (four and five), where there was a lot of behind-the-scenes turmoil - Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, to whom many viewers considered the stars of the series, were gone due to salary disputes, and there was no way replace them in an organic way.
As I posted earlier, the first six to eight scripts in production order were written with Landau and Bain in the roles of Rollin and Cinnamon. The first script written and tailored for Nimoy as Paris was the three-part 'The Falcon'.
Also, halfway through the fourth season, the series lost both its producer, Stanley Kallis, who was tapped to helm Hawaii Five-O's second season and head writer Paul Playdon unexpectedly quit during the writing of Episode 90 'Time Bomb', feeling he had lost touch with what the series was all about. A new Producer will be found in Bruce Lansbury, late of 'The Wild Wild West' and a new head writer in Laurence Heath. But that meant that many of the episodes in the latter half of the fourth season have to do without a Producer and Head Scriptwriter, while Paramount scrambles to find replacements.
The fifth season would see Lansbury shifting the focus away from the international espionage towards the domestic and the hiring of Lesley Ann Warren as Dana Lambert, moves, both of which Executive Producer Bruce Geller fought against, even going so far as to say directly to Lesley Ann Warren's face that he thought she was wrong for the show, something both Peter Graves and Greg Morris agreed with, although the two of them did try and make Lesley feel comfortable on the set.
In addition, Nimoy was disappointed with the work he was given in the fourth season and his dissatisfaction only grew during the fifth season, finally reaching its conclusion during episode 117: The Hostage where Greg Morris character of Barney was the one who created the masks instead of Paris. Nimoy objected to this cross pollination but was rebuffed by Lansbury and Heath and from that point Nimoy checked out, going as far as to negotiate his way out of his five-year contract upon completing filming of the episode. So, for the remaining seven episodes of the season, Nimoy is coasting
As Nimoy says in 'The Complete 'Mission: Impossible' Dossier' - "I wasn't able to explore any character; I wasn't playing a real person. I was playing the people that Paris played, and they were all an idea, not a person. A face to be ripped off. I had a good time with the makeup and wardrobe and dialects (some of which were successful, some weren't). I came to believe that I was so hidden in some of the makeup that people didn't know if it was me or someone else playing the role. I had some good times. I wasn't under stress, and still, during the making of 'Mission: Impossible' I had an ulcer attack. Obviously, my subconscious was trying to tell me something."
You also picked the two seasons (four and five), where there was a lot of behind-the-scenes turmoil - Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, to whom many viewers considered the stars of the series, were gone due to salary disputes, and there was no way replace them in an organic way.
As I posted earlier, the first six to eight scripts in production order were written with Landau and Bain in the roles of Rollin and Cinnamon. The first script written and tailored for Nimoy as Paris was the three-part 'The Falcon'.
Also, halfway through the fourth season, the series lost both its producer, Stanley Kallis, who was tapped to helm Hawaii Five-O's second season and head writer Paul Playdon unexpectedly quit during the writing of Episode 90 'Time Bomb', feeling he had lost touch with what the series was all about. A new Producer will be found in Bruce Lansbury, late of 'The Wild Wild West' and a new head writer in Laurence Heath. But that meant that many of the episodes in the latter half of the fourth season have to do without a Producer and Head Scriptwriter, while Paramount scrambles to find replacements.
The fifth season would see Lansbury shifting the focus away from the international espionage towards the domestic and the hiring of Lesley Ann Warren as Dana Lambert, moves, both of which Executive Producer Bruce Geller fought against, even going so far as to say directly to Lesley Ann Warren's face that he thought she was wrong for the show, something both Peter Graves and Greg Morris agreed with, although the two of them did try and make Lesley feel comfortable on the set.
