Mission: Impossible: Living or Dead?

About Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible is an American television series created and initially produced by Bruce Geller, chronicling the exploits of a small team of secret government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force used for covert missions against hostile Iron Curtain governments, third world dictators, evil organizations, and, later, crime lords. In the first season, the team is led by Dan Briggs (played by Steven Hill); Jim Phelps (played by Peter Graves) takes charge for the remaining seasons. Each episode opened with a fast-paced montage of clips from that episode as the series' theme music, composed by Lalo Schifrin, played. The opening scene almost invariably showed Briggs or Phelps receiving his instructions from a voice on a recording, which then self-destructs. The series was financed and filmed by Desilu Productions and aired on CBS from September 1966 to March 1973. It was revived in 1988 for two seasons on ABC, retaining only Graves in the cast. It also inspired a series of theatrical motion pictures starring Tom Cruise beginning in 1996.