Mission: Impossible – “Encore”

Season 6, Episode 2

Original Airdate: September 25, 1971

Writer: Harold Livingston

Director: Paul Krasny

Executive Producer: Bruce Geller

Cast: Peter Graves, Lynda Day George, William Shatner

I had never seen an episode of “Mission: Impossible” before this one. So I have no idea if “Encore” is a good representation of the rest of the series, but I really hope it is. Everything about it is legitimately insane, and yet the story is told with such style and conviction that, in its own weird way, it’s pretty close to perfect.

We begin with IMF (a super-secret government branch where all the agents have really awesome hair) team leader Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) getting his assignment of the week: to ascertain a confession and evidence against a murderer/mobster/all-around-evil-guy Thomas Kroll (Captain James T. Kirk…er…William Shatner). Kroll is in his 60s and just exploded a hospital where a little ‘ole lady was about to snitch on him, so we know he’s bad to the bone.

So IMF decides to (wait for it) make Kroll believe he has traveled back in time to save some humpback whales to 1937, the date he first met the woman he would ultimately kill in that hospital.

Yes, you read that right.

Okay, let’s break this down for a minute, shall we? They drug Kroll with a hot towel and kidnap him and give him a makeover. How can they make a 60-something guy with a limp appear to be in his 30s again, you ask? Well, they cover his face with wax and other magical elements and shoot his bad leg with a drug that will take away his limp. Phelps has rented out a film backlot and meticulously recreated at least two blocks from Kroll’s old neighborhood, right down to the buttermilk in his icebox. Oh, and I should mention that all of this appears to have been done in about 24 hours.

Like I said, this is nuts. And it would be completely laughable if it wasn’t done with complete conviction from everyone involved. Also, the viewer has to take a huge leap of faith, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to watch a show called “Mission: Impossible” without muttering “that’s impossible!” to myself at least twice in a given episode. And even though the premise is…uh…farfetched, writer Ron Livingston creates some really smart complications among the impossible leaps. For example, the magic face wax and leg drug will only work for six hours.  And Kroll doesn’t act stupidly for a man in his situation. He scrubs his face thoroughly to ensure there’s no makeup to make him look younger. He rushes to a window when he hears a plane overhead (It’s a 1930s plane Phelps had fly over to help with the cover. These guys think of everything). More than that, above and beyond the time-travel trick, what we are witness to is a very elaborate mind game – almost a game of chess between a mostly unseen Phelps (who only interacts with Kroll once) and Kroll’s better instincts.

Yes, there are a thousand different ways this story is implausible and also a thousand ways that Kroll could make the team. I don’t care, because while the episode is playing, it’s all too much fun. Livingston actually takes more time that one would expect at turning Kroll into a legitimate character. Of course any 60-something guy magically back in the body of a 30-something-year-old would immediately want to chase some tail, and that’s what Kroll does, taking the “woman” he will eventually kill to a movie and making none-too-subtle remarks about wanting to get with her. That’s just creepy on so many levels.

“Encore’s” director, Paul Krasny, keeps things seeming much bigger than they really are. For most of the episode we are in cramped, period sets that Krasny and his director of photography look rich and lush. It really feels like a movie more than an episode of television, never moreso than at the climax:

Kroll has just inadvertently given up the evidence, and suddenly everyone around him seems to evaporate.  Everyone has been pulled out, you see. One would also expect cops would be storming in, but go with it. Kroll wanders out into the period street, so bustling with life just moments prior, and it is now empty and abandoned. Kroll begins running, searching, and as he does so we see the ink put in his hair to shade it run down his cheeks. His wax begins to loosen. His limp returns. But he keeps running…until he runs all the way off the set and onto another one on the backlot: an street from classic shoot-‘em-up Westerns. It’s a wonderful, metaphorical image to end our story. Indeed, we don’t see Phelps apprehending our villain or even anything close to that. Instead, we see Kroll’s second in command, a man in his 60’s like Kroll, approach him – a reminder of who he really is and a mirror image Kroll does not want to look at. That is more of a defeat for him than being hauled off in handcuffs. And also, from the writing to direction, beautifully realized.

Back when I wrote about “Battlestar: Galactica” I noted how awesome it was that they share a sneak preview of what’s to come in the episode, and here I was just as excited to see the same in the opening credits. The show’s iconic theme music plays as we are shown tiny snapshots of exciting moments in the episode to come. Yes, setting Lalo Schifrin’s music against anything, even “Heaven’s Gate,” would make what we are seeing the most exciting action film ever made, and I think that’s the point. It jazzes up the viewer and ensures that he or she will be back and ready for more just as soon as the commercial break is over.

I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to watch the original “Mission: Impossible” television show. I’m a huge admirer of the film series, and now have set my DVR to tape the show’s nightly airing. From glancing at several articles, it appears that “Encore’s” craziness is the exception in the series, not the rule. But even if the show remains (relatively) grounded throughout the rest of its run, that won’t mean I love it any less. I can’t help but love the smoke-and-mirrors game it plays with its viewers and villains every week…and that theme song will never get old.

“Encore” is available on DVD and YouTube.

