I have noticed that shows that were either produced by or filmed at the Desilu studios of the 1950s-60s have been preserved very well. This includes reruns that I see on TV.
The 46 disc (171 episodes) of the Blu-Ray of Mission Impossible, looks and sounds just great. The colors are rich, the picture is sharp and for an image made for a 25-inch Zenith TV, it looks great on a 77-inch 4K OLED LG. The audio is DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, although it sounds very mono to me!
In the 1960s (and for the next couple of decades) TV networks generally paid about 75% of the expenses for a TV episode. For example, CBS paid Desilu about $230,000 (about $2,500,000 in today’s money) for each episode of Mission Impossible, although it cost Desilu about $260,000 to produce.
NBC gave Desilu about $190,000 for each episode of Star Trek, although that cost, again, $30,000 more to produce. The studios would make money, and a lot of it, when the shows went into reruns, which, in that era, was only after their network run was complete. (Today they rerun it the next week.)
So with the success of Mannix, Desilu was losing, in today’s money, a million dollars a week. So they had to sell the studio to Paramount (the Gulf-Western) for $17,000,000 about ($225,000,000 in today’s money) and that affected their shows.
Season 1,2 and 3: Mission was a unique show, produced at the height of the “spy” fad begun by James Bond. This fad lasted until 1970 when all such shows disappeared. Rather than concentrating on developing characters, the show presented an enigma each week.
Famously, each week, The Impossible Missions Force was given an international mission over a recording that would self-destruct. As viewer, you had to figure out what the heck they were doing! It was kind of like a whodunit. Each performer played a different role each week so it was sort of like an anthology drama, with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain as the highlights. For these seasons, this was my favorite show and I loved the music!
Then Paramount bought it and cheapened the show. It was now costing so much money, Paramount wanted it cancelled, believe it or not. So they “fired” Landau, who wanted $5,000 a week, and they fired Barbara Bain too. More than that, they fired all the writers who understood the show.
Season 4: Leonard Nimoy replaced Martin Landau and he did very good job and lasted two seasons. Ironic because Landau was first offered the role of Spock. The Beautiful Leslie Ann Warren replaced Barbara Bain, but the did not write for her and develop her character well. She was gone after one season. She was okay, the scripts were not.
Seasons 5, 6, and 7: To cheapen the show they now had these international operatives, the I.M. Force fight crimes in America, something I don’t think the CIA was allowed to do. And they relied so much on “gimmicks,” “gadgets,” and disguises it lost much if what the show started out as. There would be many cast changes, some good some not so good.
PS: Mission got more money from CBS than Star Trek on NBC due to their “Lucy” connection. Also, Mission had no set “stages” as Star Trek had.
I thoroughly and greatly enjoyed the first three seasons. The fourth and fifth were certainly entertaining. The last two, well, not so much mostly because I compare them to the other seasons.
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