Mission: Impossible: Encyclopedia II - Mission: Impossible - Series overview

Mission: Impossible - Series overview

Written, created, and produced by Bruce Geller. The "Impossible Mission Force" (IMF) is a team of secret agents employed by the United States government, and sent on covert missions to fight dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords.

Although a Cold War element was present throughout the series, the actual "Cold War" between the United States and the Soviet Union was not directly mentioned over the course of the series. However, in the early years many of the targets appeared to be the leaders of Slavic or Baltic countries; major named enemy countries included the "European People's Republic" and the "Eastern European Republic". Additionally, fictitious, Slavic-seeming languages were used; police vehicles were often labelled as such with words such as "polǐiçia"; and "pőĮįia". Uniforms of the target regime frequently included peaked caps, jackboots, and Sam Browne belts, hinting at connections with Nazi Germany or the Warsaw Pact.

The I.M. Force was also assigned to bring down corrupt politicians and dictators of Third World countries unrelated to the Cold War, such as a particularly brutal practitioner of apartheid, as well as organized crime figures, corrupt businessmen and politicians in the U.S.

Each episode of the series began with the team leader (Daniel Briggs for the first season, then Jim Phelps from 1967 until the finalé) receiving a secret, pre-recorded message containing his mission. These recordings were always placed in an inconspicuous, secret place. Each message would then "self-destruct," usually by spontaneous combustion, leaving no evidence of the mission. Briggs or Phelps would then choose his teammates for the mission from a group of candidates' photographs and bios, and they would prepare an elaborate plan. In early episodes, Briggs/Phelps would receive orders on everything from phonograph records to slide-tape projectors, (in some cases Briggs or Phelps was asked to destroy the tape in 'the usual manner'). The 1980s series used miniature compact discs almost exclusively. There were a handful of exceptions to the tape recording from the secretary - in a couple of cases the mission was already underway and something went wrong, in others it was a personal matter where a teammember asked his colleagues for unofficial assistance. Peter Graves, (who played the role of Jim Phelps) once said the entire season's worth of "tape scenes" were usually filmed all at once prior to production of the rest of the episodes, and that he never knew which tape scene would appear with which episode until broadcast.

Certain team members were masters of disguise and were able to replace a member of the target's staff, sometimes even the target himself, by donning an elaborate latex mask and makeup.

Mission: Impossible is still recognized for its innovative use of music. Composer Lalo Schifrin wrote several distinctive pieces for the series. The main title sequence provided previews of key scenes from the episode (this in itself was a first for U.S. television), with the cuts timed to the beats and measures of the theme tune, while an animated burning fuse moved across the screen. Most episodes included fairly long dialog-free sequences showing the team members—particularly electronics expert Barney Collier—making technical preparations for the mission, to the accompaniment of another easily–recognizable tune called "The Plot." Lalo Schifrin also wrote a theme piece for each main character and the sound track for each episode incorporated variations of these throughout. The series had great impact on film and TV music. Before Mission: Impossible, a common compliment for film and TV music was "it worked very well but never got in the way or called attention to itself." Mission: Impossible was largely responsible for changing that.

Mission: Impossible is the longest-running espionage television series ever produced for U.S. television, and reruns of the episodes are still shown daily on some TV stations. A North American DVD release of the series has yet to occur, however there are occasional reports that Paramount Pictures is considering doing so, possibly in conjunction with the upcoming release of the third feature film in the M:I franchise. Most recently, the website TV Shows on DVD reported that Paramount has tentatively scheduled a DVD a release of at least the first season during the spring of 2006.[1]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Series overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki