title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Attempting to reassure fans of the novels, Weitz said that religion would instead appear in euphemistic terms, yet the decision was criticised by some fans, anti-censorship groups, and the National Secular Society (of which Pullman is an honorary associate), which said "they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it ..." and "this is part of a long-term problem over freedom of speech." "The Atlantic" wrote: "With $180 million at stake, the studio opted to kidnap the book's body and leave behind its soul." The changes from the novel have been present since Tom Stoppard's rejected version of the script, and Pullman expected the film to be "faithful", although he also said: "They do know where to put the theology and that's off the film." A "Christianity Today" review of the film noted that "'Magisterium' does refer, in the real world, to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and the film [is] peppered with religiously significant words like 'oblation' and 'heresy'", adding that when one character smashes through the wall of a Magisterium building, the damaged exterior is "decorated with [Christian] Byzantine icons."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: On October 7, 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of the film. League president William A. Donohue said he would not ordinarily object to the film, but that while the religious elements are diluted from the source material, the film will encourage children to read the novels, which he says denigrate Christianity and promote atheism for children. He cited Pullman telling "The Washington Post" in 2001 that he is trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. The league hoped that "the film [would fail] to meet box-office expectations and that [Pullman's] books attract few buyers", declaring the boycott campaign a success after a North American opening weekend which was lower than anticipated.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, agreed that the broad appeal of the film was a dangerous lure to the novels, which he criticised for carrying a clear agenda to expose what Pullman believes is the "tyranny of the Christian faith" and for providing "a liberating mythology for a new secular age." Denny Wayman of the Free Methodist Church made the assertion that "The Golden Compass" is a "film trying to preach an atheistic message." Other evangelical groups, such as the Christian Film and Television Commission, adopted a "wait-and-see" approach to the film before deciding upon any action, as did the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Theologian Donna Freitas argued that the books were "deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology". In November 2007, a review of the film by the director and staff reviewer of the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) appeared on the website of the Catholic News Service and in Catholic newspapers across the country. The review suggested that instead of a boycott, it may be appropriate for Catholic parents to "talk through any thorny philosophical issues" with their children. However, on December 10, 2007 the review was removed from the website at the USCCB's request. On December 19, 2007, the Vatican newspaper, "L'Osservatore Romano", published an editorial in which it denounced the film as godless.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Pullman said of Donohue's call for a boycott, "Why don't we trust readers? Why don't we trust filmgoers? Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world." In a discussion with Donohue on CBS's "Early Show", Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, said that rather than promote atheism, the film would encourage children to question authority, saying that would not be a bad thing for children to learn. Director Weitz says that he believes "His Dark Materials" is "not an atheistic work, but a highly spiritual and reverent piece of writing", and Nicole Kidman defended her decision to star in the film, saying that the source material had been "watered down a little" and that her religious beliefs would prevent her from taking a role in a film she perceived as anti-Catholic. Some commentators indicated that they believed both sides' criticism would prove ultimately impotent and that the negative publicity would prove a boon for the film's box-office. Sales were in fact poor; one week after the film's release, Roger Ebert said of the Catholic campaign, "any bad buzz on a family film can be mortal, and that seems to have been the case this time." The planned film trilogy has not been continued, prompting actor Sam Elliott to blame censorship and the Catholic Church.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: The film premiered in London on November 27, 2007, and was released on December 5, 2007, in British cinemas by Entertainment Film Distributors and released on December 7, 2007, in American cinemas by New Line Cinema.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray formats in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2008, and the United States on April 29, 2008. The extra material on the single-disc DVD consists of previews of upcoming New Line Cinema films. The two-disc edition includes a commentary from writer/director Chris Weitz, eleven "making-of" featurettes, a photo gallery, and theatrical and teaser trailers. The Blu-ray Disc features the same extras from the two-disc DVD edition.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Shortly before the film's release, Weitz suggested that an extended cut of the film could be released on DVD, saying "I'd really love to do a fuller cut of the film"; he further speculated that such a version "could probably end up at two-and-a-half hours." This proposed cut would presumably not include the original ending: MTV reported in December 2007 that Weitz hoped to include that material at the beginning of a possible "The Subtle Knife" adaptation, and that a "Compass" Director's Cut might feature "a moment" of it as a "teaser." so far, however, no extended version has been released, as of 2014.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: On June 9, 2020 Weitz revealed on Twitter that it would take $17 million for him to complete VFX for his directors cut making him think there is no financial incentive for them to finish it and release it .


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: The North American opening weekend return was "a little disappointing" for New Line Cinema, earning US$25.8 million with total domestic box-office of $70 million compared to an estimated $180 million production budget. Despite this, the film's fortunes rebounded as its performance outside the United States was described as "stellar" by "Variety", and as "astonishing" by New Line. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed $53,198,635 and became the second-highest-grossing non-sequel of 2007 there (behind "The Simpsons Movie"). In Japan, the film was officially released in March 2008 on 700 screens, ultimately grossing $33,501,399; but previews of the film between February 23–24, 2008, earned $2.5 million. By July 6, 2008, it had earned $302,127,136 internationally, totaling $372,234,864 worldwide. Overseas rights to the film were sold to fund the $180 million production budget for the film, so most of these profits did not go to New Line. This has been cited as a possible "last straw" in Time Warner's decision to merge New Line Cinema into Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Reviews of "The Golden Compass" were mixed. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 42%, based on 198 reviews, with an average score of 5.60/10. The critical consensus reads: "Without the bite or the controversy of the source material, "The Golden Compass" is reduced to impressive visuals overcompensating for lax storytelling." At "Metacritic", which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said that the film "crams so many events, characters, ... twists and turns, sumptuously appointed rooms and ethereally strange vistas ... that [it] risks losing you in the whirl" and that while "The Golden Compass" is "an honorable work," it is "hampered by its fealty to the book and its madly rushed pace." James Berardinelli of "ReelReviews" gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, calling it "adequate, but not inspired" and criticising the first hour for its rushed pace and sketchily-developed characters. James Christopher of "The Times" of London was disappointed, praising the "marvellous" special effects and casting, but saying that the "books weave a magic the film simply cannot match" and citing a "lack of genuine drama."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: "Time" rated it an "A−" and called it a "good, if familiar fantasy," saying "The find is Dakota Blue Richards ... who's both grounded and magical." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated it 4 stars out of 5, praising Nicole Kidman's casting and saying it had "no other challengers as [2007's] big Christmas movie." Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, and said that "Richards is persuasive" and that it "does a good job of introducing us to an unfamiliar world." Critic Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars and called it "a darker, deeper fantasy epic than "the "Rings" trilogy (The Lord of the Rings), The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Potter" films," saying that it "creates villains that are more complex and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging ... I think [it] is a wonderfully good-looking movie, with exciting passages and a captivating heroine."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Pullman himself was described by a "London" "Times" interviewer as sounding "ambivalent" and "guarded" about the film, saying in March 2008: "A lot of things about it were good… Nothing's perfect. Nothing can bring out all that's in the book. There are always compromises." He hoped, however, that the rest of the trilogy would be adapted with the same cast and crew. In July 2009, after this possibility had been exhausted, Weitz told "Time" magazine that he thought the film's special effects ended up being its "most successful element."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Debbie Day of "Premiere" magazine said ""The Golden Compass" ultimately fails as a film in its broad strokes and inadequate scene development."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: "The Golden Compass" won the 2008 Oscar for Best Visual Effects and the BAFTA Film Award for Special Visual Effects notably beating what many considered to be the front-runner, Michael Bay's "Transformers", which had swept the VES awards prior. It was also nominated for 2 Critics' Choice Awards in 2007 ("Best Family Film," and "Best Young Actress" for Dakota Blue Richards), 5 Satellite Awards and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. "The Golden Compass" was nominated for the National Movie Award for Best Family Film, but lost to Disney/Pixar's "WALL-E".


