"Zubrovnik's Ghost," an early outing for "Mission: Impossible," is a highly unusual, if not unique, episode. It was the first of several "spook" stories, but unlike all the others, in which anything supernatural was orchestrated by the Impossible Mission Force's trickery, this one displays an astonishing credulousness about séances, communication with the dead, and paranormal phenomena.
Of course, this was a *very* early show - it was only the 11th episode broadcast. One gets the sense that producer Bruce Geller approved the script before few other episodes, except perhaps the pilot, were available for screenwriter Robert Lewin to use as a guide. The plot is fairly straightforward: a scientist, Dr. Martha Richards (Beatrice Straight) is doing largely unspecified, but "important," work in Europe. A year earlier, her husband, Zubrovnik, died in a fire. Because she is already near the Iron Curtain, a foreign government is attempting to lure her across it to defect, using one of their operatives posing as a medium who can communicate with Dr. Richards' deceased husband.
Because this script was written so early, it still relied on one of Geller's weaker concepts: that team leader Dan Briggs would "shuffle the deck" of the agents each week, and only select some of the four series regulars for the mission. (Indeed, because Martin Landau had not signed a contract, despite frequent appearances, he was always billed as a "special guest star" this season.) This made the "dossier scene" more important than later on, and Season One had some interesting "slimmed down" teams - Briggs, Rollin, and Willy in "The Trial"; Cinnamon and Rollin in "A Spool there Was"; or just Rollin and a guest agent in "Elena."
In "Zubrovnik's Ghost," for the only time in the series, the "regular" team is only Rollin and Barney, plus Ariana, a psychic played by guest star Martine Bartlett, who spouts what seem to be genuine beliefs in "spirits." As in other episodes, we're told that Briggs can't participate because he's "too well known" by friends or foes, so Steven Hill draws a full paycheck for just the tape scene, dossier scene, and apartment scene. Hill's contractual right to leave the set for Jewish services early on Friday evenings was likely already causing headaches for the producers, and Geller undoubtedly was beginning to regret agreeing to this clause in Hill's contract.
So Rollin and Barney pose as paranormal investigators who are supposedly investigating whether Dr. Richards' late husband, Zubrovnik, is appearing to her through the supposed medium who works for The Other Side. They're permitted to quite openly rig a variety of "ghost detecting" gizmos in the room where a séance will take place. The only one of Barney's usual "magic gadgets" that the IMF plans to use is a black light projector that can make a ghostly face appear on command. But it soon becomes clear that the team has only the vaguest notion of how it will to use this device.
Indeed, this is the major problem with the whole episode. If this story had been produced later, perhaps when William Woodfield and Allan Balter were supervising the scripts, Barney would undoubtedly have hidden his black light projector among the devices to create the "spook effect" and thereby discredit the fake medium. But instead, the IMF seems to have gone on this mission without any carefully constructed plan, and most of what we see is Rollin and Barney (without much help from Ariana) making it up as they go along - at one point having to ask for a "do over" séance because they didn't have the projector set up the first time!
Tight plotting was usually "Mission's" greatest strength, so the IMF's abysmal planning here is disorienting. And speaking of disorienting, as the show moves on, the team increasingly relies on Ariana's "visions" and, most bizarrely, her apparent "possession" by the spirit of a dead beekeeper (don't ask) to figure out that Zubrovnik's death may have been faked. But later, Ariana suddenly tells Rollin and Barney she "senses" that he's "just been killed" - and they go along with this without complaint!
Perhaps even more remarkably, at one point she refuses to cooperate with Rollin's and Barney's plans for the second séance because it "offends" her to fake something supernatural. In this, she violates two cardinal rules of the show: the team's utter loyalty to one another, and their duty to the mission above all else.
So, to sum up: this episode relies on "tell us, don't show us" (because many important events happen off-screen); much of what does happens is attributed to the paranormal; and there is unprecedented dissension within the team. As a result, most of "Zubrovnik's Ghost" feels more like an episode of "Twilight Zone," or "One Step Beyond." What it doesn't feel like is an episode of "Mission: Impossible."
