Marc Daniels

In Mission: Impossible (1966), the cast keep their composure while disguises and carefully arranged deceptions do their work. We recommend it for the ingenuity and teamwork, though repeated viewing makes the formula easier to spot. Marc Daniels directed episodes during its early seasons, and his crisp, efficient approach was well suited to a programme whose pleasure depends on following a complicated plan.

I Love Lucy (1951) shows how practical that approach could be. After directing live anthology drama for CBS in the late 1940s, Daniels directed its first 38 episodes. With cinematographer Karl Freund, he helped pioneer three-camera filming that allowed continuous shooting before a live audience. Lucille Ball and her fellow performers could sustain a scene while the cameras supplied different views. That arrangement gave comic timing a chance to survive the business of getting a performance onto film.

Star Trek (1966) became another substantial part of his work: he directed 15 episodes, including “Space Seed” and “The Doomsday Machine”. We were won over by its hopefulness because William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley make the disagreements between their characters so engaging. Daniels’s crisp direction belongs comfortably in a programme whose strongest attraction is watching those three work together. The moral lessons can be blunt, and the effects are dated, but neither is enough to spoil the pleasure of their performances.

Daniels continued directing episodic television into the late 1980s, rather than making these early achievements his stopping point. Our praise has a limit: a series director should not receive sole credit for what the cast and writing supply. His contribution is worth taking seriously because clear direction matters when actors are sustaining a comic scene, carrying out a deception or disagreeing over a difficult decision. Try Mission: Impossible an episode at a time; prolonged viewing makes its workings rather too easy to anticipate.