Mission: Impossible (TV series)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acting for Two: Several instances:
    • Martin Landau essayed double roles in the pilot and "Wheels".
    • In "Shock", guest star James Daly played a kidnapped U.S. envoy, the enemy agent impersonating him and Dan Briggs disguised, thanks to Steven Hill's difficulties.
    • When Leonard Nimoy replaced Martin Landau as the disguise expert, he played his regular role of Paris and the Big Bad in "The Choice", and Paris, a double of a deceased premier and said premier (in pictures), plus the "Robot" of the title. There were also several times when he played minor roles in disguise and the audience had no idea it was him.
  • The Danza: Subverted. Bruce Geller wrote Martin Landau's part with the actor in mind, going so far as to name the character "Martin Land" in the pilot script. Landau said he was honored, but requested the name be changed, which it was to "Rollin Hand". Played straight in "The Tram", with Victor French as Vic Hatcher (although even then it was nearly averted, as French replaced originally cast Keenan Wynn).
  • Defictionalization: According to the book The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, the government contacted the producers to find out how they created a tiny hovercraft-like device that was (in show) controlled by remote control and sent down a shaft, somehow missing the somewhat obvious strings that were actually controlling the gizmo.
    • The self-destructing CDs seen in the 1980s revival series appear to act like DVDs - even though DVDs weren't introduced until the 1990s.
      • They were meant to be miniaturized laserdiscs (video discs that were read using laser like a CD, but were the size of a long-play record), which existed since the mid-80s.
    • In the episode "Robot", Leonard Nimoy plays his part under heavy make-up. This allows Paris to rip off his face mask in one take instead of the standard 'mask actor starts to take off face, cutaway to something else, cut back to IMF agent removing last bits of latex' routine.
      • At least in the first season, Martin Landau often played (with similar amounts of make-up) the people Rollin Hand was called on to impersonate.
  • Directed by Cast Member: Peter Graves, "Kidnap".
  • Edited For F/X: When US cable channel F/X ran the series, bits with Briggs/Phelps giving counter-statements to agents in order to gain access to the recordings were removed, with the Tape Scenes beginning with Briggs or Phelps turning on the devices to hear the assignment. Other than that, episodes were presented edit free.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Mission: Impossible had pretty much every working character actor as a guest star at some point, not to mention the working cast itself.
    • Fans of Australian TV and film can also play this game when viewing the 1980s revival, which primarily made use of Australian guest actors.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Averted by Barbara Bain in "Illusion", Lesley Ann Warren in "Flip Side", Greg Morris in "Blues", and Lynda Day George in "Trapped". And by Lynn Kellogg, an actual professional singer, in "The Martyr".
  • The Pete Best: Steven Hill as Dan Briggs.
    • Possibly also Terry Markwell as the 1988 revival's Casey Randall (whose character is killed off after only a dozen episodes).
  • Real Life Relative: In the revival, Barney Collier's son Grant was played by Greg Morris's son Phil. Greg reprized his role as Barney in three episodes of the revival ("The Condemned" and "The Golden Serpent" parts 1 and 2).
  • Recycled Script: Done out of necessity in the revival series due to a writers' strike, but it was resolved early enough that only a handful of episodes ("The Killer", "The Legacy", "The Condemned", and "The System") were outright recycled from the original show.
  • Similarly Named Works: Both the original and the revival have an episode called "Submarine" - but unlike the episodes listed in Recycled Script above, the revival's "Submarine" is not a remake.
  • Technology Marches On: They went from tapes in the original 60s series to miniature compact discs in the 80s revival. Likewise, in Jim's apartment, he uses a TV with a remote control to view the dossiers of agents and his table opens to reveal a computer with hard CD-type drives that were fancy for 1988. He wistfully goes, "Time does march on." The keyboard and remote then used to choose, then "accept" agents. Once Grant's selected, though, Jim has his team of four then, and another press of the remote finalizes them as "Mission Team".
  • Uncanceled: The 1988 ABC revival.
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