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The Best Episodes of Mission: Impossible

Every episode of Mission: Impossible ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Mission: Impossible!

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Mission: Impossible is an American television series that was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicles the missions of a team of secret government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force. In the

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  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 21 - The Town
    8.6/10(467 votes)

    #1 - The Town

    S2:E21

    On holiday and going to meet Rollin at a mountain lodge, Jim stops off in a small town. However, a young couple drop a package containing a gas gun. Exposed, an old man named Doc takes Jim prisoner. The town is populated entirely by enemy agents and they plan to kill a Societ defector in L.A. Doc shoots Jim with curare and the young couple head off to kill the defector. When Rollin arrives, Doc claims Jim had a stroke and can't be moved, but Jim clues him in by blinking a warning in Morse code. Rollin mobilizes the team. Cinnamon goes in as Mrs. Jim and Barney as her chauffeur, and Willy as a trucker. Together the four of them have to get Jim out and thwart the assassination plot.

    Director:Michael O'Herlihy
    Writer:Sy Salkowitz

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  2. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 12 - The Exchange
    8.5/10(325 votes)

    #2 - The Exchange

    S3:E12

    During a mission in a half Western/half Communist country, Cinnamon is caught and arrested after delivering information to the team. She is tortured and proves immune to everything except effects involving her claustrophobia. As intelligence officer Strom gets close to breaking her, Jim decides that the team must try and trade her for a valuable Eastern spy, Rudolf Kurtz. The IMF have to covertly get Kurtz out of prison, get him past the Western police, and get the information from him. The IMF fakes ""rescuing"" Kurtz and taking him to an office in the Eastern zone, where he gives up his information to superior officer Jim. Strom is forced to trade Cinnamon, but shoots both her and Jim during the exchange. Believing them dead and with Kurtz keeping silent about the information he spilled to protect his own life, Strom departs...as Jim and Cinnamon, wearing bulletproof trenchcoats, make their escape.

    Director:Alexander Singer
    Writer:Laurence Heath

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  3. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 13 - The Mind of Stefan Miklos
    8.5/10(400 votes)

    #3 - The Mind of Stefan Miklos

    S3:E13

    Walter Townsend is discovered to be a double-agent: the U.S. government has leaked false information to him to give to the enemy which will cause them embarassment if believed. However, Townsend's contact Simpson has discovered the information is false and reported to his superiors Townsend is a defector. Simpson's superiors know of his jealousy toward Townsend and send their best intelligence officer, Stefan Miklos, to discover the truth of the matter. The IMF must make Miklos believe the information is true and Simpson the liar. Rollin-as-Miklos gets Simpson out and then takes Simpson's place. The IMF sets a series of clues to make Miklos belief that Townsend truly is a traitor and preparing to defect, including tickets and a passport. However, Miklos spots a planted ""clue"" that convinces him the IMF are doing exactly what they are doing: framing Townsend! He identifies them and then receives the information from Rollin-as-Simpson and Jim when he's spotted Jim as one of the IMF opera

    Director:Robert Butler
    Writer:Paul Playdon

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  4. Mission: Impossible Season 5 Episode 1 - The Killer
    8.4/10(326 votes)

    #4 - The Killer

    S5:E1

    Hired killer Eddie Lorca does everything randomly, making him impossible to anticipate. The IMF must find out who his boss, Scorpio, is and all they know is Lorca is arriving in town for an assignment - they don't know who he's going up against. The team creates a ""blank"" hotel and Paris as a cabdriver intercepts Lorca at the airport. Paris and Willy have to stall when it takes more time to set up the hotel then it takes according to the phone book to get to ""their"" hotel. They then put the room number Lorca randomly chooses on the bugged room they have set up. They intercept Lorca's call to his contact, and Paris-as-Lorca meets her instead to find out the target. Dana then delivers the contract to Lorca using the information Paris obtained. The target is a black union leader, and Barney must take the man's place. Lorca eludes surveillance and almost kills Barney with a planted explosive, but Jim figures things out just in time. The team then fake Dana's death, and she gives a dying-b

    Director:Paul Krasny
    Writer:Arthur Weiss

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  5. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 15 - The Photographer
    8.3/10(368 votes)

