Thu 26 Nov 2020
A TV Episode Review by Mike Tooney: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE “Wheels” (1966).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Espionage & Spies[8] Comments
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE “Wheels.” CBS, 29 October 1966 (Season 1, Episode 7 (of 171)). Cast: Mark Lenard (Mora), Percy Rodriguez (police captain), Martin Landau (Rollin Hand/Miguel Cordova), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Barbara Bain (Cinnamon Carter), Steven Hill (Dan Briggs), Perry Lopez (the priest, uncredited), Bob Johnson (voice on tape, uncredited), and Jonathan Kidd (registrar). Producers: Barry Crane, Joseph Gantman, and Bruce Geller, executive producer and series creator. Writer: Laurence Heath. Director: Tom Gries. Series available on DVD and is currently streaming on CBS All Access.
Things are really rotten in Valeria, a small Latin American country on the verge of becoming, as the voice on the tape informs Dan Briggs, “a terrorist dictatorship” thanks to the jefe’s rigged voting machines. Briggs and his dauntless Impossible Missions Force are tasked by “the Secretary” (of State? Defense? Who knows?) with unfixing the election in a way that “will honestly reflect the vote of the people.” As always, cautions the voice, “should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, he will disavow any knowledge of your actions.” Piece of cake.
The plan Briggs comes up with is going along smoothly until their electronics expert, Barney Collier, is badly wounded in a jailbreak, creating grave doubt as to whether or not the mission can be completed. Leave it to the plucky Barney, however, to come through in the end . . . .
The first season of any show is usually a bumpy ride and this one was no exception (e.g., Cinnamon breaking into unwarranted tears), but this episode of Mission: Impossible pretty much follows the format the series adhered to in all seven of its seasons. (The thing about “format” is that it can and often does degenerate into “formula.”)
In this particular series the easiest way to create suspense is to have some problem arise that threatens to blow the team’s cover; here it’s Barney’s wound and the unwanted interest by the secret police that force the team members to “improvise.”
Overcoming unexpected setbacks poses a real challenge to screenwriters and not all of them are up to it. Two writers who were very good at it were William Read Woodfield teamed with Allan Balter, the Levinson and Link of the series; together they were responsible for the most engaging stories in Mission: Impossible, but not this one.
“Wheels” was writer Laurence Heath’s first script for Mission: Impossible; he would be responsible for twenty-three altogether.
You’ve probably seen director Tom Gries’s name on TV or movie productions; he did good work on Breakheart Pass (1975), the film adaptation of Alistair Maclean’s novel and screenplay. This was his only Mission: Impossible story.
Several years ago Jonathan Lewis contributed a Mystery*File article about producer/creator Bruce Geller’s directorial involvement with Harry in Your Pocket (1973), an offbeat crime film, and you can read that here.
November 26th, 2020 at 4:46 pm
I just reread Jonathan’s review of Harry….and the comments. David’s is still laugh out loud funny.
November 26th, 2020 at 7:26 pm
Barry, thanks.
Re the first season of MI unlike later seasons the problems that arose were not built into the con, they generated actual suspense because they were real.
In later seasons anything that went wrong proved to be part of the plan and built into the con they were running. Once in a while it works, but it came to be the way all series featuring cons are structured to some extent making the “suspense” all too predictable.
November 26th, 2020 at 7:56 pm
I remember watching only the first three seasons. I think the pace of many of the story lines eventually became too slow for me. When Landau and Bain left, the series was only hit or miss for me.
As for writer Laurence Heath, I found this on Wikipedia:
“The producers of Mission: Impossible were sued for plagiarism by the creators of an ABC show called 21 Beacon Street. The suit was settled out of court. Geller claimed never to have seen the earlier show; Beacon Street’s story editor and pilot scripter, Laurence Heath, would later write several episodes of Mission: Impossible.”
November 26th, 2020 at 8:11 pm
21 Beacon Street was Dennis Morgan’s final shot at maintaining his heretofore successful career. I liked him and really rooted for this show, but it was flat and slow going. A shame.
November 26th, 2020 at 8:23 pm
Morgan played a Boston-based PI named Dennis Chase. The show was a summer replacement show consisting of only 11 episodes. The connection with MI was that with his three assistants Chase would concoct elaborate plans to bring the bad guy(s) to justice, bad guys otherwise beyond the reach of the law.
November 26th, 2020 at 11:35 pm
WikiPedia strikes – and misses – again.
Leonard Heideman had had a long career writing TV episodes when, in 1959, he suffered a psychotic break and stabbed his wife to death.
Heideman was adjudged insane and confined for treatment; upon his release several years later, he changed his name to Laurence Heath, and was brought back into the TV writing business by old friends who kept mum about his prior history.
21 Beacon Street was his last credit as Heideman; Mission: Impossible jump-started his new career as Heath, which lasted for more than twenty years.
According to memoirs written by other TV producers and writers, the Heideman/Heath story was well-known within the business (“don’t ask, don’t tell”).
It’s been documented in many places, such as The Classic TV History Blog.
November 26th, 2020 at 11:44 pm
As always, thank you, Mike. You may have told us this before on this blog, but if not, I do remember being told by someone, but a fact that I seem to have forgotten almost immediately.
No one told Wikipedia ,though.
As for IMDb, they know Heath was Heiderman, but not that Heiderman became Heath. Anyone want to tell them?
December 8th, 2020 at 7:39 pm
The names of Levinson and Link are golden in my roster of greats.
Key takeaway from this fine review: difficulty for writers in keeping genre formats fresh.
For me, it’s this:
Every scene should have ONE idea.
Every scene should start with a NEW idea –some new obstacle confronting the characters. A new turn in the story. Send them off to do something else. Keep the flaming torches always in motion. Never stop to explain.
The viewer’s attention span (at least, back in the day) could marvelously adapt to almost any logic presented in a Mission-Impossible narrative as long as it kept moving. Repetition, staleness, and exposition were always the enemy. When in doubt just have characters DO SOMETHING. Characters should never talk their way out of a slough. Kick off the scene with some action and then fit the story together later. Chandler advised something along these lines.