Of course, this was a *very* early show - it was only the 11th episode broadcast. One gets the sense that producer Bruce Geller approved the script before few other episodes, except perhaps the pilot, were available for screenwriter Robert Lewin to use as a guide. The plot is fairly straightforward: a scientist, Dr. Martha Richards (Beatrice Straight) is doing largely unspecified, but "important," work in Europe. A year earlier, her husband, Zubrovnik, died in a fire. Because she is already near the Iron Curtain, a foreign government is attempting to lure her across it to defect, using one of their operatives posing as a medium who can communicate with Dr. Richards' deceased husband.
Because this script was written so early, it still relied on one of Geller's weaker concepts: that team leader Dan Briggs would "shuffle the deck" of the agents each week, and only select some of the four series regulars for the mission. (Indeed, because Martin Landau had not signed a contract, despite frequent appearances, he was always billed as a "special guest star" this season.) This made the "dossier scene" more important than later on, and Season One had some interesting "slimmed down" teams - Briggs, Rollin, and Willy in "The Trial"; Cinnamon and Rollin in "A Spool there Was"; or just Rollin and a guest agent in "Elena."
In "Zubrovnik's Ghost," for the only time in the series, the "regular" team is only Rollin and Barney, plus Ariana, a psychic played by guest star Martine Bartlett, who spouts what seem to be genuine beliefs in "spirits." As in other episodes, we're told that Briggs can't participate because he's "too well known" by friends or foes, so Steven Hill draws a full paycheck for just the tape scene, dossier scene, and apartment scene. Hill's contractual right to leave the set for Jewish services early on Friday evenings was likely already causing headaches for the producers, and Geller undoubtedly was beginning to regret agreeing to this clause in Hill's contract.
So Rollin and Barney pose as paranormal investigators who are supposedly investigating whether Dr. Richards' late husband, Zubrovnik, is appearing to her through the supposed medium who works for The Other Side. They're permitted to quite openly rig a variety of "ghost detecting" gizmos in the room where a séance will take place. The only one of Barney's usual "magic gadgets" that the IMF plans to use is a black light projector that can make a ghostly face appear on command. But it soon becomes clear that the team has only the vaguest notion of how it will to use this device.
Indeed, this is the major problem with the whole episode. If this story had been produced later, perhaps when William Woodfield and Allan Balter were supervising the scripts, Barney would undoubtedly have hidden his black light projector among the devices to create the "spook effect" and thereby discredit the fake medium. But instead, the IMF seems to have gone on this mission without any carefully constructed plan, and most of what we see is Rollin and Barney (without much help from Ariana) making it up as they go along - at one point having to ask for a "do over" séance because they didn't have the projector set up the first time!
Tight plotting was usually "Mission's" greatest strength, so the IMF's abysmal planning here is disorienting. And speaking of disorienting, as the show moves on, the team increasingly relies on Ariana's "visions" and, most bizarrely, her apparent "possession" by the spirit of a dead beekeeper (don't ask) to figure out that Zubrovnik's death may have been faked. But later, Ariana suddenly tells Rollin and Barney she "senses" that he's "just been killed" - and they go along with this without complaint!
Perhaps even more remarkably, at one point she refuses to cooperate with Rollin's and Barney's plans for the second séance because it "offends" her to fake something supernatural. In this, she violates two cardinal rules of the show: the team's utter loyalty to one another, and their duty to the mission above all else.
So, to sum up: this episode relies on "tell us, don't show us" (because many important events happen off-screen); much of what does happens is attributed to the paranormal; and there is unprecedented dissension within the team. As a result, most of "Zubrovnik's Ghost" feels more like an episode of "Twilight Zone," or "One Step Beyond." What it doesn't feel like is an episode of "Mission: Impossible."