    #5 - The Photographer

    S2:E15

    David Redding is a photographer and a spy working for the other side, who has supervised the infiltration of 150 agents into the U.S. The agents are apparently carrying some kind of biological plague, and only Redding knows the code. The IMF must get it from him. To do so, they set up Cinnamon as a former fashion model and scientist married to Jim who is working with a bacillus-suspension formula. This gives Redding a reason to accept the assignment - he tortures ""Jim"" who claims the U.S. is planning a nuclear strike. Redding and his assistant Morley plan to take refuge in Redding's bomb shelter and command center after sending a signal to his country (which is blocked by Barney), but Rollin and Willy arrest them. When the IMF fakes a nuclear attack Redding leads the others to the shelter, then ""kills"" Willy. He tries to send more coded messages (again, blocked by Barney), and Rollin witnesses Redding coding them. At the end he leaves as it is revealed that the IMF switched Redding and

    Director:Lee H. Katzin
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  6. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 20 - The Bunker (2)
    8.3/10(251 votes)

    #6 - The Bunker (2)

    S3:E20

    With Cinnamon-as-Anna in place, she is taken to her ""husband"" and tells Dr. Rojak to be near an air vent. Jim as a security officer has placed a small remote-control flying disk in the bunker's air vent system and it holds a hypo. Barney steers it to Rojak's monitored cell and he uses the hypo to induce a heart attack. Jim summons Rollin (as a heart specialist) who advises surgery and instructs that ""Anna"" be at her husband's side. Ventlos the assassin plans to disrupt the operation by taking Rollin's place in disguise and the IMF quickly has to readjust when Ventlos tries to kill Rojak and destroy the installation.

    Director:John Llewellyn Moxey
    Writer:Paul Playdon

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Mission: Impossible

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  7. Mission: Impossible Season 1 Episode 3 - Operation Rogosh
    8.2/10(592 votes)

    #7 - Operation Rogosh

    S1:E3

    Imry Rogosh is a mass murderer who kills to forment political upheaval. He is targeting Los Angeles, so the IMF knock him out in a car accident. When Rogosh ""wakes up"" he is in a cell in a prison in his own country, three years later, and ready to be executed as an American agent. To "prove" his loyalty to the cause, Rogosh has to spill the information on his secret operation, but during the mock trial a slip-up cues him in on the ruse. Briggs has to act fast to get Rogosh to reveal the plan to kill the citizens of Los Angeles.

    Director:Leonard Horn
    Writer:Jerome Ross

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  8. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 6 - The Cardinal
    8.2/10(300 votes)

    #8 - The Cardinal

    S3:E6

    General Zepke plans to rise to power - the only threat to him is Cardinal Souchek who stands for a free people. Zepke has had Souchek imprisoned and plans to replace him with a double who will endorse him. The IMF use an infected mosquito to make the doiuble, Nagorski, ill. Phelps and Cinnamon are called in as doctor and nurse to tend to him while Rollin impersonates a Cardinal and sees through Nagorski's impersonation. He escapes from an airtight sarcophagus and helps Barney and Willy enter the monastery through a booby-trapped tunnel before their air runs out. When Jim has Nagorski placed in an oxygen tent, the others open up the wall behind him, take out Nagorski and replace him with Souchek whom they've secretly freed. Zepke has Souchek-as-Nagorski-as-Souchek give a speech, but Souchek doesn't say what Zepke was expecting...

    Director:Sutton Roley
    Writer:John T. Dugan

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  9. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 16 - The Glass Cage
    8.2/10(285 votes)

    #9 - The Glass Cage

    S3:E16

    Anton Reisner, a reistance leader in a tyrannical country, has been imprisoned in the automated Trast Prison and is being tortured by Major Zelinko in order to get the names of the other resistance leaders. The IMF must get him out of the prison. Reisner is in a video-monitored escape-proof glass cubicle. Barney and Willy get themselves imprisoned when Cinnamon as head of the country's prison system arrives for an inspection. She distracts Zelinko long enough for Barney and Willy to escape, wreck the video system, and get to Reisner. But..they tell him to stay in the cell but act different, then get recaptured. Zelinko notes the discrepancy between the door counter and the written log and puts two and two together (incorrectly) with Reisner's odd behavior and assumes Reisner is an imposter. Zelinko and Gulka plot to keep the switch secret but Cinnamon arranges for Zelinko's underling Vasney to overhear it. She has Zelinko arrested and takes Barney, Willy, and the Reisner-as-the-imposte

    Director:John Llewellyn Moxey
    Writer:Paul Playdon

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  10. Mission: Impossible Season 4 Episode 7 - Submarine
    8.2/10(285 votes)

    #10 - Submarine

    S4:E7

    Upon his release, a prisoner plans to fund neo-Nazis with stolen money. So a submarine voyage is simulated in order to transport him to his contact.