In addition, Nimoy was disappointed with the work he was given in the fourth season and his dissatisfaction only grew during the fifth season, finally reaching its conclusion during episode 117: The Hostage where Greg Morris character of Barney was the one who created the masks instead of Paris. Nimoy objected to this cross pollination but was rebuffed by Lansbury and Heath and from that point Nimoy checked out, going as far as to negotiate his way out of his five-year contract upon completing filming of the episode. So, for the remaining seven episodes of the season, Nimoy is coasting
As Nimoy says in 'The Complete 'Mission: Impossible' Dossier' - "I wasn't able to explore any character; I wasn't playing a real person. I was playing the people that Paris played, and they were all an idea, not a person. A face to be ripped off. I had a good time with the makeup and wardrobe and dialects (some of which were successful, some weren't). I came to believe that I was so hidden in some of the makeup that people didn't know if it was me or someone else playing the role. I had some good times. I wasn't under stress, and still, during the making of 'Mission: Impossible' I had an ulcer attack. Obviously, my subconscious was trying to tell me something."
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"I came to believe that I was so hidden in some of the makeup that people didn't know if it was me or someone else playing the role."
Mmmm, Nimoy had too high an opinion of his chameleonic abilities. It was always quite recognizably him. Although the same went for Landau.
I didn't know about the producer shuffle in season 4 -- that could explain why I found it such a mediocre season.
Season 5 was something of an anomaly in Bruce Lansbury's producing career. It was the one season of the show that actively deconstructed its formula and took bold chances with the storytelling, before seasons 6-7 settled back into a more formulaic approach. And what I've seen of Lansbury's later work was driven by formulaic storytelling that took minimal chances. When he took over Wonder Woman, he abandoned nearly all its comic-book elements and turned it into a Bionic Woman clone as much as he could. His first season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century had the explicit mission statement of being "basic," avoiding any challenging Trek-style "concept stories" on the theory that those alienated the average viewer, and instead doing just generic, formulaic action plots with superficial sci-fi trappings (though that was as much due to network pressure as Lansbury's own preferences). Later on, he’d produce further cozy, formulaic, unchallenging dramas including Knight Rider and his big sister Angela’s Murder, She Wrote. Overall, his career seemed to be defined by a quest for the banal, an ambition to remain unambitious. So it's surprising that M:I season 5 was so bold and experimental. It's like he tried it for a year, then decided he didn't like it.
Mmmm, Nimoy had too high an opinion of his chameleonic abilities. It was always quite recognizably him. Although the same went for Landau.
I didn't know about the producer shuffle in season 4 -- that could explain why I found it such a mediocre season.
Season 5 was something of an anomaly in Bruce Lansbury's producing career. It was the one season of the show that actively deconstructed its formula and took bold chances with the storytelling, before seasons 6-7 settled back into a more formulaic approach. And what I've seen of Lansbury's later work was driven by formulaic storytelling that took minimal chances. When he took over Wonder Woman, he abandoned nearly all its comic-book elements and turned it into a Bionic Woman clone as much as he could. His first season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century had the explicit mission statement of being "basic," avoiding any challenging Trek-style "concept stories" on the theory that those alienated the average viewer, and instead doing just generic, formulaic action plots with superficial sci-fi trappings (though that was as much due to network pressure as Lansbury's own preferences). Later on, he’d produce further cozy, formulaic, unchallenging dramas including Knight Rider and his big sister Angela’s Murder, She Wrote. Overall, his career seemed to be defined by a quest for the banal, an ambition to remain unambitious. So it's surprising that M:I season 5 was so bold and experimental. It's like he tried it for a year, then decided he didn't like it.
Thank you for this information. It was fascinating.
That is correct, he was watching the show with me, he pops in now and again, so does Elvis and Greta Garbo, of course not in this particualr universe, but in one of them.
The thing is, Bruce Lansbury only nominally produced the latter half of season four through the first half of season six before being promoted to Paramount's Vice President in Charge of Creative Affairs, which he was tapped to do midway through season five.
So, even though Bruce Lansbury's name appears as Producer on all Season Five episodes, only about half were truly produced by him, the other half being produced by his replacement Harold Livingston.
