Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75)

In 1972 Darren McGavin had appeared in a TV movie called The Night Stalker. He played Chicago newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak, who found himself investigating a series of bizarre crimes which he came to believe had supernatural causes. The Night Stalker was followed in 1973 by a second TV movie, The Night Strangler, featuring the same character. The success of the movies led ABC to follow them up with a series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which ran during the 1974–1975 season.

Although it only lasted a single season the series soon gained a cult following, a following it retains to this day. The series is seen as being an influence on the supernatural/paranormal science fiction series that would become so popular in the 90s, series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, more particularly, The X-Files.

The idea of a TV series dealing with people who encounter strange inexplicable events and then find themselves drawn into a web of paranoia and conspiracy wasn’t entirely new. The little-known and very underrated 1965 British TV series Undermind had already explored similar territory, territory British television would revisit in the late 70s with the equally underrated series The Omega Factor. It was however undoubtedly the continued popularity of Kolchak: The Night Stalker in syndication that provided most of the inspiration for series like The X-Files.

While the other series mentioned often offered science fictional explanations for the bizarre events with which they dealt Kolchak: The Night Stalker is more inclined to go for supernatural explanations. It does however have the basic template that made all these series work - one man who has uncovered terrifying truths that no-one in authority wants to acknowledge, a man who must then wage a lone campaign against the evil.

This series’ biggest strength is unquestionably Darren McGavin. Casting him as a shabby, down-at-heel, slightly seedy, but very feisty reporter who insists on sticking his nose in where it isn’t wanted was the kind of casting that simply couldn’t fail. And it didn’t. McGavin has a great time and even when the scripts aren’t quite up to par his sheer enthusiasm is enough to carry the stories.

The series’ biggest weakness is the somewhat uneven quality of the scripts. Some of the stories really haven’t been given quite enough thought and at times things are in danger of becoming merely silly. The Werewolf is a good example. A monster running loose on an ocean liner is a promising setup but werewolf stories are difficult to pull off successfully without very good and very expensive make-up effects and the series did not have the necessary budget. It’s hampered further by a tired script that has little to offer in the way of imagination. The Spanish Moss Murders is another episode let down by crude make-up effects. 

Firefall, The Devil’s Platform and Bad Medicine are episodes that show this series at its best, with some genuinely original ideas that provide some real chills. Doppelgangers, politicians relying on black magic to further their careers and an ancient American Indian medicine man trying to accumulate a treasure to work off a tribal curse - these are clever ideas and they’re exploited effectively. The Energy Eater is another excellent episode drawing on American Indian legends. Horror in the Heights is a reasonably good story, this time drawing on Hindu legends.

While the series has plenty of humour, with McGavin given the opportunity of demonstrating his adroitness with wise-cracks, the stories themselves are taken fairly seriously. Some stories might have worked better with a more overtly tongue-in-cheek approach, but in 1974 no-one was quite sure how to approach a series of this type.

The paranoia element is also not exploited to the full. Kolchak is constantly frustrated by his inability to convince anyone of the truth of the things he has seen but we don’t have the sense that he’s actually being menaced or that he’s in any real danger. Undermind had already demonstrated that this type of series works more effectively when we feel that the lead character or characters are facing real peril as a result of the knowledge they’ve uncovered. The X-Files would of course exploit this angle very fully and to good effect but Kolchak misses the boat a little in this respect. We don’t even feel that he’s in any serious danger of losing his job, much less his life.

On the plus side the series does offer plenty of variety. It’s not just a succession of vampire, werewolf and ghost stories. Some of the ideas still seem remarkably fresh and original. Limited budgets and not entirely convincing special effects were always a problem for television series dealing with supernatural and science fiction themes in that era but this series at its best gets around the problem by the time-honoured method of not letting us see the monsters too closely or too often, relying instead on atmosphere and suggestion. The Energy Eater episode is an excellent example of this, with the terror being built up very effectively by showing us the results of the monster’s malevolence rather than showing us the monster itself.

On the whole, despite occasional misfires, Kolchak: The Night Stalker is a great deal of fun. The good episodes outnumber the bad ones by a healthy margin and McGavin is delightful. Highly recommended.

Chocky (1984)

I’ve just finished watching Thames Television’s 1984 adaptation of John Wyndham’s Chocky. This was Wyndham’s final science fiction novel.

The TV adaptation was pitched as a children’s series but it’s one of those rare children’s series that is perfectly watchable by adults. Apart from the fact that the central character is a 12-year-old boy it doesn’t have much of a children’s TV feel.

The premise of both the novel and the series is that Matthew, a 12-year-old boy, suddenly appears to have an imaginary friend named Chocky. Only this imaginary friend may not be imaginary at all. His parents become increasingly worried, especially when a psychiatrist tells them that in his opinion Chocky is most certainly real.

The interest of the story is that it’s a kind of science fictional twist on the demonic possession idea, but the real twist is that Chocky really appears to be rather benign. Perhaps even benevolent. Having your son possessed by an alien entity, even an apparently benevolent one, is of course still rather disturbing.

The series benefits from some fine acting. James Hazeldine is particularly good as Matthew’s father. His performance is nicely restrained. He’s clearly worried about his son but he’s also determined not to make the mistake of over-reacting. Carol Drinkwater is also good as Matthew’s mother.

Andrew Ellams as Matthew is just right. Matthew is pretty ordinary, apart from the alien possession thing of course. But basically he’s an ordinary kid, not at all precocious, and really pretty likeable. Much of the time he was having to do scenes involving interacting with a being that the character could see, but he as an actor could not, Chocky being represented by a special effect added later. That kind of acting is challenging for an experienced actor but Ellams handles it effortlessly.

John Wyndham was probably, of all the great science fiction writers, the most quintessentially English. And also perhaps the most understated. Even in his disaster novels it was his subtle and low-key style that contributed to the impact of his stories. The TV series captures the same sort of feel. Very ordinary English people suddenly confronting something totally inexplicable and terrifying, but dealing with it with quiet courage and resolution. Chocky is the most low-key of all Wyndham’s novels but Thames succeeded in turning it into a rather entertaining series. Recommended.

The series was successful enough to spawn two sequels, neither of which I've seen and both of which have a rather poor reputation.

The original series is available on Region 2 DVD on its own and in a boxed set that includes the two sequel series.

Supernatural (1977)

Supernatural was a 1977 BBC TV series devised by Robert Muller, who wrote the bulk of the scripts. It lasted for only one season, of eight episodes, and then vanished into obscurity. After having watched a few episodes I can readily understand why it vanished into obscurity.

The idea was quite a good one. An exclusive society, the Club of the Damned, demands an unusual qualification for membership. Prospective members must tell a tale of the supernatural. If the story succeeds in chilling the nerves of the existing membership then the would-be member is admitted. If the story fails to satisfy even one member then not only is membership refused - the prospective member forfeits his life.

Muller’s stated intention was to revive the classic gothic tale, relying on atmosphere and ideas rather than blood and gore. He also chose to use period settings rather than to employ the dubious and difficult technique of trying to tell gothic stories in a contemporary setting. Laudable intentions indeed. There are however a few problems.

By 1977 British television series were starting to break out of the studio-bound shackles of the early years of British television. Supernatural is however very studio-bound indeed. The stories often take place in exotic locales. The usual method of dealing with this in 1960s British television was to use some stock footage to set the location and then film everything else in the studio. Supernatural uses a different technique. It uses paintings and camera tricks to evoke its exotic settings. It’s an interesting technique that at times works surprisingly well. The fact remains that the series does remain very studio-bound and by the standards of 1977 looks a little old-fashioned. Visually the series could have been filmed a decade earlier.

The limitations of studio shooting could be turned into an asset by an imaginative director and a gothic series might well have benefited from the kind of claustrophobic feel that a good director could achieve in a studio. Supernatural unfortunately often looks merely cheap.

The series certainly had some fine acting talent at its disposal, but even this could at times be a problem, as we shall see.

The first episode, Ghost of Venice, deals with ageing Shakespearian actor Adrian Gall (played by Robert Hardy). He is obsessed with the idea that during a very successful season in Venice some years earlier something was stolen from him. Something very valuable indeed. Oddly enough his wife can remember nothing of any robbery having taken place at the time. Nor can the Prefect of Police in Venice, a kindly man and an old friend of Gall’s.

In fact something really was stolen from Gall, but it was not material goods. The difficulty with this script is that the nature of the stolen goods is revealed rather too early, which has the effect of making subsequent events less ambiguous and more predictable than they should be. The other key plot point is also revealed too early. As a result this episode doesn’t quite manage to deliver the punch it needed. Robert Hardy was a fine character actor but his performance is allowed to become rather too hammy.

Having said that, Ghost of Venice is still an interesting and original idea even if the execution is not all it might have been.

The Mr Nightingale episode has far bigger problems. Again it’s potentially a good idea. Jeremy Brett plays the title character, a rather shy and obviously virginal Englishman lodging with a German family in Hamburg. It’s a doppelganger tale, a staple of gothic fiction. Like Ghost of Venice this episode also attempts to bring the gothic tale up to date by adding sex to the mix. Unfortunately this episode’s desperate attempt to create an atmosphere of sexual repression is somewhat overdone.

Jeremy Brett’s performance can only be described as grotesque. Grotesque, but not in a good way. Brett was always inclined to resort to sceney-chewing and was always at his best when this tendency was kept under a certain amount of control. In this case however he goes completely over the top, and unfortunately he also goes completely off the rails. Lesley-Anne Down also overacts and the combination is not a happy one. The script is all over the place and Brett’s wayward performance makes the episode seem more ridiculous than chilling.

Despite my disappointment with the first two episodes I determined to give this series another chance, and Night of the Marionettes certainly marks a distinct improvement. It’s a genuinely good idea and this time Muller makes the most it. It is 1882. Howard Lawrence is a scholar who has devoted his career to a study of the lives of Shelley and Byron. He is particularly obsessed by the summer the two poets spent at the Villa Diodati overlooking Lake Geneva. It was there that Byron, Shelley, Mary Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) and Dr John Polidori competed in telling ghost stories, as a result of which the 19-year-old Mary Shelley began a novel, the novel being of course Frankenstein.

Howard Lawrence and his wife and his daughter (significantly named Mary) have lodged at a small inn in Switzerland. Lawrence convinces himself that Shelley and his wife stayed at this same inn before travelling on to the Villa Diodati. There are rarely if ever any guests at this inn but the innkeeper makes a living by running a marionette theatre. A very extraordinary marionette theatre. Lawrence and his daughter will witness some very strange events in connection with this theatre, events that will give Lawrence the answer to the literary puzzles that have long obsessed him, but he will pay a high price for the knowledge he gains.

The performances in the marionette theatre, with its sets remarkably reminiscent of German Expressionist films of the 1920s, are effectively creepy and this episode goes on to deliver some genuine chills. Vladek Sheydal is superb as the sinister innkeeper while Pauline Moran is excellent as Mary. 

Viktoria (the only episode not written by Muller) has some reasonably good ideas but self-destructs due to its obsession with trying to view Victorian sexuality through the prism of late 1970s feminist wishful thinking. Lady Sybil suffers also from Muller's determination to impose Freudian silliness on the past. On the other hand Dorabella is an effective and atmospheric vampire tale.

Supernatural was an intriguing idea but so far I have to say that it's extremely uneven. It’s a series that’s not entirely without interest but viewers are advised not to set their expectations too high. The BFI's recent UK DVD release offers decent transfers.

The Avengers - the David Keel era

After contractual problems caused the demise of a short-lived  series called Police Surgeon Britain’s ABC Television found themselves with a promising star in Ian Hendry but nothing in which to star him. Police Surgeon’s producer Leonard White was instructed by ABC’s Director of Drama, Sydney Newman, to come up with a new series as quickly as possible. Within a few weeks he’d come up with a crime drama that was to be called The Avengers. By the end of 1960 it was in production.

Hendry would star as Dr David Keel, a man who turns amateur crime-fighter when his wife is murdered. In his hunt for the killer he would find an ally in a rather shadowy character named John Steed, to be played by Patrick Macnee. Whether Steed had any official status with any law enforcement or intelligence agency was left rather obscure, although he clearly had at least an unofficial connection with some such agency. After finding the murderer of his wife Dr Keel agrees to assist Steed in an unofficial capacity in future cases.

Since only two out of the twenty-six episodes of this first season of The Avengers have survived, and since only one of these surviving episodes features Steed, it’s difficult to be sure precisely how the partnership between Keel and Steed actually functioned. Dr Keel’s nurse Carol Wilson (Ingrid Hafner) was also a regular character and seems to have played  an active role in some cases.

It’s also impossible to make any kind of fair judgment on this season, although both the surviving episodes are very good. Based on these episodes and plot summaries of the remainder it seems to have been reasonably close to the formula used in the second season, with some fairly straightforward crime stories and some stories dealing with crimes that have diplomatic or national security ramifications, and the stories would appear to have been fairly serious in tone but with some tongue-in-cheek elements.

In the first of the surviving episodes, Girl on the Trapeze, Dr Keel witnesses an apparent suicide. There is more than a little doubt about the identity of the victim, and the postmortem reveals that the girl died of a barbiturate overdose. But if she had consumed a fatal dose of barbiturates how could she have jumped off a bridge? And yet Dr Keel saw her do just that. He and his nurse Carol do a bit of amateur sleuthing and the trail leads them to a circus. The problem is that the circus is from a country behind the Iron Curtain so any official police investigation will be hampered by the fear of creating a diplomatic incident. Dr Keel and Carol aren’t constrained by any such fears and they soon discover that nothing in this case is as it appears to be. 

Dennis Spooner’s script is clever and suspenseful and I’m not going to ruin things by revealing any spoilers. Suffice to say there’s an enjoyably intricate plot and plenty of action, with Carol playing a very active role. The absence of Steed does not prove to be a problem as Ian Hendry and Ingrid Hafner make a very effective partnership.

The second surviving episode, The Frighteners, is just as good. It was written by Berkeley Mather, who had apparently been a real-life intelligence officer. The story has some neat twists and the characters are not only colourful but several also turn out to be either less villainous or more villainous than they appeared to be.

Steed is on the trail of a gang who specialise in “massage therapy” - this being their euphemism for violence and intimidation. The gang has been employed to persuade a young man named Jeremy de Willoughby to break off his engagement to a wealthy young heiress. The method of persuasion adopted in this case involves knuckle-dusters and razors. Steed calls on Dr Keel’s assistance and while their main task is to bring the strong-arm gang to justice they discover that Jeremy de Willoughby is not quite the innocent victim after all.

Steed’s solution to the Jeremy de Willoughby problem is typically devious while Dr Keel proves himself to be pretty adept at intimidation himself. His bluffing of the gang leader with a hypodermic full of hydrochloric acid is a nice touch.

Steed has many of the characteristics that would become trademarks as the series progressed. He’s a snappy dresser, he’s clearly upper-class and he can turn on the charm when required. He does seem to be a harder-edged character than the later Steed though, and with a bit of a sadistic steak, taking obvious delight in threatening to torture a suspect. He also has some machiavellian ways of manipulating people into doing his bidding. That machiavellian touch can still be seen in seasons two and three where he has no compunction about manipulating Cathy Gale. On the whole the Steed of season one seems to have been tougher and more ruthless than the later Steed but since we only have one episode to go on it might be dangerous to draw too many conclusions from it.

Apart from Girl on the Trapeze and The Frighteners all that remains of this first season is the opening act of the first episode, Hot Snow, and Steed did not make his appearance in that one until the second act.

The series was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for Ian Hendry, with Patrick Macnee being an important but essentially subsidiary character. Dr Keel would be the hero, with Steed being the man pulling the strings. Steed turned out to be popular with viewers so it’s possible that his role was beefed up as the season progressed.

The first season of The Avengers proved to be a modest success, certainly doing well enough to ensure that a second season would follow, although without Ian Hendry. Interestingly enough, according to producer Leonard White Ian Hendry never actually left the series. There was a long-running actors’ strike which delayed the production of the second season and by the time production of the series was ready to recommence Hendry had accepted some film roles and thus was no longer available. The original intention though was that Hendry would star in the second season and Hendry had been perfectly willing to do so. 

The first of Optimum’s Avengers boxed sets includes the whole of the second season plus all that remains of the first season, the two surviving episodes and the opening act of Hot Snow. What little we have suggests that the loss of most of this first season is a very considerable loss indeed.

Police Surgeon (1960)

If you read anything about the early history of The Avengers you’re going to come across references to a series called Police Surgeon. In fact some people are under the impression that Police Surgeon was a kind of ancestral incarnation of The Avengers, with Ian Hendry playing the same character. This is not the case, but there is a link between the two series, albeit a tenuous one.

Police Surgeon was a half-hour drama made by Britain’s ABC Television in 1960 with Ian Hendry playing a London police surgeon, Dr Geoffrey Brent. It was moderately well received but was cancelled after 13 episodes, apparently due to contractual problems. The series had been based on the experiences of a real-life police surgeon. The producers had made what they considered to be a very generous deal with the surgeon only to have him start threatening legal action, which may have been part of the reason the series was cancelled. 

Either way ABC now found themselves with the very promising up-and-coming Ian Hendry but no series for him to star in. ABC’s Director of Drama, Sydney Newman, ordered Police Surgeon’s producer Leonard White to come up with a new series to utilise Hendry’s talents. Within a few weeks a new crime series had started to take shape. It would be an hour-long series and would be called The Avengers. Ian Hendry would again play a doctor, in this case Dr David Keel. Keel would be a kind of freelance crime-fighter and he would have a sidekick, a fellow named John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee.

But back to Police Surgeon. The series had been devised by Julian Bond who would be the main writer and also the producer. After the first few episodes it became obvious than Bond was not producer material and Leonard White took over.

Bond’s idea had been for a socially conscious crime series, the sort of worthy but rather dreary sort of thing that was all the rage with British television producers at the time. Dr Brent would be a bleeding heart police surgeon who would deal with social outcasts and the other assorted misfits who needed saving by people like Dr Brent.

It’s difficult to make judgments on how the idea actually panned out since only one episode survives. That episode, Easy Money, sees Dr Brent trying to straighten out a juvenile delinquent played by an absurdly young Michael Crawford. 

Easy Money is actually by no means entirely bad. The juvenile delinquent in question is about to be charged with a robbery and since he already has a record he’s in a fair amount of trouble. Dr Brent tries to persuade him that taking responsibility for your life is a better plan that trying to be a swaggering tough guy. 

When Optimum released the first of their Avengers boxed sets, comprising the surviving episodes of season one plus the whole of season two they decided to throw in the one surviving episode of Police Surgeon as a bonus. It’s not exactly in pristine condition but it’s watchable and it is an interesting opportunity to see a very young Ian Hendry. Hendry is pretty good, coming across as caring without being naïve or irritatingly sentimental.

Police Surgeon might not be great television but it is an interesting curiosity.

M Squad (1957-60)

I’ve been getting into hardboiled 1950s American crime series recently. Most of the ones I’ve been watching have been private eye shows but M Squad is a hardboiled cop show. And it’s a good one. A very good one.

This was Lee Marvin’s only TV series. He plays Detective Lieutenant Frank Ballinger of the Chicago Police Department’s M Squad. The series ran on NBC for three seasons from 1957 to 1960.

As you’d expect with Lee Marvin playing the role Ballinger is a very tough guy. Marvin however doesn’t make the obvious mistake of playing him as cynical. Ballinger likes being a cop and he believes in it. He’s the sort of guy who actually thinks that you can make a difference by being a cop. Marvin also doesn’t make the equally obvious mistake of making Ballinger a starry-eyed idealist. Sometimes cops have to do unpleasant things. It’s all part of the job. You learn to deal with it. In other words Ballinger comes across as a believable cop.

Raymond Chandler’s famous quote about detectives comes to mind - “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour.” That describes Ballinger pretty well. He has a moral code and he lives by it and he can be sensitive without being sentimental.

