Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine R.I.P. Martin Landau

http://wapo.st/2up9UCy

A silence has passed over "Space:1999" and "Mission Impossible" with this man's passing.

Space:1999 was a show that I didn't get to catch many episodes of when I was younger, but was always a treat. The quality of acting from Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and the others married with Gerry Anderson's concepts made it stand out from nearly everything else. They were still really enjoyable when I got to see them all when I was older. It must have been something of a coup to get them as part of a show partly backed by British ITC.

By that time, Mission: Impossible had been a staple of 6pm viewing and I got to see them both show that quality in a different genre. His superb performance in Crimes and Misdemeanors makes it odd that this was part of a comeback, of sorts, for him as he's been excellent in everything I've seen. Horror fans may also want to pick up Alone in the Dark too. Another actor of quality sadly passed.

The first two seasons of Mission: Impossible, with Landau and his then-partner Barbara Bain as recurring characters, were rarely less than good.

But the THIRD season, where Landau and Bain were pretty much the stars of the show even though Peter Graves got top billing, is IMHO some of the very best prime-time television ever made!

Not to disrespect Graves, or Greg Morris -- may they, too, rest in peace -- or Peter Lupus, but when certain Paramount Pictures executives took a dislike to Landau & Bain during contract renegotiations, they pretty much doomed the show to mediocrity, even if it did run 4 more full seasons.

Of course, there was much more to Mr. Landau than just M:I, but without M:I s3, the entire spy/international-intrigue genre would have been of much, much lesser quality in the decades since.

Thank you for all those hours of superior entertainment, Mr. Landau. Eternal peace and joy to you up in heaven.