I don't know much about the inner workings of television shows, but 'Mission: Impossible' surely must hold the record for the most 'behind the scenes' turmoil.
Season One saw the suspension and eventual firing of leading man Steven Hill.
The end of Season Two saw the departure of Producer Joseph Gantman due to burnout, and Script Consultants William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter appointed to the role of Producer(s).
William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter quit (or were fired) after less than eight episodes of the third season were filmed. (Which is a story of itself.)
As the 'M:I' book says, "The pair's abrupt departure had disastrous consequences. "When Billy and Alan went out, there were no scripts," says their script consultant, Robert E. Thompson. "They were the scripts. They were doing one this week to shoot next week." Thompson had been hired on the basis of one story (episode 52, 'The Heir Apparent'), and took the job because it was easy. Suddenly, Mission had no producer and worse, no scripts. "There was nothing there," Thompson states, "only one first draft." (Bruce) Geller talked Thompson into taking over. "I agreed only to stay for the minimum amount of time," Thompson says, "and only if he agreed to try and find someone else immediately."
Thompson would meet with up to twenty writers a day as well as writing an episode in four days before, on his last day as Producer, Thompson met with Paul Playdon, who, based on the script (episode 62, 'The Mind of Stefan Miklos'), was immediately hired as the new head scriptwriter, who wrote the remaining bulk of season three episodes.
At the same time Paul Playdon was hired, 'Mission' found its new producer, Stanley Kallis, who had been Bruce Geller's first choice to produce the series. Kallis had turned to role of Producer down, objecting on moral reason, but now, at Geller's insistence, took over the position.
So, the back half of season three was produced and written by two relatively inexperienced people at the job.
Season Four saw Stanley Kallis leave midway through the season to produce Season Two of Hawaii Five-O and Script Consultant/Head Writer Paul Playdon leave after episode 90 'Time Bomb' due to burnout and the replacements being Bruce Lansbury and script writer Laurence Heath were brought in by Paramount.
Season Five would see Bruce Lansbury's promotion and subsequent departure and the promotion of Laurence Heath to Producer and Harold Livingston promoted to Head Writer to oversee the remainder of the Fifth Season; as well as the departures of Leonard Nimoy, Lesley Ann Warren, Sam Elliott and almost Peter Lupus at the end of the season
Season Six would be overseen by Heath and Livingston, with Linda Day George hired as Casey
Season Seven would see production duties split between Heath and Associate Producer Barry Crane who was promoted to Producer midway through the seventh season and writing duties split between Livingston and new story editor Stephen Kandel as well as maternity leave for Linda Day George for ten episodes midway through the season. Her primary replacement being Barbara Anderson.
So, even though Bruce Lansbury's name appears as Producer on all Season Five episodes, only about half were truly produced by him, the other half being produced by his replacement Harold Livingston.
I don't know much about the inner workings of television shows, but 'Mission: Impossible' surely must hold the record for the most 'behind the scenes' turmoil.
Season One saw the suspension and eventual firing of leading man Steven Hill.
The end of Season Two saw the departure of Producer Joseph Gantman due to burnout, and Script Consultants William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter appointed to the role of Producer(s).
William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter quit (or were fired) after less than eight episodes of the third season were filmed. (Which is a story of itself.)
As the 'M:I' book says, "The pair's abrupt departure had disastrous consequences. "When Billy and Alan went out, there were no scripts," says their script consultant, Robert E. Thompson. "They were the scripts. They were doing one this week to shoot next week." Thompson had been hired on the basis of one story (episode 52, 'The Heir Apparent'), and took the job because it was easy. Suddenly, Mission had no producer and worse, no scripts. "There was nothing there," Thompson states, "only one first draft." (Bruce) Geller talked Thompson into taking over. "I agreed only to stay for the minimum amount of time," Thompson says, "and only if he agreed to try and find someone else immediately."
