Mission: Impossible (TV Series) Bag Woman (1972) User Reviews

Did you ever have one of those days. . .

[aramis-112-804880 · 9/10 · 19 September 2022]

The impossible mission team under Jim Phelps usually has tremendous planning, split-second timing and flawless execution. A chess set isn't on display in Phelps' apartment for nothing.

This time, in an effort to find the big boss of a drug ring, while working on a man who wants to be the kingpin (Robert Colbert from "Maverick" and "The Time Tunnel") and his henchman (Georg Stanford Brown) everything that can go wrong does.

A solid episode showing Phelps having to improvise with short notice to save Casey against some really bad folks.

The finale is a little too quick. But the episode is helped along by familiar TV faces. And it's good to see a mission where the clockwork precision goes haywire and Jim has to think on his feet.

But I'm giving nothing away.

Mission encounters several major problems and Phelps must improvise

[CCsito · 7/10 · 8 October 2013]

*SPOILER ALERT*

The mission is to determine the identity of a corrupt government official who is taking bribe money from the underworld. Barney and Lisa play a major role in the mission by taking the places of one of the mobster's gang and a female courier. However, the mission goes completely awry when Barney is shot and injured and has to escape and Lisa is unknowingly handcuffed to a briefcase that contains a bomb that the mobster intends to use to kill the government official. As the possibility of the loss of the team members becomes imminent, Phelps must come up with a plan to complete the mission. He does so by releasing the captured underworld member and convinces the mobster that the corrupt government official is vital to the underworld operations and his absence would not be to his benefit.

A dog's nose knows

[bribabylk · 5/10 · 17 October 2022]

The elevated level of jeopardy, with Casey's life unknowingly being in danger, and Barney's cover being blown, were nice touches, but even with these hiccups somehow it all seemed to go too smoothly for my liking; I don't think the script capitalized on those elements, particularly Casey's dilemma, as well as it could have.

Stuff that struck me as unrealistic, even for M: I :

1) that no one but Luke Jenkins knew what the bag woman looked like; seems implausible that Harry Fife wouldn't have been provided with a photo of someone handling such a vital task. This episode probably should have been a double-masker.

2) that Fife would undertake the assassination of a highly-placed politician unilaterally. I understand that it was necessary for him to decide this on his own in order for Jim's last-minute ruse of being Sturgess to work, but it just seems so unlikely. Also--that someone higher up in the organization would stress to him how important the politician was to their operation, and !must not be lost!, on the SAME DAY that the death of the politician was scheduled, without Fife being suspicious of the conveniently-coincidental timing.

3) that Jenkins would behave exactly as he did after escaping; that he would stand in the phone booth in just such a way that Jim was able to see all the numbers dialed; that the physical location attached to the phone number could be traced so quickly.

I vacillate on whether or not the dog element was contrived or quirkily interesting. As the mechanism by which Barney's impersonation of Jenkins was revealed, it seems clunky. OH--and the window in the vet's office being left up, with no screen! Come on.

Note: the synopsis would understandably lead one to believe that this is a rather Casey-centric episode, but she's really not in it that much. More time is spent on the wrinkle of Barney's cover being exposed and his injury, etc.