Season 7

Season 7, 1972/73, 22 episodes
Producer Barry Crane, except where indicated
Regular Team: Jim, Casey, Barney, Willy

The opening credits for season 7 were:

The Impossible Missions Force team for the seventh and last season remained the same as that used in season six. However, Lynda Day George was absent having a baby during part of the year (officially, Casey was in deep cover in Europe), and she was replaced in a number of shows by Barbara Anderson, who played Mimi Davis. Mimi was introduced in show #151 Break!, where, as an ex-con on parole, she assists the IMF by trapping a gangster, who is a former boyfriend. Jim tells her that Casey will be in Europe for a while, and invites her to help the IMF in future missions. Lynda Day George returned to the programme in show #161. This is the only time we ever see an agent being recruited, and the only occasion that an explanation is given for an agent's non-appearance.

Episodes were often not broadcast in the same order that they were produced, especially at the begining of a season. I have therefore given three numbers in this table.
The episode number represents the production order over the entire series, the season number represents the episode production order within the season, and TX Order represents the original transmission order.
For example, Speed was the 147th episode made, the first season six episode made, but the nineteenth shown.
Click on the links in the list to see a brief synopsis of the episode. (No spoilers.)

Tim Johnson has written to say: "I have disagreed with some of the dates that about all sources including your source have given for when some of the episodes of this season first aired. ... I will give what I am sure were the first 13 episodes of [the] seventh season and when they first aired."

Tim says it's possible that the dates for Cocaine and Ultimatum should be swapped

If Tim's list is correct, it would mean that all the seven Mimi episodes were shown as a block at the start of the season, with Sandy, played by Marilyn Mason, appearing in Crack-up, the eighth episode broadcast, with Lynda Day George returning for the ninth episode, Leona. Lynda appeared for the rest of the season, except for the episodes The Question, which featured Andrea, played by Elizabeth Ashley, and Imitation, which didn't have a female agent. Tim thinks that when the episodes were first aired, Barbara Anderson and Marilyn Mason had credits in the opening sequence in the episodes in which they appeared. Copies issued since certainly only credit Lynda Day George, and I think it unlikely the credits were changed.

The ratings had slipped again during the seventh season, and CBS decided not to renew for an eighth.

The show was revived in 1988 on ABC for two seasons, featuring some new scripts plus some adapted from the original series. Only Jim Phelps, still played by Peter Graves, remained from the old team, although Greg Morris as Barney and Lynda Day George as (Lisa) Casey appeared as guest stars in one or two episodes each. The final show, #35, was broadcast on 24 February 1990.

A Paramount Pictures feature film, called Mission: Impossible, starring Tom Cruise (as IMF leader Ethan Hunt) and Jon Voigt (as Jim Phelps), was released on 22 May 1996. No members of the original cast appeared. A sequel, with the inspiring title Mission: Impossible 2, again starring Tom Cruise, was released in June 2000. Neither film had much in common with either television series. There are rumours that a third movie may be made, but it keeps being postponed.

Bruce Geller, the creator of Mission: Impossible, was killed in a light aircraft crash on 21 May 1978. He was 47.
Greg Morris died at his home in Los Angeles on 28 August 1996. He was 61.

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