Battlestar Galactica : "33"

Season One, Episode One
Original Airdate: January 14, 2005
Writer: Ronald D. Moore
Director: Michael Rymer
Executive Producers Ronald D. Moore, David Eick
Cast: Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, James Callis, Tricia Helfer

The series premier of “Battlestar Galactica” had quite the trick to pull off. This was the beginning of a series follow-up to a 2004 miniseries, which was itself a remake of a 1978 one-season wonder that garnered big ratings but ultimately proved too expensive to maintain. It had to get new viewers up-to-date quickly and convince those who didn’t like the miniseries that it was still a viable, good show.

The original “Battlestar: Galactica” (note the colon) was basically supposed to be the television version of “Star Wars,” and was honestly quite fun. A race of robots called the Cylons have wiped out most of mankind, and the final survivors (led by the ship from the title) race into the darkness on the hunt for a planet of legend called earth. The remake retained that, and nothing else. When fans of the original saw the complete change in tone, style and…well…everything that the miniseries was, they were none too happy. It was darkness upon darkness, more akin to “Saving Private Ryan” than “Star Wars.” I remembered watching the miniseries then going on a message board (because back when I was a teenager I still went on message boards, whereas now I spend my time doing more constructive things…like blogging) and writing “Who gives a frak about whether all these assholes live or die? If I don’t care about the characters, I don’t care about the show.”

I revisited the miniseries recently and, oddly enough, still feel like my initial reactions were pretty on-the-money. It seemed as if the creators went too far out of their way to make everything and everyone edgy, and as a result the characters were just not people you wanted to care about. But beginning with this episode, that all changed.

The series announced itself quite loudly with the opening credit sequence. Not the credits themselves, but what comes right after. We are treated to a short (just a few seconds) preview of scenes to come in the episode, small little pops of scenes and moments to get our tongues salivating. It’s as if the creators are daring you to tune out before witnessing what’s coming next.

Every 33 minutes on the dot, the Cylons discover the hidden fleet of humans, forcing them to make another jump into a different part of space, safe from the Cylons for another 33 precious minutes. As a result, no one has slept for over 120 hours. Writer Ronald D. Moore was wearing his characters down to their very core, pushing them further than they thought they could go. Simultaneously, he was (brilliantly) also wearing his wary audience down. These men and women who I had reacted so badly to in the miniseries were stripped down in front of me, pushing themselves in order to save everyone else. How can a viewer not immediately sympathize and root for them, given the circumstances?

What the premise of the episode also presents to viewers is consistent suspense. We knew that the Cylons were coming sooner rather than later, and after catching a glimpse of how run-down these people were, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think it could come apart at the seams. Every single scene involving the crew (there was a short subplot back on their invaded home planet), even the quiet individual ones, was underlined by that exhaustion and the inevitability of the next attack.

And there are beautiful, small scenes that help to create a foundation and mythology for the show. There’s a moment where Duanna (Kandyse McClure) tries to find out if any of her family survived, and becomes almost lost and overwhelmed in the bevy of photos and candles in tribute to those lost and missing. There’s another scene between Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) and Apollo (Jamie Bamber) where he tries to get her to take pills that will give her a rush of adrenaline. Though Starbuck raises her voice, the character development is subtle and wonderful, and those two-and-a-half minutes do a better job of illustrating who these two people are and what their dynamic is than anything in the original miniseries.

The episode does not give the viewer any easy payoff. It’s revealed that the Cylons are tracking the fleet through one of their ships, one that (probably) has over a thousand souls onboard. Apollo and Starbuck are forced to destroy the ship in order for the fleet to get away safely. The relentless chase might be over for the moment, but there’s no sigh of relief.

Stylistically, the series employs the dreaded “shaky-cam,” but I have to note that it is only used in scenes and sequences when it needs to be. Also, when it is, you can still tell what the frak is going on, something that woefully misguided directors don’t seem to understand while making their movies. Aside from “Saving Private Ryan,” the only two times I can honestly say I didn’t find shaky-cam distracting or felt it took away from the story was this series and “Friday Night Lights.” And that’s because both use it sparingly.

“Battlestar Galactica” was never shy about bringing up big questions, and here Baltar (James Callis) and Six (Tricia Helfer) have several conversations (probably one too many) about God. They talk about His existence, His intervention and His motives. Upon first glance, it might seem too on the nose, but if you put yourself in that situation, I doubt you’d have the time for subtlety in discussion.

Watching the episode again, I was struck by how many characters were there at the beginning…it almost feels like the television equivalent of a Robert Altman movie at times. And I was also struck by how many they had the balls to kill off by the end of the show’s run. Here was a show where they could legitimately kill off any character (except Starbuck, apparently, who gets to float away on a breeze) at any point, making every moment…every episode…count that much more. Shows like “24” made a point of killing off its main characters (except Kim Bauer) so you never grew very attached to anyone but Jack and Chloe, but “Battlestar Galactica” made sure you loved them and understood them before breaking your heart. Its characters became people beginning with “33,” and from this episode I was with them all the way to Earth and beyond.

“33” is available on Hulu (for free, thankfully), on the first season DVD and Blu-Ray of “Battlestar Galactica,” and on iTunes.