Mission: Impossible
The Merchant
TV Flash files “The Merchant” as the last listed hour of season 5 — Mission: Impossible (1966–1973) on CBS, season 5, episode 23, aired 1971-03-17, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E23: listed hour 127 of 171 in the Mission: Impossible guide, last listed hour of season 5. It aired 1971-03-17 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Party” (S05E22). Next is “Blind” (S06E01).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
An arms dealer concocts a plan to supply American arms captured in Vietnam to guerrilla groups in Africa and the Middle East.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Merchant sit in the Mission: Impossible guide?
S05E23 is listed hour 127 of 171 — last listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 23.
When did Mission: Impossible S05E23 air?
The Merchant aired 1971-03-17 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Do I need to watch Mission: Impossible in order?
No. It is a procedural. Assignments reset. Cast changes are the serial. Start with the pilot for the briefing grammar, then hop to praised hours such as “The Mind of Stefan Miklos.”
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch the original team as instrument: briefings that self-destruct, disguises as structure, and a weekly procedural that treats competence as drama. The movies later sold spectacle; the series sold method, still the rarer on-screen trick.
The tape still matters more than the stunt. A briefing, a team, a plan that will not survive contact with a living room's commercials — Mission: Impossible, 1966 on CBS, is the century's heist novel told in weekly chapters. Bruce Geller's series argues that competence is a kind of glamour. The later movies sold faces falling off cliffs. The original sold faces falling off in a workshop. That is not nostalgia. That is a different theory of suspense.
Filed against
- Peter Graves as Jim Phelps
Peter Graves led the IMF as Jim Phelps on Mission: Impossible — self-destructing briefings, team-craft heists cool as a Cold War martini, a table of specialists as the weekly set piece. The movies later bought explosions. Graves sold…
- Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter
Barbara Bain’s Cinnamon Carter made Mission: Impossible cool as a Cold War martini — glamour, disguises, and team-craft heists with Emmy-winning poise. Self-destructing briefings never looked sharper. TV Flash salutes the original IMF…
- Martin Landau as Rollin Hand
Martin Landau’s Rollin Hand is Mission: Impossible as disguise craft — the IMF specialist who made competence a set piece before the movies bought altitude. Bruce Geller’s 1966 CBS procedural treated method as glamour; Landau, with…
- Greg Morris as Barney Collier
Greg Morris played Barney Collier on Mission: Impossible — team craft as drama, gadgets as structure, a Cold War procedural that treated method as the set piece later films would replace with altitude. TV Flash files him as the original…
- Peter Lupus as Willy Armitage
Peter Lupus’s Willy Armitage was Mission: Impossible’s human set piece — IMF muscle as a specialist, strength as one instrument in a weekly machine of disguises and briefings. Competence was the glamour. TV Flash still files the strongman…