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the film's music. British singer Kate Bush wrote and performed the song "Lyra" which is played over the end credits. The film's soundtrack album was released on January 22, 2008, by WaterTower Music.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: The video game for this film was released in November 2007 in Europe and December 2007 in North America and Australia for the PC, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and the Xbox 360. It was developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Sega.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: Players take control of the characters Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison in Lyra's attempt to save her friend Roger from the General Oblation Board. As this game does not fully take into account the changes made by the final version of the film, a small amount of footage from the film's deleted ending can be viewed near the end of the game, and the order in which Lyra travels to Bolvangar and Svalbard follows the book and not the film.


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: At the time of "The Golden Compass"s theatrical release, Chris Weitz pledged to "protect [the] integrity" of the prospective sequels by being "much less compromising" in the book-to-film adaptation process. New Line Cinema commissioned Hossein Amini to write a screenplay based on the second book in the trilogy, "The Subtle Knife", potentially for release in May 2010, with the third book of the trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass", to follow. However, New Line president Toby Emmerich stressed that production of the second and third films was dependent on the financial success of "The Golden Compass". When "The Golden Compass" did not meet expectations at the United States box-office, the likelihood of a sequel was downplayed by New Line. According to studio co-head Michael Lynne, "The jury is still very much out on the movie, and while it's performed very strongly overseas, we'll look at it early 2008 and see where we're going with a sequel."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: In February 2008, Weitz told "The Daily Yomiuri", a Japanese newspaper, that he still hoped for the sequels' production: "at first it looked like we were down for the count because in the U.S. [the film] underperformed, but then internationally it performed [better] than expectations. So, a lot depends on Japan, frankly… I think if it does well enough here we'll be in good shape for that." Although producer Deborah Forte had, in March 2008, expressed optimism that the sequels would be made, by October 2008, the two planned sequels were officially placed on hold, according to New Line Cinema, because of financial concerns during the global recession. Sam Elliott, however, stated, "The Catholic Church ... lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."


title: The Golden Compass (film)