    Director:Paul Krasny
    Writer:Donald James

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  11. Mission: Impossible Season 1 Episode 24 - The Train
    8.1/10(410 votes)

    #11 - The Train

    S1:E24

    Prime Minister Larya of Svardia is working to establish democracy, but is unaware that his personal protege, Deputy Premier Pavel, plans to set up a dictatorship. The team must persuade Larya of Pavel's plans. The IMF fakes a train ride for Larya, Pavel, and Pavel's aide Androv. They then fake a crash, put Androv and Pavel in a fake hospital, and tell them that Larya is dead. They immediately begin plans to eliminate anymemory of Larya and start arresting dissidents. Then the hospital wall slides away to reveal that Larya has heard the whole thing, and dismisses them both.

    Director:Ralph Senensky
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  12. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 4 - The Bank
    8.1/10(376 votes)

    #12 - The Bank

    S2:E4

    Alfred Belzig, a bank director in the ""East Zone"", takes money from those trying to escape to the West, then disposes of them and keeps the money. Belzig plans to use the $3 million he's accumulated to support a new Nazi party. Rollin pretends to be an escapee - Belzig takes his money and kills him, allowing the team to track the money to a safe deposit box. Barney and guest team member Paul Lebarre (a former bank robber) stage a raid on Belzig's bank and steal only his deposit box. Willy, pretending to be a police man, ""arrests"" them and they depart just as the real police arrive. They wonder why the single box was targeted, Belzig tries to escape before he can be incriminated and fails.

    Director:Alf Kjellin
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 9 - The Seal
    8.1/10(381 votes)

    #13 - The Seal

    S2:E9

    Taggart. an industrialist, has a rare stolen statue that America needs to maintain a friendly relationship with a foreign country. He refuses to turn it over and IM Force are sent to get it. They need a cat, Rusty, to bypass Taggert's elaborate security. Phelps fouls the computer with a doctored key card, requiring Willy to deliver a replacement containing Barney and the cat. Cinnamon is a reporter investigating a supposed curse on the statue, while Rollin pretends to be a professor from the statue's country of origin. Rollin makes a faked grab for the statue, and Taggert has to shut down the electricity to prevent him from dying. Barney uses the brief power outage to get past the sonic detectors and drill a hole into the chamber. He then inserts a miniature crosswalk so the trained cat can go across and loop the statue around its neck. Despite the distraction of a local tank of fish, Rusty succeeds and everyone makes their escape as Taggert discovers the theft.

    Director:Alexander Singer
    Writer:Allan Balter

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  14. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 5 - The Execution
    8.1/10(317 votes)

    #14 - The Execution

    S3:E5

    The IMF must stop Lewis Parma, a Syndicate man who is close to gaining total control of the food distribution industry in the U.S. To stop him, the IMF must get his hired assassin Vic Duchell to turn state's evidence, but Duchell is resolute. Jim pretends to be a merchant who resists Parma's extortion efforts so as to become a target. Duchell bombs Jim's apartment but is knocked out. He wakes up ""years later"" to find himself on death row: he's been convicted for Jim's murder and is hours away from execution. Duchell believes Parma will get him out as he did one time before, but thanks to the IMF's staging, of course Parma is nowhere in sight. Just as he is is about to be fake-executed, Duchell breaks and turns evidence on Parma, just as Parma arrives at the warehouse where the scam is going on.

    Director:Alexander Singer
    Writer:Allan Balter

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  15. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 15 - The System
    8.1/10(264 votes)

    #15 - The System

    S3:E15

    A gangster, Constantine Victor (aka ""Mr. V"") has had the last witness against him on a murder indictment killed. Johnny Costa, Victor's associates and a casino owner, is the only one with enough evidence to get Victor convicted. The IMF must con Costa into talking. Phelps as a syndicate killer warns Costa that someone has put a contract on him. Cinnamon charms Costa and has him endorse minor credit slips which the IMF then forges for bigger ones. Rollin is a bookkeeper who supposedly works for Costa, finds an unlisted $25,000 planted by Barney, and the fake credit slips. Thanks to a prerecorded call from ""Victor"" mimiced by Rollin, Costa is relieved of duties. Costa confronts Cinnamon and gets her to admit she is working for Victor. Fleeing from Willy as another hit man, Costa locks himself in the casino vault to protect himself until he can testify against Victor.

