Best Episodes of the Classic Mission: Impossible TV Series

The Mission: Impossible TV show has numerous entertaining episodes and the following are some of its best ones.

Before Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures created one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, there was the Mission: Impossible TV series, which aired from 1966 to 1973, before being revived in the late ‘80s. The ABC show also centered around the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) — a spy organization tasked with bringing down corporate villains, third-world dictators, and criminal masterminds from the Soviet Union. However, it was led by Jim Phelps rather than Ethan Hunt.

The spy thriller ran for seven seasons and for over 30 years, it held the record for having more episodes (171) than any other espionage show (The record was eventually broken by 24). And even though the spy thriller has now been overshadowed by the high-grossing film series, it has aged well, with most of its action sequences and storylines still holding up even when viewed via a modern lens. The following episodes are the best of what the show had to offer, and they are all available on Paramount Plus.

“Action” (a play on the “lights, camera, action” phrase) brings out the best of the Cold War propaganda games by featuring a villain that is more treacherous than violent. The Eastern European filmmaker becomes fed up with the fact that all popular Vietnam War movies portray Americans as heroes, so he creates fake footage of a massacre and inserts it into a documentary meant for worldwide release.

As is always the case, the IMF learns about this plot way before it’s put into action and so the agents jump on a plane and head over to Europe to stop the propagandist. Interestingly, Stephen Hill (better known for his role as Law & Order's Dan Briggs) was fired after refusing to do a stunt in this episode. It’s an interesting development considering that fans now get to see Tom Cruise doing even more stunts than he needs to.

The original IMF could be described as more creative compared to the current team led by Ethan Hunt. Take “Operation Rogosh” for example. In it, the American government becomes fed up when the elusive terrorist, Imry Rogosh, releases a bacteria toxin in Los Angeles. The agents thus come up with a clever way to nab him and make him talk. It involves staging an accident and making him wake up “years later’ where is he made to believe he is in his own country being charged for being a double agent.

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For Rogosh, his patriotism has never been in question, so he works hard to convince everyone that he isn’t a traitor, and, in the process, he reveals all his plans and what he has done in the past, hence implicating himself. However, things almost go wrong when Rogosh notices that one of the chairs has markings from an American company. Overall, ‘Operation Rogosh” remains a tense episode that delivers sufficient thrills and action.

“The Carriers” uses the same concept as the FX spy period drama, The Americans, as it features a Communist country training a group of spies to infiltrate the US and pose as ordinary citizens to spread a plague. However, it has a more ambitious plot since the unnamed government is shown to have even built a mock-up American town where agents learn common American jobs such as “hot dog vendor”, “waiter,” and “go-go dancer.”

While the episode appears to have inspired The Americans, it is itself inspired by one of the most underrated James Bond movies, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where Blofeld trains a group of women into becoming biological warfare agents. Even so, “The Carriers” has many subplots that make it stand out, notably a careless agent that blows up the mission and miscommunication by an overbearing superior that appears more concerned with bullying his subordinates than doing a great job.

The IMF finds itself with quite the moral dilemma in “Underground” because they have to solve a case involving a smuggling ring that steals from criminals. The organization pretends to offer “wanted” individuals a way out of the country but instead brainwashes them and makes them give up the location of all their loot.

As expected, some members of the team feel they shouldn’t even bother. To them, it's unwise to interfere when enemies are harming each other. However, as the leader, Phelps feels they all have a duty and that human rights ought to be respected — quite ironic for a spy unit that messes with villains’ minds regularly. Things become even more complicated when the team realizes that $27 million belonging to the Syndicate is also at stake.

A major political conspiracy unfolds in ‘Robot,” where a deputy Prime Minister uses a look-alike actor to cover up the real Prime Minister’s death. He plans to make the look-alike endorse him as the next leader. Soon, he learns about an even bigger plot involving another government official that’s planning a coup using a lookalike cyborg.

It’s one of the episodes where Mission: Impossible fully delves into the sci-fi genre, and it all works out well. Actor Larry Linville does an exceptional job while playing all three versions of the ruler. Whether he is channeling the honesty of the actual leader, the goofiness of the look-alike leader, or the cyborg's ruthlessness, Linville does so to perfection.

In ‘The Execution,” the IMF keeps up with its fooling-the-villain formula by making a mob henchman believe he has been on death row for years, and that he is about to be executed. The aim is to make him become a turncoat and provide information about the boss. After all, according to what the agents tell him, he has nothing to lose.

As fun, as the episode is, it accentuates the horrors of capital punishment. The henchman is indeed guilty but his fear and despair make him a pitiable character. For once, the spies almost look like the bad guys but the ending eventually proves that the means used to achieve the objective were worth it.

Season 5 came with some major changes, most of which improved the series. The major difference was depicting the heroes as more mistake-prone and vulnerable, hence making them believable. The IMF also sought the help of outsiders regularly. That’s what happens in ‘The Innocent” when Barney gets poisoned while spying on a chemical weapons plant in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. To extract him and complete the mission, Phelps seeks the services of a new techie.

Things don’t end up being as straightforward as Phelps hoped because the techie happens to have strong moral views and believes America meddles too much in other countries' affairs. Well, for Phelps and his team, the bigger picture matters most, so they frame his girlfriend for a heroin distribution crime, forcing him to participate. Thankfully, the two parties build some comradeship over time.

Another major way Season 5 triumphs is by focusing more on character backstories and experimenting with genres. For example, “Homecoming,” is an episode that would easily fit in many of the highly rated police procedurals. In it, Jim Phelps helps back to his hometown where he helps track down a serial killer that has been terrorizing townsfolk.

The decision to shake up the show’s formula works well for ‘Homecoming,” since viewers get to see a formidable villain that is simply a malicious individual rather than a criminal mastermind. So good is he that the IMF is called in to help. Additionally, conflict emerges between Phelps and his people, making him reevaluate his mannerisms and life in general.

Like Ethan Hunt, Jim Phelps sometimes puts his body on the line to get the job done. In the Season 6 premiere, he goes to greater extremes by undergoing surgery to temporarily make him blind to go undercover to protect a mole that the IMF has placed in the Syndicate. There is the option of simply pretending to be blind, but Phelps would rather make himself believable.

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Through this act, he once again proves why he is a great leader. To him, the military code of “never leave a man behind” always applies and if it means saving an asset himself, he will do so. Given how great he is in the show, it’s quite a shame that the movies turned him into a bad guy, yet he was even played by the more talented Jon Voight.

Infiltration is something the IMF does so well, even in the film series. In “The Seal”, a collector steals a highly-valued significant antiquity, forcing the team to sneak into his high-rise apartment and steal it back. Lovers of high-octane heist movies will, therefore, love the episode as it even features a trained cat that went on to become a huge part of the series.

Compared to other episodes, “The Seal” also prioritizes camerawork. From abrupt closeups to tight angles, a lot is done to make the heist entertaining. In addition to that, there is the usual comedic inventiveness meant to make the job easier. At one point, the agents even lie to the collector that the antiquity is cursed, a move meant to loosen his will to hang on to it.

Philip Etemesi is an author, screenwriter, and film critic. As a child, he was notorious for watching mature movies like Goodfellas and North By Northwest instead of Home Alone and Kindergarten Cop. His ex-girlfriend once asked him to choose between her and the TV. You can bet what he chose. A wildlife lover, Philip once saved for months to buy an orphaned giraffe named Refu. He then let her stay with her own kind at the sanctuary, but he always visits every weekend and sends the animal version of child support. Cool dude!