text: In 2019, 12 years after the film's disappointment that caused the two sequels to be scrapped, a television adaptation of "His Dark Materials" was made. It is produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Production and was shown on both BBC One and HBO. It received a much better reception than the film adaptation.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In the United States, the law for murder varies by jurisdiction. In many US jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first-degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second-degree murder and, in a few states, third-degree murder, followed by voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter which are not as serious, followed by reckless homicide and negligent homicide which are the least serious, and ending finally in justifiable homicide, which is not a crime. However, because there are at least 52 relevant jurisdictions, each with its own criminal code, this is a considerable simplification.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Sentencing also varies widely depending upon the specific murder charge. "Life imprisonment" is a common penalty for first-degree murder, but its meaning varies widely.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Capital punishment is a legal sentence in 27 states, and in the federal civilian and military legal systems, though 8 of these states and the federal government have indefinitely suspended the practice. The United States is unusual in actually performing executions, with 34 states having performed executions since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. The methods of execution have varied, but the most common method since 1976 has been lethal injection. In 2019 a total of 22 people were executed, and 2,652 people were on death row.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, enacted in 2004 and codified at 18 U.S. Code § 1841, allows for a fetus to be treated as victims in crimes. Subsection (c) of that statute specifically prohibits prosecutions related to consented abortions and medical treatments.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: If murder is committed within the borders of a state, that state has jurisdiction, and in a similar way, if the crime is committed in the District of Columbia, the D.C. Superior Court (the equivalent of a state court in the District) retains jurisdiction, though in some cases involving U.S. government property or personnel, the federal courts may have exclusive jurisdiction.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: If, however, the victim is a federal official, an ambassador, consul or other foreign official under the protection of the United States, or if the crime took place on federal property or involved crossing state borders, or in a manner that substantially affects interstate commerce or national security, then the federal government also has jurisdiction. If a crime is not committed within any state, then federal jurisdiction is exclusive, for example vessels of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Merchant Marine in international waters and U.S. military bases worldwide. Recently, the Supreme Court, in the McGirt decision, reaffirmed that major crimes within the reservation boundaries of Native American tribes, for which a tribal member is suspected, must be investigated and prosecuted by the federal, not state, government. Federal penalties will apply if found guilty.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In addition, murder by a member of the United States Armed Forces of a prisoner while under custody of the United States Armed Forces is in violation of Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and can result in the perpetrator being tried by a general court-martial, subjecting to certain types of jurisdictions within its own borders or with foreign nations.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Jurisdiction over the crime of murder can be complex as a result of the principle of "dual sovereignty" that is part of federalism. In cases where a murder involves both state and federal jurisdiction, the offender can be tried and punished separately for each crime without raising issues of double jeopardy, unless the court believes that the new prosecution is merely a "sham" forwarded by the prior prosecutor. In the United States there is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The first division of the general crime of murder into graded subcategories was enacted into the law of Pennsylvania in 1794. This enactment is often explained in terms of a desire to narrow the scope of application of capital punishment in that state and in the other states which subsequently graded murder into "first" and "second" degrees. The English common law, which had been received into the laws of the U.S. states, at the time applied capital punishment to a large number of crimes; as a result, states statutorily divided the crime of murder into first and second degrees, and began applying capital punishment only to criminals convicted of first-degree murder. By 1953 three states—namely Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—had further created the subcategory of third-degree murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: States have adopted several different systems for classifying murders by degree. The most common separates murder into two degrees (first- and second-degree murder), and treats voluntary and involuntary manslaughter as separate crimes that do not constitute murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The Model Penal Code classifies homicides differently, without degrees. Under it, murder is any killing committed purposely and knowingly, manslaughter is any killing committed as a result of recklessness, and negligent homicide is any killing resulting from negligence.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Some states classify murders differently. In Pennsylvania, first-degree murder encompasses premeditated murders, second-degree murder encompasses accomplice liability, and third-degree serves as a catch-all for other murders. In New York, first-degree murder involves "special circumstances", such as the murder of a police officer or witness to a crime, multiple murders, or murders involving torture. Under this system, second-degree murder is any other premeditated murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The New York statutes also recognize "murder for hire" as first-degree murder. Texas uses a scheme similar to New York's, but refers to first-degree murder as "capital murder", a term which typically applies only to those crimes that merit the death penalty. Some states, such as Florida, do not separate the two kinds of manslaughter.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Under the common law, an assault on a pregnant woman resulting in a stillbirth was not considered murder. Remedies were limited to criminal penalties for the assault on the mother and tort action for loss of the anticipated economic services of the lost child, for emotional pain and suffering, or both. With the widespread adoption of laws protecting unborn life, the assailant could be charged with that offense, but the penalty was often only a fine and a few days in jail. A number of states have passed "fetal homicide" laws, making killing of a fetus murder; the laws differ about the stage of development at which the fetus is protected.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: After several well-publicized cases, Congress in 2004 passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which specifically criminalizes harming a fetus, with the same penalties as for a similar attack upon a person, when the attack would be a federal offense. Most such attacks fall under state laws; for instance, Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his unborn son as well as his wife under California's pre-existing fetal homicide law.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In Arizona, a person is charged with murder when the offender knowingly and intentionally causes the death of a person or unborn child. The murder must be premeditated. In the state of Arizona, if one is found guilty of first-degree murder, there is the possibility of receiving the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, or life.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: If a person is convicted of capital murder in California, that person may face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: A person convicted of first-degree murder will face a sentence of 25 years-to-life in prison, and thus must serve at least 25 years before being eligible for parole. If the murder was committed because of the victim's race, religion, orientation, or gender, the convicted will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: A person convicted of second-degree murder in California will face a sentence of 15 years-to-life in prison, and thus must serve at least 15 years in prison before being eligible for parole.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Punishments are increased if the murder victim was a police officer, or was killed during a drive-by shooting.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: If a gun was used during the murder, the punishment will include an additional 10, 20, or 25 years to life prison sentence. Those convicted will also receive a strike on their criminal record, and fines of up to $10,000. They will also have to pay restitution to victims, and will no longer be allowed to own a gun.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In Florida, a person is guilty of first-degree murder when it is perpetrated from a premeditated design to result in the death of a human being. A person is also guilty of first-degree murder if they cause the death of any individual during the commission of a predicate felony regardless of actual intent or premeditation. This is called felony murder. This offense is categorized as capital offense, so if convicted, the offender could possibly receive the death penalty.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Second-degree murder is depraved-heart murder; third-degree murder is felony murder where the underlying felony is not one of the enumerated felonies falling under first-degree felony murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The exact statutory definition of third-degree murder is "[t]he unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated without any design to effect death, by a person engaged in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, any felony other than" nineteen enumerated categories of felonies. It constitutes a second-degree felony. Second-degree felonies are punishable by a maximum of 15 years' imprisonment ordinarily, a maximum of 30 years for a habitual felony offender, or 30 to 40 years for a violent career criminal.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The nineteen enumerated categories of felonies falling under first-degree murder rather than third-degree murder are drug trafficking; arson; sexual battery; robbery; burglary; kidnapping; prison escape; aggravated child abuse; aggravated abuse of an elderly person or disabled adult; aircraft piracy; unlawful distribution of cocaine, opium, or other controlled substances when such drug is proven to be the proximate cause of the death of the user; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; aggravated stalking; murder of another human being; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; aggravated fleeing or eluding with serious bodily injury or death; resisting an officer with violence to his or her person; or terrorism or an act in furtherance of terrorism.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The state of Hawaii has no death penalty. If they are found guilty, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. A first-degree murder involves one or more specific elements:


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Louisiana states homicide in the third-degree is manslaughter. There are other specific guidelines, for example, the killing of a police officer or firefighter is an automatic first-degree charge, and intent to kill more than one person is automatically a first-degree charge. In the state of Louisiana convicted murderers can receive life imprisonment or the death penalty.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In Michigan, a person is found guilty of first-degree murder when murder is perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, or any other willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing. In Michigan, the top penalty the perpetrator can receive is life imprisonment.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Minnesota law originally defined third-degree murder solely as depraved-heart murder ("without intent to effect the death of any person, caus[ing] the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life"). In 1987, an additional drug-related provision ("without intent to cause death, proximately caus[ing] the death of a human being by, directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering a controlled substance classified in Schedule I or II") was added to the definition of third-degree murder. Up until the early 2000s, prosecutions under that provision were rare, but they began to rise in the 2010s. Some reports linked this increase in prosecutions to the opioid epidemic in the United States.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Minnesota law also defines the crime of third-degree murder of an unborn child, with the same elements of depraved mind and lack of intent to kill distinguishing it from first- or second-degree murder of an unborn child. Both third-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child are punishable by a maximum of 25 years' imprisonment.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In Nevada, first-degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied. If a serial killer is found guilty with aggravating circumstances, for example killing someone with torture or killing a stranger with no apparent motive, then the state can seek the death penalty or a sentence of life without parole.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: New Mexico once divided the crime of murder into five different degrees. A legal scholar writing in 1953 (by which time this level of division had been abolished) described this as the "all-time 'record'" for dividing murder into degrees. The definitions were as follows:


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In the 1884 Compiled Laws of New Mexico, third-degree murder included assisting a suicide (§ 696), killing of an unborn child by injury to the mother (§ 697), administration of abortifacient causing death of an unborn child or its mother (§ 698), unintentional killing of a human being in the heat of passion in a cruel or unusual manner (§ 699), and unintentional death caused by an intoxicated physician (§ 701).