He’s also a man to whom loyalty is important. If he believes in someone he’ll stick by him even if it’s unpopular to do so.

As for the mean streets, this series certainly has them. This is one of the 50s American cop series that shows a very obvious film noir influence. Even if the term film noir wasn’t being used back then the style of movie-making that we now call noir was certainly familiar, and M Squad draws heavily on that style. In 1950s television you couldn’t achieve a full-blown noir visual style, but M Squad has its shadows and it has the sense of alienation and despair of the mean streets Chandler was talking about. This is not the Chicago the city authorities would have wanted tourists to see. It has a certain very effective grunginess to it.

A television series at that time had to tread warily when dealing with matters like crooked  police but this series certainly acknowledges it as a reality and one episode deals quite directly with corrupt prison guards. The series has its downbeat moments but it doesn’t wallow in pessimism. Frank Ballinger keeps going because the job is worthwhile, because sometimes the bad guys do get caught and justice does prevail. There’s squalor and there’s corruption, but there’s also decency and justice.

By 50s TV standards it has its violent moments. They might be tame by today’s standards but they’re enough to get the point across. This is one of the things I personally like about the television and the movies of the past. They make their point without bludgeoning the viewer with it.

I’ve always believed that limitations are only limitations if you look at them that way. M Squad was hampered by the half-hour episode format that was standard at the time and the shooting schedules were frighteningly tight - two days per episode. M Squad demonstrates the way such limitations can be turned into assets. The writing is tight, the pacing is fast and the series has a frenetic drive that grabs the viewer from the start.

Of course Lee Marvin also helps. He was an actor who always radiated vitality and manic energy, but he managed to do this while always remaining the epitome of cool. He approaches his role in this series with the same dynamism he approached every other role.

I have the two-disc set that includes the first fourteen episodes of season one. The entire series, all 117 episodes, is also available on DVD.

Picture quality is quite acceptable but it’s not exactly pristine. Luckily this is the sort of series that is actually enhanced by a slightly battered visual appearance!

M Squad is great television, and with the considerable bonus of Lee Marvin as its star it’s pretty much essential viewing for crime TV fans.

Mission: Impossible - season 1 (1966)

Mission: Impossible was one of the most successful spy series of its era, running on the American CBS network from 1966 to 1973.

There are broadly speaking two approaches to the spy thriller. There’s the gritty realist approach, usually with a hint of cynicism, typified by British series like Callan. Then there’s the action/adventure approach, typified by the Bond films and by most British and American spy TV series of the 60s such as The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and It Takes a Thief. Mission: Impossible belongs firmly in the action/adventure camp. The action/adventure type of series can be done in a tongue-in-cheek manner or it can take itself fairly seriously. Mission: Impossible takes itself fairly seriously, more seriously than The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for instance. It is most certainly not a spoof, no matter how outrageous some of the plots might become.

I’d seen numerous episodes of Mission: Impossible years ago but it wasn’t until I bought the DVD boxed set than I realised I had never seen any of season one. So it’s with season one that this review is concerned.

The main difference is that in the first season the leader of the Impossible Missions Force is Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. This came as quite a shock to me since I’d been so accustomed to the later episodes with Peter Graves. The other, reasonably minor, difference between the first season and the second is that the opening sequences in which Dan Briggs gets his orders and then has to destroy them are more varied, and more imaginative, than in the later seasons.

Apart from Dan Briggs, the basic team is the same as in the second and third seasons. Barney Collier (Greg Morris) handles the gadgetry, Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus) provides the muscle, Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) uses her feminine wiles and Rollin Hand (Martin Landau) uses his mastery of disguise and illusionism. Landau is always billed in season one as Special Guest Star although he’s in almost every episode. He was originally intended to be an occasional character but quickly became a regular. Landau and Bain would leave after season three and the series would change slightly but it’s season one we’re concerned with here.

In his book on British action/adventure series of the 60s Saints and Avengers James Chapman singles out Mission: Impossible as an example of a series that conforms rigidly to the conventions of the genre and adheres strictly to a set formula, in contrast to a series like The Avengers which in its later years gleefully played around with genre conventions. In general it’s a fair observation. Of course it’s an observation that applies to the vast majority of TV series, but Mission: Impossible is a fairly extreme example. Not just the content but the tone of the series remains very consistent, never becoming really dark but never veering into the spy spoof arena. There’s a small amount of humour, but not much, and that remains constant in just about every episode.