Thompson would meet with up to twenty writers a day as well as writing an episode in four days before, on his last day as Producer, Thompson met with Paul Playdon, who, based on the script (episode 62, 'The Mind of Stefan Miklos'), was immediately hired as the new head scriptwriter, who wrote the remaining bulk of season three episodes.
At the same time Paul Playdon was hired, 'Mission' found its new producer, Stanley Kallis, who had been Bruce Geller's first choice to produce the series. Kallis had turned to role of Producer down, objecting on moral reason, but now, at Geller's insistence, took over the position.
So, the back half of season three was produced and written by two relatively inexperienced people at the job.
Season Four saw Stanley Kallis leave midway through the season to produce Season Two of Hawaii Five-O and Script Consultant/Head Writer Paul Playdon leave after episode 90 'Time Bomb' due to burnout and the replacements being Bruce Lansbury and script writer Laurence Heath were brought in by Paramount.
Season Five would see Bruce Lansbury's promotion and subsequent departure and the promotion of Laurence Heath to Producer and Harold Livingston promoted to Head Writer to oversee the remainder of the Fifth Season; as well as the departures of Leonard Nimoy, Lesley Ann Warren, Sam Elliott and almost Peter Lupus at the end of the season
Season Six would be overseen by Heath and Livingston, with Linda Day George hired as Casey
Season Seven would see production duties split between Heath and Associate Producer Barry Crane who was promoted to Producer midway through the seventh season and writing duties split between Livingston and new story editor Stephen Kandel as well as maternity leave for Linda Day George for ten episodes midway through the season. Her primary replacement being Barbara Anderson.
I feel this needs to be clarified. Season 5 began a shift toward more US-based stories, with a record nine episodes set stateside and six dealing with crime stories (organized or otherwise), but the majority of episodes were still overseas spy missions. It wasn't until season 6 that the focus shifted almost completely to stateside mob-busting, because spy shows had gone out of fashion.
Hmm, interesting. Still, if the first half-season was Lansbury's, that's still a lot of daring and formula-breaking episodes. Season 5 actually got somewhat more conventional in the back half, although the writing remained strong throughout the season.
According to those interviewed for the 'M:I' book the shift from the foreign to the domestic came about for two reasons - One, according to Peter King, the liaison between CBS Standards and Practices and Paramount Studios, "The Broadcast Standards people wouldn't let you do stories that named names or dealt with the realities of those times, so you'd go the fiction route and very often some Iron Curtain country would have to be the culprit. That was the trap. Far too many of these stories had been done in the previous broadcast year, and it did hurt the series." To be precise, eighteen of the last season's (Season Four) twenty-six episodes took place in vaguely European settings; four in Latin America; two in the Middle East; and two in the United States. Everyone involved in the series knew that the format was growing stale, and a change had to be done.
Spearheaded by the youth movement of the late sixties, public antipathy towards American involvement in the Vietnam War had become intense and led to a backlash against US foreign policy in general. It took years, but this point of view had at last finally reached entertainment executives, whose livelihoods depend on keeping the American public edified. "A segment of the public was saying that we should not meddle in foreign affairs," according to Peter Graves, "and that was a growing criticism of the show from some quarters." Bowing to this sensibility and in tandem with the network, Paramount made a decision which fundamentally changed Mission: Impossible once and for all.
This season (Five) the IMF would spend less time in foreign countries and more time in the USA. Gone were the Latin American strongmen and European monarchs; in their place as the most frequent IMF target cane that uniquely American type of royalty, the gangster. Beginning in year five and continuing through the rest of the series, Phelps and company concentrated almost all their attention on a battle with Organized Crime, most commonly referred to as "The Syndicate." This season served as the gradual changeover period, with fourteen foreign and nine domestic adventures.
Spearheaded by the youth movement of the late sixties, public antipathy towards American involvement in the Vietnam War had become intense and led to a backlash against US foreign policy in general. It took years, but this point of view had at last finally reached entertainment executives, whose livelihoods depend on keeping the American public edified. "A segment of the public was saying that we should not meddle in foreign affairs," according to Peter Graves, "and that was a growing criticism of the show from some quarters." Bowing to this sensibility and in tandem with the network, Paramount made a decision which fundamentally changed Mission: Impossible once and for all.
