As I previously mentioned, I'm catching up on old TV shows this summer via MeTV. One of those shows is Mission: Impossible, and I had a question about a specific episode.
- The concept--a shadowy government organization sends orders to agent Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) via a small tape recorder, which "self-destructs in 10 seconds" via a lot of smoke. He's always reminded that, if he or any of his team is captured or killed, the "secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions". The missions usually involve tricking a foreign leader or breaking into a foreign facility.
- Jim then hand picks a team for the mission. Fortunately in terms of the show's budget, he almost always picks the same people--Barney the engineer (Greg Morris), Willy the muscle (Peter Lupus), Rollin the actor (Martin Landau) and Cinnamon the girl (Barbara Bain). After Laudau and Bain left the show (later to co-star on Space:1999), Paris (Leonard Nimoy, fresh from Star Trek) and various guest actresses stepped in.
- The missions involve technical gadgets, putting on a performance, split second timing, and generally stupid foreign leaders. They never mentioned actual countries--it was always generic Eastern Europeans and South Americans.
- The scripts were normally very clever--they wrapped up the plot (and the bad guys) in a neat bow by the end of each episode. That brings me to my question:
- In the episode "The Numbers Game" (aired in October of 1969), the mission was to trick an exiled dictator into giving up a hidden fortune by making him think a nuclear war was underway.
- The "Impossible Missions" team breaks into his bunker, gets him down there, convinces him of the war, and that they can get him the medicine he needs to live in exchange for his fortune.
- At the end of episode, the other bad guys come down in the elevator (the dictator thinks they are dead), so what does the team do? They jam the elevator to trap them, and then--just walk off camera and toward the tunnel they made. The bad guys--one of which still has a gun--just stare at them as they leave.
- The bad guys are trapped--unless the just follow our heroes off camera. Instead, they just stand they slack-jawed. It's as if the writer got to the last page and said--"screw it".
- The question--how did such a sloppy ending get made on what was an otherwise intelligent show?
That's just my thoughts--I may have more M:I entries as I work through the rest of the series.