Mission: Impossible (TV Series) The Survivors (1967) User Reviews

A classic.

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 8 February 2014]

An enemy agent, Eric Stavak (Albert Paulsen) is working in San Francisco with a team. They've already kidnapped two top scientists and their wives. He plans on doing the same with one more scientist--and together his goal is to get the three to work on some 'ultimate weapon' for his nation. The IM Force knows who the third scientist and his wife are--and he and Cinnamon take their place. The goal is to get Phelps inside wherever they are hiding their prisoners and help out with an escape. To do so, the team counts on the fact that this is San Francisco--the land of earthquakes. Using high frequency sound and a lot of other cool gizmos, they plan on faking an earthquake--and providing an opportunity for the escape.

This is an extremely well-constructed episode. It also does what the show does best--puts scum-bags into situations that they THINK are real (such as train rides, a nuclear holocaust, aboard a Nazi sub, etc.) and use this to their advantage. In this case, they manage to fool the spies and save some lives in the process using this trickery. Well worth seeing.

THE OLD EARTHQUAKE STRATEGY IN HI DEF!

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 26 November 2023]

Best of the second season episode, written by William Read Woodfield, who wrote 24 top episodes for the series. He was also a long time writer for VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

If you are a devout M. I. fan, this is a case where it's not how the team gets into enemy territory --it's how they get out! It's a brilliant strategy. Albert Paulsen plays Eric Stavak, a cunning enemy agent of the US, who has kidnapped two scientists and waiting for a third to complete work on a cobalt bomb, the most destructive bomb of its type. Naturally, Phelps enters the picture as the third scientist, supposedly tricked by Cinnamon to come out of hiding as his unfaithful wife. Rollin cleverly enters the picture as Cinnamon's "love" interest, who at first is mistaken for the scientist. Lots of trickery in this one.

But there's more... Rather ingeniously, the team has planned a do-it-yourself San Francisco earthquake(!) that will free the hostages. It's a combination of high frequency sound waves and lots of rolling rocks that drive Stavak nuts. Albert Paulsen is great in this type of role, who would appear several other times on the show, a master of disguises and accents. He always made a super villain.

Best of it all, is watching Stavak's smug mug when he realizes he's been conned! Sorry, chap!

Check this one out. SEASON 2 remastered Paramount box set 2007.

One of the top ten episodes

[hhbooker2-1 · 1 June 2006]

The plot for this episode involves Barney Collier and Wlly Armitage posing as employees of the San Francisco Gas Company in which they rig up a device that creates the effects of an earthquake and the fact that San Francisco suffered the great earthquake of 1906. Two scientists are being held prisoner while the bad guys try to track down the third scientist who is needed to solve a problem for a super weapon and we are led to believe the two men alone do not have the complete answer, so Cinnamon Carter and Rollin Hand allow themselves to be seen at a funeral of a deceased enemy of the state and they are taken prisoner thinking she is the wife of the missing scientist and they learn she is the wife, but Rollin is not her husband as she is legally separated and she talks her missing husband to come out of hiding and Jim Phelps shows up and is questioned in front of the other two scientists, one of them almost exposes his fraud. The wives of the captured men include their wives. Cinnamon calls in a fake alert to the police department who in turn clear out the civilians as they were told there was a serious gas leak. The building shakes as though they went through an earthquake and of course the bad guys force their prisoners to dig a way out and then they double-cross them and end up being captured one-by-one and the leader has a look on his face that tells the whole story of being fooled. It becomes apparent there was no earthquake, too late for the bad guys and the IMF team departs in a truck. Sarge Booker of Tujunga, California

Ultimately disappointing

[aramis-112-804880 · 6/10 · 10 September 2022]

Scientists are being collected by an enemy agent to get the formula for a huge McGuffin.

So, to rescue the scientists and their wives, the IMF team stages no less than an earthquake.

The episode goes fine until the earthquake then crawls practically to a stop. It also requires a lot more coincidence than clockwork timing.

On a personal note: I prefer the episodes where the bad guy's are totally blindsided. In this episode the bad guy (a really bad hat this time) gets a good look at Cinnamon and Rollin and though he won't make all the connections he can figure out more or less how he's been had. But that's purely subjective.