Take any episode of Mission: Impossible, TV or film, and you can break it down into 4 parts: 1) the debrief, 2) the assignments, 3) the turn and 4) the objective. For most other shows, having a repetitive formula such as this would come off as rote or predictable. The reason why it works for this series is the same reason that this same formula has been repeated in shows and films such as Alias, Leverage and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise; there’s always a wild card.

The wild card, if played correctly, delivers a twist that keeps the plan from working flawlessly. Writers have to be very careful where to place the wild card because if they place it too early, the audience expects it and thus loses suspense or place too late and it feels like cop-out. Take the CIA heist in the first film (spoilers ahead). The film establishes the way Ethan has to use the harness to keep himself off the ground in the room, establishes the pulley and that Kreiger is responsible for keeping Ethan from falling. We even know that holding Ethan up exerts a lot from Kreiger. We know the time table, we know how this situation works, but what we don’t expect is the rat. What happens next creates the extra tension that makes this scene so memorable, and that’s even before the sweat beads play in.

Also keep in mind that with new filmmakers making each film, no two of which will feel the same, even if they have the same formula. Bruce Geller, showrunner and creator of the original show was more interested in creating an environment of real-life attention to detail in the kinds of tricks and tactics that could be used to infiltrate the impenetrable. The show might have been the American response to James Bond, but it became something very different very quickly.

By the time Brian DePalma got his hands on the formula, his interest was as much into the art of deception, but put more emphasis on the shock of the twists over the practical nature of the mission. He allowed for big budget action sequences with very little in subtlety, establishing the suspense through figuring out who was playing who, more in line of a traditional spy film than a mission/objective one. This is why the fans of the show weren’t as on board as the mainstream audience since the team wasn’t allowed to trust one another and therefore never really worked as a singular unit (with the exception of the CIA job).

John Woo, not really a filmmaker that creates quiet tension, preferring a more obvious and bombastic approach, is very much interested in the overall mission objective yet not at all interested in creating suspense or elaborate chess moves. Many critics and fans of the series felt this went beyond the pale in completely trashing the legacy of the show’s purpose, yet this argument is slightly off the mark. While M:I 2 was by no means a subtle thriller, Ethan’s mission, to acquire a deadly virus from a former agent, met all four of the parts. His backup did just that for him utilizing Luther’s skills to keep eyes on their infiltration asset and Billy’s chopper skills helped give Ethan cover when trying to get to Nyah. The turn had Sean find out and anticipate Ethan’s moves. And the wild card was Nyah injecting herself. While we can debate how effective this was, we cannot deny that it meets the formula.

JJ Abrams understood the formula vastly better than even Brian DePalma, most likely because he had been using it on his TV show Alias for years prior. Yet while Abrams made the mission clearer and the use of an IMF team more reasonable, Abrams felt more compelled to get into the inner workings of the agents’ personal lives, so much as to put personal stakes for Ethan to succeed. The reason why some found this approach a little too much was that the franchise established Ethan as a near superhero with a single-minded determination to complete the mission, that it was very difficult to see Ethan put more interest in his fiancé than the task at hand. I would also state personally I couldn’t feel any chemistry between Tom Cruise and Michelle Monaghan.

Then came Brad Bird, who utilized the best parts of what Abrams had started as well as the novelty of the original television show. Yet he also was the one that found the most blatant flaw of the original series’ premise; the show was most interested in the completion of the mission than the reason or the villain behind it. The show didn’t care for the motivation of the villain to do what they do since the show was more interested in seeing how the team would complete the task, almost like seeing a puzzle being put together. Bird’s film showed more interest in seeing Ethan’s team complete the task of completing the mission than why the villain is doing what he is doing, seeing that character as an extension of the mission. He also balanced the personalities of Ethan’s team with their need to complete the mission, giving them more depth of character without losing focus on the goal of the film. He also created more wild cards in his film by throwing in not just audible calls on the fly but introduced faulty equipment that either failed during the mission or didn’t work at all. This ratcheted up suspense in scenes that were already hair-raising such as the tower climb in Dubai and the Kremlin infiltration.

Christopher McQuarrie came onboard with Rogue Nation trying to keep the team-based aspect of the last two films alive with many critics and fans pleased of the outcome. McQuarrie definitely put more attention on the villain this time around while trying to create the same suspense as found in the first film. Considering that DePalma considered himself a devout student of Alfred Hitchcock, McQuarrie ironically proves himself to be more in tuned with what the master filmmaker would’ve done by pivoting off twists of suspense in order to create elaborate games between Ethan and his opponent. The mission, this time to find and detain the ringleader of an international counter espionage team called The Syndicate, definitely has the callbacks to The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, which also hinders it as well since it falls into the same pits of predictability at times.

Personally, Mission: Impossible is more than just a single operative or a method. The fact that different methods and different emphasis is used to create unique visions of the premise allows this franchise to not just feel fresh with each outing, but that it could live on just as James Bond has in a timeless (yet timely) shell that could outlive the actors and filmmakers who come on board. As Tom Cruise gets older, he will eventually have to make the decision whether or not to let go of his precious role and allow someone else to front the mission. When that day comes, I’m sure he’ll let go and look on as yet another anachronistic franchise keeps being made anew in the waves of increased technology and sophistication. It will be then that Cruise has in fact done the impossible.