Dan Briggs visits a music library...and one of the best action dramas in television history kicks off. The mission involves a small Latin American nation and a pair of nuclear warheads; the world was far enough removed from the Cuban Missile Crisis for such a plot to be given a chance by American audiences. Briggs and his team have to get those warheads out of the country--and not incidentally, get themselves out, too.
The pilot establishes early that the episodes will focus mainly on Dan Briggs (and later Jim Phelps), Rollin Hand (Paris), and Cinnamon Carter (who cares?); Willy Armitage's role is mainly to lift heavy things (including people), and though Barney Collier the government comes up with the tech that makes the mission possible for the first of many times, Greg Morris the actor isn't given much to do or much screen time.
Landau gives a tour de force performance as Hand, and it's especially compelling to watch him go through the hard work of trying to get every nuance of General Dominguez's persona down to the point where he does it without thinking about it. Steven Hill is quite good and tastefully understated as Briggs, and we get to see his resourcefulness (when an unexpected turn of events renders part of the mission plan impossible) and his courage (when he must risk blowing himself to ashes by tampering with the warheads).
The pilot establishes early that the episodes will focus mainly on Dan Briggs (and later Jim Phelps), Rollin Hand (Paris), and Cinnamon Carter (who cares?); Willy Armitage's role is mainly to lift heavy things (including people), and though Barney Collier the government comes up with the tech that makes the mission possible for the first of many times, Greg Morris the actor isn't given much to do or much screen time.
Landau gives a tour de force performance as Hand, and it's especially compelling to watch him go through the hard work of trying to get every nuance of General Dominguez's persona down to the point where he does it without thinking about it. Steven Hill is quite good and tastefully understated as Briggs, and we get to see his resourcefulness (when an unexpected turn of events renders part of the mission plan impossible) and his courage (when he must risk blowing himself to ashes by tampering with the warheads).