This season (Five) the IMF would spend less time in foreign countries and more time in the USA. Gone were the Latin American strongmen and European monarchs; in their place as the most frequent IMF target cane that uniquely American type of royalty, the gangster. Beginning in year five and continuing through the rest of the series, Phelps and company concentrated almost all their attention on a battle with Organized Crime, most commonly referred to as "The Syndicate." This season served as the gradual changeover period, with fourteen foreign and nine domestic adventures.
When asked in the book which episodes he was most proud of, Lansbury cited episode 105: The Killer and episode 106: Flip Side as the two he wanted the epitome of the series to be. Episode 106 was also written to be the season premiere with an introductory scene written for Lesley Ann Warren's new IMF recruit Dana Lambert.
What bugged me about the switch to domestic crimebusting is that, if the IMF was working domestically in collaboration with "conventional law enforcement," then there was no actual need to continue the secret self-destructing message drops. They did drop the line "If any of your IM Force are caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions," as they had done in the occasional domestic cases in earlier seasons, but if the government didn't need deniability for their actions, why go through the secret-contact rigmarole instead of just assigning them orders directly? All I can figure is that maybe it was in case "the Syndicate" had moles inside the government and law enforcement, and they didn't want to tip them off.
So an episode about stopping a mob hitman, set in Los Angeles, and one about bringing down a drug-dealing network, set in LA and Mexico. Harbingers of the shift in focus. But both strong episodes with a fresh approach to the writing.
Yet they opened with "The Killer" instead.
So an episode about stopping a mob hitman, set in Los Angeles, and one about bringing down a drug-dealing network, set in LA and Mexico. Harbingers of the shift in focus. But both strong episodes with a fresh approach to the writing.
Yet they opened with "The Killer" instead.
As Laurence Heath explains, Eddie Lorca "did everything at random, so they (the IMF) couldn't get anything prepared ahead of time." "Bruce Lansbury, Arthur Weiss, and I sat plotting literally for two full days," Heath adds. "It was Bruce's idea, his basic premise."
"The Killer" was the fourth episode of the season filmed and "Flip Side" was the fifth episode of the season in production.
Both were chosen as a way to open the season and introduce audiences to the 'new look' IMF.
Maybe that's why the 1988 revival opened with a remake of "The Killer." Although they rewrote it significantly to make it work as a series premiere. (As is well-known, the revival was commissioned during the '88 writers' strike with the intention of remaking old episodes verbatim, but the strike ended early enough that they were able to revise the handful of remade episodes and otherwise do new ones.)
Had there been season eight, one of the scripts in development would have seen the IMF infiltrated by 'The Syndicate' and set up for mass execution. Another would have brought back Eddie Lorca, this time hired by 'The Syndicate' to kill 'The Secretary' and the IMF has to stop him.
"The IMF infiltrated?" Do you mean an infiltrator joining Jim's team as a guest agent, or do you mean the larger organization which the original series never really depicted? I tend to believe the original idea was that the IMF was just Dan Briggs (later Phelps) recruiting a bunch of unofficial civilian agents to do off-book missions with no provable connection to the government. That idea got eroded over time as the series showed the team working with government agencies or the police, but we were never shown a larger IMF organization of any sort until the '88 revival, which occasionally established other agents and teams operating in parallel with Jim's team.
Does the behind-the-scenes book offer any insight into which "Secretary" was giving the IMF orders? I always figured Defense or State. It annoyed me when the later movies interpreted "Secretary" to be merely the title of the director of the IMF, which makes no sense -- how the hell could the official head of the IMF disavow any knowledge of his own agency's actions?
Stephen Kandel only provided a one-line summary in which he says, "in which the team was infiltrated and set up for a mass execution', which is pretty vague; however, I take it to mean a special guest agent brought in by Phelps.