    Director:Robert Gist
    Writer:Robert Hamner

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  16. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 19 - The Bunker (1)
    8.1/10(255 votes)

    #16 - The Bunker (1)

    S3:E19

    Dr. Erich Rojak and his wife Anna are being held in an underground laboratory/bunker by a totalitarian enemy government. Another unfriendly government has sent an assassin, Ventlos, to kill Rojak. The IMF must rescue Rojak and his wife, destroy the test missile Rojak is working on, and stop Ventlos. The IMF infiltrate the base and Jim introduces a handstamp system, unaware that Ventlos has already replaced the bunker's security chief. Jim uses his system to expose security officer Cinnamon as a phony and she is imprisoned near Anna. Willy breaks in via the furnace and rescues Anna while Cinnamon takes her place...

    Director:John Llewellyn Moxey
    Writer:Paul Playdon

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  17. Mission: Impossible Season 4 Episode 16 - The Falcon (3)
    8.1/10(219 votes)

    #17 - The Falcon (3)

    S4:E16

    Just as Jim Phelps and the others unwittingly become caught up in a royal power struggle, a bomb goes off, seriously injuring Paris and revealing his disguise.

    Director:Reza Badiyi
    Writer:Paul Playdon

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  18. Mission: Impossible Season 1 Episode 10 - The Carriers
    8.0/10(484 votes)

    #18 - The Carriers

    S1:E10

    Enemy agent Janos Passik is preparing to train 200 foreign agents to infiltrate the U.S. and engage in some form of bacteriological warfare. The team figures out that Passik has created a replica of a ""typical American town"" so as to train his agents to learn how to blend into American society. Rollin, Cinnamon, Barney, and bacteriologist Rogr Lee replace the new group of recruits and must then find their way to the research lab. They soon realize that the American-trained agents will be infected with a highly contagious plague and then sent into American to kill millions. The group must not only destroy the plague samples but make sure that Passik and his superiors do not find out that the destruction was deliberate.

    Director:Sherman Marks
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  19. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 12 - The Council (2)
    8.0/10(311 votes)

    #19 - The Council (2)

    S2:E12

    Rollin-as-Wayne orders the death of Jim, who is impersonating a federal investigator, without getting the approval of the Syndicate Council. With Jim's killing a a distraction, Rollin breaks into the safe at Syndicate HQ and duplicates the financial records. The Council, unhappy with ""Wayne's"" independence and the fact that the murder is attracting headlines, condemn him to death. Rollin runs, but at the last moment switches place with the real Wayne, who has received plastic surgeon to make him look like Rollin. Wayne is killed by the hitman, Johnny, and the records are used to bust the Syndicate.

    Director:Paul Stanley
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  20. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 25 - Recovery
    8.0/10(293 votes)

    #20 - Recovery

    S2:E25

    Paul Shipherd, a defector from the U.S., has been put in charge of dissecting a SAC bomber fail-safe at the Vatzia Institute. The IMF must steal the fail-safe and recover Shipherd. As the pilot of the bomber, Jim plants the idea Shipherd should talk to the manufacturer in Duluth, and conveniently a wheelchair-bound Rollin and his ""wife"" Cinnamon are from the factory in Duluth. Jim is released and Rollin and Cinnamon are captured and forced to defuse the explosive device on the fail-safe. Rollin fakes a heart attack to get Shipherd away from his guards. Jim sneaks into the building after Barney fouls the disposal system, gets the fail-safe, and gives it to Barney, who has knocked out Shipherd. Rollin substitutes himself for Shipherd, and they wheel the ""dead"" Shipherd-as-Rollin out in the wheelchair in which the fail-safe is hidden. Rollin-as-Shipherd then strolls casually out with Cinnamon.

    Director:Robert Totten
    Writer:Allan Balter

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  21. Mission: Impossible Season 3 Episode 4 - The Mercenaries
    8.0/10(305 votes)

    #21 - The Mercenaries

    S3:E4

    The IMF must bring down Colonel Hans Krim, the head of a mercenary army who has a ton of loot in gold bars hidden away in an inaccessible enclave. Rollin enlists while Jim and Cinnamon pose as gunrunners with Willy and Barney hidden in their truck. Rollin fakes finding a cache of gold and is then tortured into revealing it. Krim ""kills"" Rollin and then coerces Jim into moving it without revealing the secret gold to his aides. Krim tells the guards to ignore the truck with what he believes his gold, unaware that Barney has melted the real gold belonging to the army, melted it down to remove it from the vault, and put in the truck. While Krim's suspicious aide Gruner kills him over the betrayal, Jim drives away with the gold and the hidden IMFers, immune to being searched because of Krim's last orders.

