User Reviews

Luis Berezan is the ex-dictator of Alcante. While he seems reasonably content to enjoy his forced retirement, his wife, Emelia (BarBara Luna), lives to eventually return and reclaim the throne she thinks is rightfully hers. And, with the fortune they've looted from their country's treasury, she might just be able to do it. Taking her out is important, not just for this reason but because when the episode begins, she murders Casey...one of the IMF team members (the one and only time this happened in any of the shows). As a result, she's replaced from here on by Shannon (Jane Badler).

I really liked BarBara Luna in this one. She looked great for 50, but the reason I liked her was how vicious and despicable her character was. Juicy and easy to hate! All in all, an enjoyable and VERY unique episode.

The reason the show killed off Casey was that the actress playing her, Terry Markwell, did not like being on the program. The feeling must have been mutual, as instead of just replacing her, they killed her off...making zero chance of her returning in any form other than a zombie! This zombie appearance, fortunately, never occurred.

Foxy IMF agent Casey (Terry Markwell) is murdered on assignment investigating the wife (Barbara Luna) of a delusional exiled dictator. Shannon (Jane Badler of "V") joins the IMF team for the mission temporarily but becomes a member of it permanently after Casey's corpse is discovered.

The others resolve to bring the dictator and his wife to justice for Casey's murder. This is the only episode in either version of the Mission: Impossible series TV series in which an agent was ever captured, killed then disavowed. Someone had to die eventually but as to why it had to be the Casey character there is conjecture about why Terry Markwell left the show.

Anthony Hamilton, Thaao Penghlis and Terry Markwell were the Australian actors who were part of the main cast. Terry Markwell had infinitely more beauty than acting talent. So weak was her screen presence in fact that she made Peter Graves look like a decent actor by comparison. She also happened to be a relative unknown to American audiences as Thaao Penghlis and Anthony Hamilton were well-established in America.

By replacing Markwell with Jane Badler - an established American TV star, they reduced the amount of Australians in the cast which allowed the show to better present itself as what it was scripted to be - the adventures of an American special missions force rather than an Australian special missions force. The cast then only had to carry Graves - a remaining link to the original version of the show. Badler also upgraded the appeal of the show with her star power. There could have been no second season without the change.

The cast would be augmented each week by a guest star who was usually an established American star but the bit parts would be filled mostly with Australian actors. That along with use of aged stock footage to set action outside Australia would tend to clue viewers in to where it was really being shot - Queensland.

Barbara Luna was also a guest star on the original CBS version of the show in its first season as an agent in peril.