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Pennsylvania law defines third-degree murder as a murder which is neither a first-degree murder ("criminal homicide ... committed by an intentional killing") nor a second-degree murder ("committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony"). For purposes of that section, "felony" is specifically defined as "engaging in or being an accomplice in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing, or attempting to commit robbery, rape, or deviate sexual intercourse by force or threat of force, arson, burglary or kidnapping." There are also parallel crimes of first-degree, second-degree, and third-degree murder of an unborn child. There does not exist the crime of third-degree murder of a law-enforcement officer, only first-degree and second-degree. Third-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child are punishable by a maximum of 40 years' imprisonment.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Third-degree murder was introduced to Pennsylvania law in a 1974 amendment, at the same time as second-degree murder was redefined as felony murder; prior to that, second-degree murder had been defined as any murder not a first-degree murder. The common-law definition of murder as homicide "with malice aforethought" remains in force in Pennsylvania. A conviction for third-degree murder does not require intent to kill as in first-degree murder, but it still requires malice. In general, Pennsylvania courts have ruled that the standard of "malice" required for a conviction of third-degree murder is the same as that required for aggravated assault: not just "ordinary negligence" nor "mere recklessness", but "a higher degree of culpability, i.e., that which considers and then disregards the threat necessarily posed to human life by the offending conduct". A defense of diminished capacity may reduce first-degree murder to third-degree murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The crime known as drug delivery resulting in death had originally been classified as another form of third-degree murder under Pennsylvania law. In "Commonwealth v. Ludwig" (2005), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that this meant that conviction for the crime required the same element of malice as in any other third-degree murder. In response to this ruling, the Pennsylvania General Assembly amended the definition of the crime in 2011 to reclassify it as general criminal homicide rather than specifically as third-degree murder, thus removing the requirement of malice. However, the maximum sentence remained the same 40 years' imprisonment as for third-degree murder.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: Soon after statehood, Wisconsin enacted statutes repealing the common law crime of murder, creating the statutory crime of murder and dividing the statutory crime of murder into three degrees, with the third encompassing felony murder. For example, the 1849 Revised Statutes defined third-degree murder as a killing "perpetrated without any design to effect the death, by a person engaged in the commission of any felony". The 1956 Criminal Code in § 940.03 defined third-degree murder as causing the death of another "in the course of committing or attempting to commit a felony ... as a natural and probable consequence of the commission of or attempt to commit the felony", and provided that the sentence for the underlying felony could thus be extended by 15 years. This was described by some commentators as a "hybrid" between the common-law felony murder rule and the civil law approach of treating an unintentional death as a "penalty-enhancer" to the punishment for the underlying felony. The 1988 revision of § 940.03 removed the term "third-degree murder" entirely and re-entitled the section as "felony murder".


title: Murder (United States law)

text: In the state of Washington, a person may be convicted of first-degree murder when there is a premeditated intent to cause the death of another person. Murder in the first-degree is a class A felony in the state of Washington. If a person is convicted of first-degree murder, they will not receive anything lower than life imprisonment.


title: Murder (United States law)

text: The offender can possibly get a charge of aggravated first-degree murder if they commit first-degree murder and have an aggravating circumstance, for example if they kill a public safety official, such as a police officer, firefighter, or paramedic. In this case, the offender can receive the death penalty. However, in October 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that execution could no longer be used as a penalty for any crime.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The Columbia"-class submarine (formerly known as the Ohio" Replacement Submarine and SSBN-X Future Follow-on Submarine) is an upcoming class of nuclear submarines designed to replace the ballistic missile submarines in the United States Navy. The first submarine officially began construction on 1 October 2020, and is scheduled to enter service in 2031.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: On 3 June 2022, the Navy announced that this first boat will be named USS "District of Columbia" (SSBN-826), because there currently exists an attack submarine named USS "Columbia" (SSN-771). The Navy did not say whether the name of the class will also be changed.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The "Columbia" class is to replace the Ohio class of UGM-133 Trident II–armed ballistic missile submarines, whose remaining boats are to be decommissioned, one per year, beginning in 2027. The "Columbia" class will take over the role of submarine presence in the United States’ strategic nuclear force.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: Electric Boat designed the new class with help from Newport News Shipbuilding. A total of 12 submarines are planned, with construction of the lead boat began in 2021. Each submarine will have 16 missile tubes, each carrying one Trident II D5LE missile (to be upgraded to D5LE2s from the ninth submarine onward after fiscal year 2039). The submarines will be long and in diameter, as long as the "Ohio"-class design, and larger in diameter.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In studies to determine how many submarines would be needed to support the United States' strategic nuclear force, the U.S. Navy looked at the number of missiles required to be at sea and on station at any given time, the number of missiles each submarine should be armed with and the likelihood that a submarine will remain undiscovered by the enemy and be capable of launching its missiles. Also taken into consideration was how the maintenance schedule of each submarine will affect that boat’s availability to be deployed on mission. Cost-reduction studies explored design and construction possibilities, including adding missile tubes to the design of the attack submarine, building "Ohio"-class replacement submarines using updated "Ohio"-class designs, and developing an entirely new "Ohio" Replacement Submarine design.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: Using the information from these studies, the Navy concluded that a new design would be the least expensive option that could meet all of the technical requirements. For example, both the modified "Virginia"-class and updated "Ohio"-class design options would have required an expensive mid-life refueling, whereas each "Columbia"-class nuclear core will last as long as the submarine is in service.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The design and technology development of the "Columbia"-class is projected to cost $4.2 billion (fiscal 2010 dollars), although technology and components from the "Ohio" and "Virginia" classes are to be included where possible, to save money. The cost to build "District of" "Columbia", the lead boat of the class, will be an estimated $6.2 billion (fiscal 2010 dollars). The Navy has a goal of reducing the average cost of the remaining 11 planned hulls in the class to $4.9 billion each (fiscal 2010 dollars). The total lifecycle cost of the entire class is estimated at $347 billion. The high cost of the submarines is expected to cut deeply into Navy shipbuilding.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In April 2014, the Navy completed a 300-page specification report for the "Ohio" Replacement Program submarines. There are 159 specifications including weapons, escape routes, fluid systems, hatches, doors, seawater systems, and a set length of , partly to allow for sufficient volume inside the pressure hull.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In March 2016, the U.S. Navy chose General Dynamics Electric Boat as the prime contractor and lead design yard. Electric Boat, which built all 18 "Ohio-class" submarines, will do most of the work on all 12 "Columbias", including final assembly. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding will serve as the main subcontractor, participating in the design and construction and doing 22 to 23 percent of the work.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In late 2016, some 3,000 Electric Boat employees were involved in the detailed-design phase of the program and the procurement of the first submarine was scheduled for 2021. Completion of the first submarine was scheduled for 2030, followed by its entry into service in 2031. All 12 submarines are expected to be completed by 2042 and remain in service until 2085.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: On 28 July 2016, it was reported that the first submarine of the class will be named "Columbia", to commemorate the District of Columbia, the capital of the United States. The "Columbia"-class was officially designated on 14 December 2016, by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, and the lead submarine will be . The Navy wants to procure the first "Columbia"-class boat in FY2021.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: On 28 October 2020, U.S. Navy Secretary Kenneth J. Braithwaite announced that the second submarine would be named , after the U.S. state.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: On 7 June 2021, the U.S. Navy budget office announced that the total cost for "District of Columbia" would reach $15.03 billion, which includes planning costs for the entire program.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The U.S. Navy has also said that "owing to the unique demands of strategic relevance, SSBN(X)s must be fitted with the most up-to-date capabilities and stealth to ensure they are survivable throughout their full 40-year life span."