What is interesting is that Greg Morris let it be known at the end of the seventh season's wrap party that he wouldn't be returning as Barney Collier if 'M:I' had been renewed for an eighth.
Could the producers and writers/script editors have found a way to combine Greg's departure with the story about the IMF being infiltrated? Hire an actor to appear in several episodes as Barney's replacement, only to pull the rug out from the audience and have him turn out to be a hit man/contract killer. Of course, that would have required a bit of serialized storytelling that most television shows on the air at that time didn't have.
The only time Bruce Geller gave any explanation as to what the IMF was, was in an interview he gave at the beginning of the first season where he called the IMF, "a private group, not a government group. It always works on the right side. It takes on delicate assignments for the government or anyone. Such as if the CIA doesn't want to be directly involved in a case. . . Sometimes, because of circumstances, the FBI, New York police, or California sheriffs can't enter into a situation - then they hire this group. The impossibility of the challenge enters into it. . . It's very difficult to define what they are because their missions have a broad scope - sometimes it's spying, sometimes detective work."
What is interesting is that Greg Morris let it be known at the end of the seventh season's wrap party that he wouldn't be returning as Barney Collier if 'M:I' had been renewed for an eighth.
Could the producers and writers/script editors have found a way to combine Greg's departure with the story about the IMF being infiltrated? Hire an actor to appear in several episodes as Barney's replacement, only to pull the rug out from the audience and have him turn out to be a hit man/contract killer. Of course, that would have required a bit of serialized storytelling that most television shows on the air at that time didn't have.
The only time Bruce Geller gave any explanation as to what the IMF was, was in an interview he gave at the beginning of the first season where he called the IMF, "a private group, not a government group. It always works on the right side. It takes on delicate assignments for the government or anyone. Such as if the CIA doesn't want to be directly involved in a case. . . Sometimes, because of circumstances, the FBI, New York police, or California sheriffs can't enter into a situation - then they hire this group. The impossibility of the challenge enters into it. . . It's very difficult to define what they are because their missions have a broad scope - sometimes it's spying, sometimes detective work."
Had the proposed made-for-tv movie 'Mission: Impossible 1980' been filmed/aired, it would have been revealed that the voice on the tape and the 'The Secretary' were one in the same and a high government official who had been using the IMF to do his dirty work, unbeknownst to Briggs/Phelps.
The movie would have opened with Phelps being released from prison after serving a six-year term for him and the IMF being involved in the Watergate break-in and refusing to testify before a Congressional Committee. Phelps would have taken the fall for the team and the IMF have been disbanded.
The Secretary would have approached Phelps about doing one last mission involving the Peking Man, which was on loan from China to the United States and stolen from the museum and sold to a private collector, apparently by Rollin and Cinnamon, who had been 'disavowed' by the Secretary years earlier, providing an explanation for their disappearance/departure between the third and fourth seasons.
Phelps would have recruited Barney from his teaching job, but Willy, who now runs a chain of successful health/exercise clubs would refuse.
Phelps and Barney would track down Rollin and Cinnamon and discovered they had nothing to do with the theft. The quartet, along with two new recruits, an Amerasian woman and Barney's protege would discover that the 'Secretary' had framed Phelps and the other's years earlier in order to cover his own dirty work/corruption and it was now up to Phelps and the IMF to recover the Peking Man and see that the 'Secretary' is dealt with.
Had the TV movie gone to series, or other TV movies, it would have focused on Phelps, Barney, the two new recruits with guest appearances by Rollin and Cinnamon.
The book goes on to say that the idea of the 'Secretary' sending the IMF on criminal missions for his own evil purposes was one of Mission's most often proposed and rejected story ideas.
The movie would have opened with Phelps being released from prison after serving a six-year term for him and the IMF being involved in the Watergate break-in and refusing to testify before a Congressional Committee. Phelps would have taken the fall for the team and the IMF have been disbanded.
