
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to believe that this was the ONLY episode where the team's leader (Daniel Briggs or Jim Phelps) didn't accept the assignment briefing. Barbara Bain's character, Cinnamon Carter, accepts the ubiquitous mission briefing instead of Steven Hill's character, Daniel Briggs. Why? Steven Hill was an orthodox Jew and, as such, obliged to leave the set by sunset on Friday in order to observe the Sabbath. Early in the season's production, this was an easy workaround but, as the show's popularity increased, production schedules got tighter and obliging Hill became more difficult. So did Steven Hill, and he was suspended from the show for this episode (his absence was explained by Cinnamon as "being on another assignment.")