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In November 2012, the U.S. Naval Institute, citing Naval Sea Systems Command, revealed additional design information:


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The "Columbia"-class submarine may also be equipped with a Submarine Warfare Federated Tactical System (SWFTS), a cluster of systems that integrate sonar, optical imaging, weapons control etc.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In a bid to reduce life-cycle cost and acoustic signature, "Columbia" is to run on electric drive—that is, it will use an electric motor to turn its propellers instead of the reduction gearing and mechanical drive systems used on earlier nuclear-powered submarines. It will retain the nuclear reactor and steam turbines typical of U.S. Navy submarines. In such systems, the nuclear reactor heats water to steam, the turbines convert the heat in the steam into mechanical energy, and the generators convert that mechanical energy into electrical energy for use by the propulsion motors and other onboard systems.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: Turbo-electric drives were successfully used on U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers in the first half of the 20th century, and on the small nuclear-powered submarine in the late 1950s. Another larger nuclear-powered submarine, the , was equipped with a turboelectric drive but proved to be underpowered, unreliable, and maintenance-hungry. , the only operational turboelectric-powered subs were the French Navy's s.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In 2014, Northrop Grumman was chosen as the prime designer and manufacturer of the "Columbia's" turbine generator units.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In 2014, Leonardo DRS was selected as the main propulsion motor and propulsion motor drive provider. The lead ship motor was delivered to Electric Boat in August 2022.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: Various types of electric motors have and are being developed for military and non-military vessels. Types being considered for future U.S. submarines include permanent magnet motors (PMM) being developed by General Dynamics and Newport News Shipbuilding, and high-temperature superconducting synchronous motors, being developed by American Superconductors and General Atomics. More recent data shows that the U.S. Navy appears to be focusing on permanent-magnet, radial-gap electric propulsion motors. The design switched from PMM to an advanced induction motor. In 2013, permanent magnet motors were tested on the Large Scale Vehicle II for possible application on late-production "Virginia"-class submarines, as well as future submarines. Siemens AG PMMs are used on Type 212 submarines in service with the German and Italian navies.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: The Royal Navy's , which is to replace the of ballistic missile submarines, may have submarine shaftless drive (SSD) with an electric motor mounted outside the pressure hull. SSD was evaluated by the U.S. Navy, but it remains unknown whether the "Columbia" class will have it. On contemporary nuclear submarines, steam turbines are linked to reduction gears and a shaft rotating the propeller/pump-jet propulsor. With SSD, steam would drive electric turbogenerators, powered by steam turbines, that would be connected to a non-penetrating electric junction at the aft end of the pressure hull, with a watertight electric motor mounted externally, possibly an Integrated Motor Propulsor arrangement, powering the pump-jet propulsor, although SSD concepts without pump-jet propulsors also exist. In 2015, an "Ohio-"Replacement scale model at the Navy League’s 2015 Sea-Air-Space Exposition suggested that the sub would have a pump-jet propulsor visually similar to the one used on "Virginia"-class perhaps as part of the Navy's stated desire to reuse "Virginia" components to reduce risk and cost of construction.


title: Columbia-class submarine

text: In December 2008, General Dynamics Electric Boat Corporation was selected to design the Common Missile Compartment that will be used on the "Ohio"-class successor. In 2012, the U.S. Navy announced plans for its SSBN(X) to share a common missile compartment (CMC) design with the Royal Navy's "Dreadnought"-class ballistic missile submarine. The CMC will house SLBMs in "quad packs".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Mission: Impossible is an American espionage television series that aired on CBS from September 1966 to March 1973. It was for two seasons on ABC. It also inspired the starring Tom Cruise beginning in 1996.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Created and initially produced by Bruce Geller, the show chronicled the exploits of a small covert team of secret government agents known as the "Impossible Missions Force", and their sophisticated methods of deceiving, manipulating and thwarting hostile Iron Curtain governments, third world dictators, corrupt industrialists, and crime lords, among others. In the first season, the team is led by (played by Steven Hill); Jim Phelps (played by Peter Graves) takes charge for the six remaining seasons. Briggs and Phelps usually assemble the same core team of agents, all of whom have careers and some degree of celebrity outside of espionage. The team is occasionally supplemented by other specialists.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The identity of the agency that oversees the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is never revealed. Only rare cryptic bits of information are ever provided, such as in the third-season mission "Nicole", where the IMF leader states that his instructions come from "Division Seven". It is suggested that the IMF is an independent agency of the United States government. This is implied by the fact that, for several years, towards the end of the taped briefing messages, the narrator states: "As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions", or words to that effect.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: No main character was ever killed or disavowed in the original series, but a character could disappear between episodes or seasons without explanation or acknowledgment. A main character was killed in the 1980s revival, however. Mimi Davis is the only character whose recruitment as an IMF agent was shown on screen, although such a scene was filmed for Dana Lambert (Lesley Ann Warren) and discarded.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: A key inspiration for Geller was the 1964 Jules Dassin film "Topkapi", innovative for its methodical depiction of an elaborate heist. Geller switched the focus away from criminals, but kept Dassin's style of minimal dialogue, prominent music scoring and clockwork-precision execution by a team of diverse specialists. Several episodes in fact show close-up shots of an agent's wristwatch to convey the suspense of working on a deadline.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Geller also insisted on minimal character development because he felt that seeing the characters as blank slates would make them more convincing in undercover work, and because he wanted to keep the focus on the caper. Geller vetoed attempts by writers to develop the main characters. Even after Geller was removed from the show, the agents were rarely if ever seen in their "real" lives, and had only one scene where they interacted at Phelps' apartment.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The producers of "Mission: Impossible" were sued for plagiarism by the creators of a short-lived ABC show called "21 Beacon Street." The suit was settled out of court. Geller claimed never to have seen the earlier show; "21 Beacon Street"s story editor and pilot scripter, Laurence Heath, later wrote several episodes of "Mission: Impossible."