The Secretary would have approached Phelps about doing one last mission involving the Peking Man, which was on loan from China to the United States and stolen from the museum and sold to a private collector, apparently by Rollin and Cinnamon, who had been 'disavowed' by the Secretary years earlier, providing an explanation for their disappearance/departure between the third and fourth seasons.
Phelps would have recruited Barney from his teaching job, but Willy, who now runs a chain of successful health/exercise clubs would refuse.
Phelps and Barney would track down Rollin and Cinnamon and discovered they had nothing to do with the theft. The quartet, along with two new recruits, an Amerasian woman and Barney's protege would discover that the 'Secretary' had framed Phelps and the other's years earlier in order to cover his own dirty work/corruption and it was now up to Phelps and the IMF to recover the Peking Man and see that the 'Secretary' is dealt with.
Had the TV movie gone to series, or other TV movies, it would have focused on Phelps, Barney, the two new recruits with guest appearances by Rollin and Cinnamon.
The book goes on to say that the idea of the 'Secretary' sending the IMF on criminal missions for his own evil purposes was one of Mission's most often proposed and rejected story ideas.
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People often say that these days, but they forget that serialized soap operas were always part of the TV landscape (and radio before it), including the occasional prime-time soap opera like Peyton Place. Serialization always existed in TV; it's just that it tended to be limited to soap operas, sitcoms, and children's shows, so it had a reputation as being superficial and cheesy, while the classiest, smartest shows in early TV were the anthologies, so most dramas aspired to be as anthology-like as possible -- the inverse of today's prejudices.
For instance, Disney's 1957 Zorro TV series with Guy Williams was somewhat serialized, as an homage to the Republic Zorro serials. The first season consisted of three 13-episode arcs, in which each episode told a distinct story but was part of a larger continuing story arc, while the second season consisted mostly of 3- or 4-part story arcs and the occasional standalone, a lot like Star Trek: Enterprise's fourth season. Lost in Space's first five episodes were a serial, because they spread out the material from the original pilot when they reworked it to add Dr. Smith and the Robot. And cartoons like The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle had serialized storylines spread out over dozens of short segments alongside the more standalone short segments.
It would be more accurate, then, to say that most prime-time dramas of the era didn't use serialization. It wasn't some kind of advance that hadn't been invented yet; it just wasn't as fashionable then as it is now. Although, of course, dramas often dabbled in serialization by doing 2-part episodes, or even the occasional 3-parter like M:I's "The Falcon." So it's not out of the question that they could've done what you suggest as a 2-parter.
Okay, that's very interesting. I always assumed they were an unofficial instrument of government intelligence. The idea that they're more like private specialists who offer their services to whoever needs them, like a more secretive version of MacGyver's Phoenix Foundation, is interesting, although hard to reconcile with them always getting their missions from "the Secretary."
That's both interesting and kind of messed up. The IMF doing the Watergate break-in? First off, that contradicts Geller saying they were always on the right side. Second, it was kind of a clumsy, botched operation, which is why they were caught. Very much not the IMF's style.
Also, it's hard to reconcile the IMF doing the evil Secretary's dirty work with their missions being so benevolent. What harm were they supposed to have been doing? Wouldn't they have noticed if their missions had harmful long-term effects and started asking questions?
It occurs to me that this premise is similar to Alias -- the main character thought she was working for a good-guy spy organization and found out in the pilot that they were actually the bad guys, and became a double agent working to bring them down from within.
I don't suppose Michael Sloan was behind the M:I 1980 proposal? He did a bunch of TV revival/reunion movies in the '80s -- the bionic shows, McCloud, The Man from UNCLE -- and this sounds like his kind of thing.
@Christopher
I'll check in the book tomorrow. There's about four made for tv synopsis regarding various attempts at an M:I revival throughout the late 70s/early 80s before the author discusses the ABC series.
I'll check in the book tomorrow. There's about four made for tv synopsis regarding various attempts at an M:I revival throughout the late 70s/early 80s before the author discusses the ABC series.