Of course working to a rigid formula provides its own challenges. Somehow you have to stick to the formula without letting it get stale, and without letting the audience realise you’re working to a formula. The favoured way of doing this in the 60s was to ship your spies off to a different exotic location for each episode. Of course even American TV series did not have the budgets actually to do this, so both British and American series relied on stock footage, clever set dressing and heavy (and usually rather unconvincing) accents. Mission: Impossible uses these techniques in practically every episode.

There are a couple of interesting and slightly unexpected elements in this series. The first is that the IMF is usually aiming to discredit enemy spies rather than kill them. This is in fact the preferred technique of real-life intelligence agencies in peacetime. Killing agents of a foreign power tends to cause unpleasant diplomatic incidents, and that in turn tends to cause intelligence agencies to get major grief from their own political masters. 

The other surprisingly realistic element is the way Cinnamon Carter is used. Real female spies are very rarely kickass action heroines. They are much more likely to be used as bait for one of the most popular and perennially successful espionage techniques, the honey trap. In other words, using sex to set up enemies who can then be blackmailed or discredited. This is in fact exactly how Cinnamon Carter is used in most episodes. She is in fact by far the most realistic of all the female spies in 1960s television, or in spy TV series or spy movies of any era for that matter.

The difference between a successful series and an unsuccessful one more often than not comes down to having the right balance between the characters, and between the actors. Mission: Impossible (in its early seasons at least) scores highly in this area. The four main agents employed by Dan Briggs provide a very good balance and they had the right actor  to play each role. Briggs himself seems like a convincing spymaster - he’s polished and slick and could just as easily be taken for a middle-ranking bureaucrat, but Hill avoids making him merely dull. He seems like a guy who would be a natural leader, accustomed to taking responsibility and to issuing orders. Greg Morris plays Barney Collier as exactly the kind of tech nerd who would be doing the high-tech gadgetry stuff. Peter Lupus is the muscle, but without being a stereotype heavy. Martin Landau plays Rollin Hand with the mischievous deviousness you’d expect from a successful stage magician. 

Barbara Bain has perhaps the most difficult role because she can’t rely on martial arts skills and gunplay. The roles assigned to Cinnamon Carter in a typical mission do not require such skills. What they do require are a cool head, nerves of steel and a great deal of seductiveness. Bain gives her character the air of a woman who possesses these skills and knows how to use them. She’s a bit of an ice blonde, which is what you’d expect. A woman who betrays her emotions will quickly end up dead when playing such dangerous games. It’s also interesting that it is at least implied, albeit very discreetly (as was necessary in a network TV series in 1966), that Cinnamon is prepared to sleep with enemy agents in the line of duty.  We can believe that she would be prepared to go this far, and we can still respect her for it because she’s a professional doing her job.

Those involved in making the series clearly felt that too much reliance on straight Cold War themes might try the audience’s patience so the IMF’s missions frequently take it to a variety of Third World countries where they are either trying to overthrow hostile governments or prop up friendly ones. There is, mercifully, no attempt to deal with any serious political issues. This is an action/adventure series, not a political soap-box, and we take it for granted that the IMF represents the good guys and their enemies are the bad guys. If you want cynicism and a questioning of the morality of espionage then you’re watching the wrong series.

As I said earlier the tone remains very consistent. There are one or two minor exceptions. In The Short Tail Spy Cinnamon Carter goes perilously close to becoming emotionally involved with the Russian spy she’s supposed to be setting up for a honey trap, and Bain gets the opportunity to have Cinnamon show some real emotions. Which she does, without overdoing it. 

Mission: Impossible has been released on DVD in Region 1, Region 2 and Region 4. The set I have is the Region 2 set, which offers perfectly acceptable transfers at a reasonable price.

Mission: Impossible might be in most respects a very conventional TV spy series but in season 1 at least it’s extremely well-executed and it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Recommended.