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Writer William Read Woodfield was a fan of David Maurer's nonfiction 1940 book about con artists, "The Big Con" (also an unofficial inspiration for "The Sting"), and many episodes are strikingly similar to cons described in the book.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The tape scene is very similar to one described in the 1964 Nick Carter-Killmaster novel "Saigon", published in December 1964 and repeated in the 1966 novel "Danger Key" (copyright registered in February 1966). In the novels, secret agent Carter receives a package from his superior which, when activated, plays a tape-recorded message that self-destructs after playing once.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The IMF was initially led by Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. As an Orthodox Jew, Hill had to leave on Fridays at 4:00 p.m. to be home before sundown, and was not available until after dark the next day. Although Hill's contract allowed for religious observances, the clause proved difficult to work around due to the production schedule, and as the season progressed, Briggs appeared less and less. Hill had other problems, as well. After cooperatively crawling through dirt tunnels and repeatedly climbing a rope ladder in the episode "Snowball in Hell", in the following episode ("Action!") he balked at climbing to the rafters via a 20-foot sound stage staircase and locked himself in his dressing room. Unable to come to terms with Hill, the producers re-shot the episode without him; another member of the team, Cinnamon Carter, listened to the taped message; the selected operatives' photos were displayed in "limbo"; and the team meeting was held in a different apartment. Briggs's presence in the five remaining episodes was kept to a minimum. As far as Hill's religious requirements were concerned, line producer Joseph Gantman simply had not understood what had been agreed to. He told author Patrick J. White, "'If someone understands your problems and says he understands them, you feel better about it. But if he doesn't care about your problems, then you begin to really resent him. Steven Hill may have felt exactly the same way."


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Hill was replaced without explanation in the second season by Peter Graves (brother of "Gunsmoke"s James Arness), in the role of Jim Phelps. Phelps remained the team's leader for the remainder of the original series as well as the 1988–1990 revival.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In theory, Briggs and Phelps are the only full-time members of the IMF. As the series was originally conceived, they would form teams composed of part-time agents from a variety of professions based on the particular skills required for the mission. In practice, however, Briggs and Phelps choose the same core group of three or four agents for every mission, occasionally supplemented by guest stars playing agents with unique skills.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Bain and Landau were married in real life. Landau was cast as a guest star in the pilot episode with the understanding that he would be one of four or five rotating guest-star agents. His contract gave producers an option to have him "render services for (three or four) additional episodes". To fill the void left by Hill's Sabbath absences, the producers eventually struck a deal with Landau to appear in the remaining first season episodes. He was always billed as a "guest star" so he had the option to give notice to work on a feature film. Landau contractually became a series regular in season two.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Bain, who won the Emmy for her performances as Cinnamon Carter three years in a row, and Landau both left the series at the conclusion of the third season. Replacements often possessed the same skills as their predecessors. For example, "The Great Paris," Rollin Hand's replacement played by Leonard Nimoy in the fourth and fifth seasons, is also an actor, makeup artist, magician, and "master of disguise". Bain was replaced in season four by a series of guest stars, only one of whom made more than one appearance: Lee Meriwether as Tracey. Season five added Dana Lambert, played by stage and movie actress Lesley Ann Warren (billed as "Lesley Warren"). In seasons six and seven, the female member of the team was cosmetologist and mistress-of-disguise Lisa Casey (Lynda Day George), whose first name was only established in the 1988–1989 revival. During her maternity leave, Lynda Day George was replaced in a third of the season seven episodes by Mimi Davis, played by Barbara Anderson, who had been on "Ironside".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Also seen in seasons five and six is Dr. Doug Robert, played by Sam Elliott (according to White, the character was introduced as a replacement for Peter Lupus as Willy, but the idea was dropped once the producers realized how popular Willy was with viewers).


