I used to watch reruns of this show when I was home sick from school, sometimes stretching my “illness” out an extra day so I could catch part two. Now through the magic of Netflix, it’s there whenever I want it.
I’m watching season one now, and I hadn’t even realized there was an IMF leader before Peter Graves. The weird thing is he’s played by Steven Hill, better known to people still in the double-digit age group as Adam Schiff, the D.A. from Law and Order. It’s really weird seeing him as a young man. He should be old and gray, pulling on his eyebrow, and looking dyspeptic. Many of the episodes go like that. “Who’s that guy? I know that guy. Oh, yeah, the dad from Willy Wonka. Who’s that guy next to him?”
The first season is interesting, but a little rougher than I remember, when the plans were so ornate and flawlessly executed that you felt a little sorry for the bad guy. The plots here rely a lot on luck, and Martin Landau’s ability to use a little makeup and nose putty to perfectly disguise himself as the target of the week. Greg Morris’s character, though, already has the imperturbable air of competence that was what I loved best about the show.
I’ve caught a couple episodes recently. In one, the team had some guy held in a fake prison cell. One of the team was pretending to be a fellow inmate, until they hauled him away and then the lights briefly dimmed. They had their target convinced that he was about to be executed, which is pretty damned twisted.
I love the fake foreign touches. One time they were at a rocket factory or something, and the pipes and gauges had labels like “FÜL”. Fucking brilliant.
Is that the one that also said, “GAZ,” just in case you forgot they were in a “foreign” country (where everyone speaks English in vague accent)?
I’m pretty convinced that at some point that show became a self-parody. I used to watch the reruns every night, too, when I was a kid, and it became clear that they they were reveling in their own cliches after a while. Here are some of the show’s staple cliches and characteristics:
No is allowed to act. Especially Barney (Greg Morris).
Willy’s only real job is to drive the van.
Fictitious banana republics that somehow became critical to world peace-- (“Good morning, Mr. Phelps. General Manuel Rodriguez, the self appointed dictator of Santa Maria, has stolen two nuclear warheads…”)
Fictitious Soviet Block countries, where no one blinks an eye when a black guy shows up and says he’s the neighborhood pest exterminator.
Electrical devices created by Barney specifically for only him to use on only one mission, that have “off” and “on” labels for the switches.
And many more that I don’t have time to list…
Well, the mission was never considered to be fully realized until the bad guy was made aware that the whole thing was a mission.
I watched this when I was a kid, first-run, and when the taped voice said, " . . . the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions," I always pictured a 1960s secretary at her typewriter going, “Jim Phelps? Who? Never heard of him.”
I watched them as a kid also. I loved the sound effects lifted from Star Trek (they were both originally made by Desilu) the cheap sets (and the Gaz sign also) and that no cop ever questioned them about parking their van disguised as a Chicken Delite truck anywhere.
Martin Landau usually disguised his face with a rubber mask, which magically changed his height and weight also apparently. The mask came off at the end of nearly every episode. It was odd that he could act through it better than he was allowed to in Space 1999 without a mask (or maybe not?) I also liked how every mission had Phelps sort through his huge pile of head shots and come up with exactly the same people, no matter what.
No more evident IMO than in the episode where one of the IMF members was a dog that was tasked with stealing some microfilm or something. They played it totally straight - they showed the dog sneaking around, scooting through air ducts, hiding from bad guys when he can’t get out, etc, all while the suspenseful music played.
ETA: Found it. Here’s Jim picking his usual team, including the dog. Here he is doing his thing. (It’s even better than I remember - they actually lower him down the air duct in a little basket, and he’s got a radio mic so Barney can encourage him).
The first season was brilliant and I think you can make the case that the show jumped the shark when Peter Graves was added.
Stephen Hill made a great mastermind – he put together the group (he was shown making choices in each episode, though he did stick with the regulars most of the time) and came up with the plan, then sat back to let the others do the work. Graves was a more generic action hero and never came across as the mastermind type.
The best episode overall was “Zubrovnik’s Ghost,” which would not have been out of place on The Twilight Zone.
Once Hill left, I watched occasionally, but the show had become too formulaic.
Notice that just that clip alone displays many of the cliches I listed above: the labels on the electronics; the vague accents; Willy driving the van; and, of course, absolutely no attempt to act at all.
I remember Barney as a tech wizard, but I really want the software that took Chico’s transponder signal and accurately mapped the 3-D motion (the air-shaft and the bookcase) onto his map (which was itself an interesting mix of axis).
I watched all of the first three seasons a few years ago. I remember being struck by how often the same sets were re-used. In particular, if an ornate sitting room was required they trotted out the same walls with a different color paint over and over again. Watching the show in its original run with a week in between, you wouldn’t notice this, but watching them back to back it was painfully obvious.
Oh man, that first movie was loathesome, though I actually did like the version of the theme. Only thing it had going for it other than that computer room scene.
Second movie was utterly forgettable, though I quite enjoyed the third and fourth, but they’re still nothing like the show.
I was too young for the original show, but did watch the 80’s version (which was a continuation not a reboot) and see a little of the original via reruns.