    Director:Paul Krasny
    Writer:Laurence Heath

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  22. Mission: Impossible Season 6 Episode 2 - Encore
    8.0/10(254 votes)

    #22 - Encore

    S6:E2

    Kroll and Stevens run the Northeast Syndicate and the IMF must bring them down. In '37 the two of them killed a rival mobster, hid the body, and killed the witnesses, so the IMF needs to get Kroll to lead them to the remains. They grab Kroll, drug him up, and cosmetically alter him to look like he was in '37. Then they dump him on a Hollywood set and convince him through incredibly elaborate means he is in 1937 on the day of the murder and the rest of his life is a dream. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail, Kroll and ""Stevens"" reenact the murder at a cafe, which gives them the location so that Barney and Willy can find the real body in the real cafe's basement. The IMF fade away, leaving a reaging Kroll to confront his partner as he flees the 1937 New York set and wanders into an adjacent Old West street.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Mission: Impossible Season 1 Episode 15 - The Legacy
    7.9/10(421 votes)

    #23 - The Legacy

    S1:E15

    The IMF must get hold of a horde of Nazi gold through four young men, sons of Hitler's top aides, who are sent to Switzerland to meet for the first time and pool their parts of the ""puzzle"" together. One of the men, the only one known to them, is replaced by Rollin. Each has part of an account number, and the team needs to hypnotize and trick the bank manager into giving them the complete account # and then slip it to Rollin. The bank account contains an envelope with a microdot, which when combined with a slide in each man's pocket watch provides the location of the treasure. After seeing the other men's slides, Rollin fakes the loss of his watch, then he and the rest of the team head to the cemetary. Two of the men figure out the puzzle from their pieces and follow. In a gunfight Dan is wounded, but one of the men is killed and the other runs off rather then face Rollin's wrath. The gold turns out to have been made into a crypt, and is recovered.

    Director:Michael O'Herlihy
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  24. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 3 - The Survivors
    7.9/10(375 votes)

    #24 - The Survivors

    S2:E3

    Two scientists and their wives have been kidnapped by enemy agent Eric Stavak. If Stavak doesn't get ahold of a third scientist, the other two are useless and will be killed. If he gets the third, than Stavak will have the key to an ""ultimate weapon"" project. Phelps and Cinnamon pretend to be the third scientist and his wife and alllow themselves to be kidnapped and taken to the other two scientists and their wives. Phelps predicts an upcoming earthquake, which the IMF team goes to work and fake-implements. Phelps digs out an escape route through a storm drain, only to be shoved aside by Stavak and his henchmen as they make their escape. While Jim leads everyone out of a perfectly-working elevator, Stavak and the others are captured as they emerge onto a perfectly-intact San Francisco street.

    Director:Paul Stanley
    Writers:Allan Balter, William Read Woodfield

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  25. Mission: Impossible Season 2 Episode 11 - The Council (1)
    7.9/10(325 votes)

    #25 - The Council (1)

    S2:E11

    Frank Wayne is the head of the Syndicate, and by putting the Mob's ill-gotten gains in a Swiss bank account, he threatens to ruin the U.S. gold reserve. The IMF must recover the funds and put Wayne away. Jim harasses Wayne, forcing the gangster to move his records to the Syndicate's office HQ. Then Jim and Barney subpoena and grill Wayne, while Rollin studies Wayne to impersonate his mannerisms. They fake an escape for Wayne long enough for him to call his henchman, but Rollin then takes his place. ""Wayne"" then orders Barney's death. With ""Wayne"" on the lam, the Syndicate insist that he leave town, but Rollin sells them on the idea of plastic surgery...to make ""Wayne"" look like Rollin!

    Director:Paul Stanley
    Writer:Allan Balter

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Best Episodes Summary

"The Town" is the best rated episode of "Mission: Impossible". It scored 8.6/10 based on 467 votes. Directed by Michael O'Herlihy and written by Sy Salkowitz, it aired on 2/18/1968. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Exchange".