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Morris and Lupus were the only actors to last through the full run of the original series. Morris also appeared in two episodes of the revival series, in which the character's son, Grant Collier (played by Morris's real-life son, Phil Morris), is also an IMF agent.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Although a Cold War subtext is present throughout the series, the actual Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is rarely mentioned over the course of the series. (See, for example, the mission objectives for "The Trial" and "The Confession" in season one.) However, in the early years, specific locations behind the Iron Curtain are named (such as Lubyanka prison in the episode "Memory"), and many of the targets appear to be leaders of fictional Slavic countries, including the "European People's Republic" and the "Eastern European Republic." Additionally, real languages spoken in Eastern Europe are used. In the season-one episode "The Carriers," one of the villains reads a book whose title is the (incorrect) Russian "Na Voina" ("About War"). Police vehicles are often labeled as such with words such as "poliiçia," and "poIiia," and a gas line or tank would be labeled "Gäz," which is a Romanian translation. This "language," referred to by the production team as "Gellerese," was invented specifically to be readable by non-speakers of Slavic languages, and was actually intended as a source of comic relief. Uniforms of the target regime frequently include peaked caps, jackboots, and Sam Browne belts, hinting at connections with Nazi Germany or the Warsaw Pact.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In 2004, Douglas Little of Clark University published a lengthy academic article explicitly linking the TV series to CIA history: "Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The IMF is also assigned to bring down politicians and dictators of Third World countries outside the Cold War. Practices such as slavery, which was still legal in some nations in 1966 ("The Slave"), and apartheid ("Kitara"), were targeted. The revival of the Nazi Party in Germany was targeted several times. Rollin Hand (played by Jewish actor Martin Landau) impersonated leading Nazi figures – Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler. Other themes included corrupt Central or South American nations, as well as organized crime figures, corrupt businessmen, and politicians in the United States.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: As noted in the reference work "The Complete "Mission: Impossible" Dossier" by Patrick J. White, many IMF missions were essentially assassinations in disguise. In the first-season episode "Memory", the unspecified government agency behind the IMF has forbidden it to commit outright assassinations "as a matter of policy." This policy is not consistently followed; for example in "The Legend", Briggs' original plan is to personally shoot Nazi rallying-figure Martin Bormann, which is foiled by the discovery of a dummy and a tape recorder in the "man's" sick room. In other early-season episodes, for example "The Spy" and the pilot episode, agents are shown shooting people when necessary (usually underlings or enemy soldiers). To get around this restriction, many missions instead involve the IMF setting up its targets to be killed by their own people or other enemies. A notable example is the second-season, two-part story "The Council" later released to European movie houses under the title "Mission Impossible vs. the Mob". Overall, however, gunplay is relatively rare from the IMF, as its methods are more sophisticated and subtle.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: During the fifth season, with Paramount executives having gained greater control, new producer Bruce Lansbury began to phase out international missions. These were more expensive to film, often requiring sets to be purpose-built, along with special costuming, etc., all of which was avoided with "domestic" settings. This would manifest itself the following year with the IMF frequently battling organized crime, though the fifth season still featured more international forays than not. The gangland bosses are usually associated with a criminal organization called the "Syndicate", a generic organization, or its franchises. When describing such assignments, the taped message usually notes that the target is outside the reach of "conventional law enforcement".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The objective of such missions is usually to obtain evidence that might be admissible in court, often taking the form of tricking the mobsters into making a confession while being recorded. Manipulating the targets into killing one another became much less common as well. Lansbury also attempted to replace Peter Lupus, who was expressing dissatisfaction with his part at this time, with Sam Elliott. Over the course of the fifth season, Lupus's William "Willy" Armitage appeared in 13 of 23 episodes, to the outrage of fans who demanded Armitage's return. Elliott appeared in the first filmed episode of season six, but Lupus remained in the last two seasons, with Armitage being given a larger share of screen time and more demanding duties.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: "Mission: Impossible" is noted for its format, which rarely changed throughout the series. Indeed, the opening scenes acquired a ritualistic feel, befitting the "quasi-official" aura the program sought for the clandestine operations.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The title sequence began with the lighting of a fuse. The hand with the match was, until sometime in the sixth season, that of creator Bruce Geller; in the , the hand belonged to Peter Graves, who was shown holding the match. The fuse burned from left to right across the screen over clips of scenes in the current episode. This was followed by lead actor credits. The show's iconic theme music played throughout the title sequence. In the fifth season, the series introduced a variation of the theme, coinciding with episodes featuring Dr. Doug Robert during that season. Though Robert did not appear in subsequent seasons, altered versions of the theme were used. The opening title sequences were created for each episode by optical effects artist Howard A. Anderson, Jr.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Most episodes begin with Briggs or Phelps retrieving a hidden tape recorder and an envelope of photos and information that describes the mission. The recording almost always begins with "Good morning/afternoon/evening, Mr. Briggs/Phelps." (The only exception is the first-season episode "Action!", in which Briggs does not appear; Cinnamon Carter listens to the briefing.) The taped message usually continues, "Your mission Dan/Jim, should you choose to accept it" or words to that effect, with a brief explanation of the mission's objective. At the conclusion, the listener is reminded, "As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." The instructions on the tape were read by voice actor Robert Cleveland "Bob" Johnson. At the conclusion of the instructions, Phelps/Briggs is notified, "This tape will self-destruct in five [or, occasionally, "10"] seconds. Good luck, Dan/Jim." Smoke then rises from the recorder as the tape is automatically destroyed. Some early episodes depict Briggs applying a chemical to the tape and blowing air onto it, triggering a reaction that destroys the recording. This method was abandoned due to cost, and the effect was replicated by piping smoke through the recorder. The word "self-destruct" was coined by the show's writers, but became widely used.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: A few episodes, mostly in the first season, deviated from the use of photos and a self-destructing tape in the mission briefing. The series pilot involved a phonograph record, which was delivered to Briggs in an airtight plastic envelope and which would "decompose one minute after the breaking of the seal" from exposure to air. A record used in another episode had to be played on a vintage phonograph, which had been rigged to scratch the record so badly as to render it unplayable once the briefing was complete. In another, Briggs received his instructions from a speaker in a drive-in movie theater. In a few instances, instructions at the end of the tape would ask Briggs/Phelps, "Please dispose of/destroy this recording in the usual manner/by the usual means." Briggs/Phelps would then toss it in an incinerator or use other means to destroy it. After the first year, an entire season's worth of "tape scenes" were usually filmed all at once prior to production of the rest of the episodes. The voice instructions were added later, and the cast and crew never knew which tape scene would appear with which episode until it was broadcast. Some tape scenes were reused, with only minor changes to various insert shots and Johnson's recorded voice over. In the first season, for example, the same tape scene was used for both "Wheels" and "Legacy". The only differences were that the tape gave a different set of instructions in each episode, and a different set of insert shots of the photographs that Briggs is viewing is used. The cost-saving practice of recycling tape scenes continued throughout the series run; generally, each season reused at least one tape scene. One particular tape scene, of Phelps finding a tape in a parking lot attendant's hut, was actually used in three widely scattered episodes: "The Astrologer", "Recovery", and "The Vault".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In the fifth season, the producers experimented with the format by sometimes eliminating the taped briefing (and/or the team meeting in Phelps's apartment), starting the episode with the mission already underway.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The tape scene was followed by what White refers to as the "Dossier Scene". Briggs or Phelps, in their apartment, retrieves an oversized, leather-bound folder from a locked drawer. The folder contains plastic-wrapped dossiers (usually featuring standard 8×10 "glossies") of the available IMF agents. Briggs/Phelps would toss the selected agents' dossiers onto a coffee table. According to White, most of the rejected dossiers were various series staffers and their spouses, including Geller and his wife. A contemporary article in "TV Guide" claimed that many of the disregarded photos were of studio and network executives, and that it was considered a measure of one's status in the studio and network hierarchies to appear there, but White makes no such statement.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In early seasons, the agents selected often included guest stars playing agents with specific skills not possessed by the usual team. A doctor, particularly a specialist in a condition known to afflict the target, was a common "guest agent". In numerous early episodes, the IMF leader would choose only two or three team members, though at least one of the main credited cast members was always involved. In one episode, "Elena", the team consisted of Rollin Hand and Dr. Carlos Enero (guest star Barry Atwater). Almost as often, however, Briggs would choose all of the regulars, plus one, two, or even three others.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In later seasons, the team was more fixed, consisting of the regular cast and less dependent on guest agents. Numerous dossier scenes from the Peter Graves episodes feature Phelps thumbing through photographs only to unfailingly choose the series regulars. By the third season, the dossier scene had been deemed somewhat disposable, appearing only when needed to introduce a guest agent. The first mission without the dossier scene was the last mission of the second season, "The Recovery". The dossier scene frequently appeared in season four, due to the lack of a regular female team member in that season. It was dropped entirely as of season five.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In the pilot episode, the recorded message states that the team leaders have unlimited resources and wide discretion in choosing their team. "Memory" features a montage of Dan Briggs training a guest agent to assume the role he will play in the mission. "Old Man Out, Part 1" includes a scene of Briggs approaching an operative (played by Mary Ann Mobley) to recruit her, meeting with resistance before he finally convinces her to join the mission.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In the third segment of the opening act, called the "apartment scene" by White, the team would convene for their final briefing in the leader's apartment. Although the series was shot in color, the apartment had a black, white, and gray color scheme, such that the apartment was sometimes referred to off-camera as the black-and-white room. Steven Hill once suggested that an American flag be placed on a wall of Briggs' apartment, but Bruce Geller vetoed the idea to maintain the scheme. Two exceptions are the first-season episodes, "Operation Rogosh", when the team immediately springs into action to capture their target in a staged auto accident, and "Action!", where the team meeting took place in another apartment.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The apartment scene acted as a teaser. Team members would make vague references to preparations necessary for the mission's successful execution, while leaving most details undisclosed. It is never clear who devised the plan, although the team leader is often shown writing or making notes. Preparations and the necessary logistics were almost never shown, and only a short period of time is implied to have elapsed from the initial assignment until the team is in the field. Early episodes occasionally showed more of the preliminaries. This scene also demonstrated and established credibility for various gadgets or ploys that were key to the plan, such as a TV camera hidden in a brooch, a miniature radio-controlled hovercraft, a chess-playing computer, a "mentalist" or sleight-of-hand act, or a trained animal. In addition, this scene would establish, or at least hint at, the specialties and roles of any guest agents. Team members posed questions about aspects of the plan or why an alternative was not considered, providing the writers with an opportunity to preemptively explain plot holes. When summing up, Phelps often stressed the difficulties in the action they were about to undertake, or some key element of the plan vital to its success, such as a deadline by which the mission had to be completed.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: According to White, the producers decided to phase out the tape recorder and apartment scenes and drop the dossier scene in the fifth season. By the end of that season, however, the tape and apartment scenes were restored, but the dossier scene was eliminated for the rest of the series run. This is White's version, but in fact episodes without the tape and/or the meeting scenes were few. The 1980s revival reinstated the "dossier scene" in the first episode, when Phelps selects his new team, but since the same team appeared in subsequent episodes, no other dossier scenes were made.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The episode then depicted the plan being put into action with clockwork precision. This almost always involved elaborate and often multiple deceptions.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter served as story consultants for the first two seasons. According to White, Woodfield and Balter relied heavily on the Maurer book "The Big Con" for their inspiration. Hence, Briggs/Phelps became the "grifter-in-charge", Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter were highly effective "ropers", and Barney Collier and Willy Armitage were experts at building or equipping "big stores".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Certain team members, as masters of disguise, impersonate the target or someone connected to the target using realistic latex face masks and make-up. A few early season episodes showed the painstaking creation and application of these masks, usually by Rollin Hand. This was later omitted as the audience presumably became familiar with the team's methods. In the 1980s revival, the mask-making process involved a digital camera and computer, and was mostly automatic. In most cases, the guest star would play the role of both the original and the agent-imposter (ostensibly Rollin, Paris, or Casey). Some impersonations are done with the explicit cooperation of the person being impersonated. In some cases, the same actor playing the IMF agent also portrayed the person to be impersonated; this most frequently occurred during Martin Landau's tenure on the series, notably in the pilot, or supplied the voice of the person being impersonated by dubbing. Most episodes included a dramatic "reveal" (also referred to as the "peel-off") near the end of the episode in which the team member would remove the mask.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: " Bona fides" would be created to aid infiltration of the target government or organization. Various other technological methods were used, as well. Telephone or radio calls were often rerouted so the team could answer them. Faked radio or television broadcasts are common, as are elevators placed under the team's control. In some missions, a very elaborate simulated setting is created, such as a fake train or plane journey, submarine voyage, aftermath of a major disaster, or even the take over of the United States by a foreign government. In a particularly elaborate ploy, used on more than one occasion, the IMF convinces their target that several years had passed while the target was in a coma or suffering from amnesia. In another instance, the IMF even convinced its target, an aging mobster (played by William Shatner) that time has somehow been turned back more than 30 years and he is a young man again.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The plans often turn on elaborate psychology. The team usually arranged for a situation to arise that the target would react to in a predictable way, and the team would guide the outcome to the desired end. Many plans simply cause the target to become confused or erratic or irrational, lose self-assurance, lose trust in subordinates or partners, etc., and fall back on predictable acts of desperation. In other cases the target's subordinates would replace the target and then act according to the team's predictions. These various ploys usually resulted in either information being revealed to the team, or the target's disgrace and discrediting, or both.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In many early episodes, the mission was to "neutralize" the target, and the target is ultimately killed by his superiors, staff, or rivals. This was rarely shown on screen; instead, the team would hear a gunshot as they decamped. In later seasons, where the targets were usually organized-crime figures or similar, the mission goal is often simply to collect incriminating evidence not obtainable by "conventional law-enforcement agencies". The team is not above falsifying such evidence as a last resort.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Dramatic tension was provided by situations in which team members appear to be in danger of being discovered (especially before commercial breaks). Sometimes, unexpected events occur that force the team to improvise. On occasion, an outside party or one of the targets realizes what is happening and puts the plan at risk.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In most cases, the action lasted right to the final seconds. A dramatic device frequently used at the end was the sound of a gunshot or a scream in the distance as the target is killed by his associates as the IMF team makes their getaway. Most often they leave in a nondescript panel truck, with the episode ending in a freeze frame. On one particular episode, the team escapes in a van after leaving a secret underground enemy base that is destroyed by a series of explosions. In the 1980s revival, this format was altered with the addition of a tag scene showing the IMF team regrouping (often still in disguise) and walking away. From the middle of the second season onwards, Jim Phelps often makes a quip.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In a few instances, a personal matter involving Briggs, Phelps or another IMF operative would result in an "off-book" mission. This first occurred in the opening season, when a "syndicate" boss kidnaps and threatens to kill the teen-aged daughter of a friend of Briggs unless he removes a grand-jury witness against the mobster from police protective custody. (How this man knew Briggs was capable of such a task was not explained.) In another instance, Phelps is captured and other team members rally to free him. The last such instance was near the end of the series, when the survivors of a previous IMF operation (season six's "Casino") recognize a vacationing Phelps from security camera photos and kidnap him to force his team to retrieve evidence that a plea-bargaining mobster is about to turn over to authorities. A mistake causes Cinnamon Carter to be exposed and captured by the villains, and Phelps concocts a plan to rescue her. One episode featured Phelps on a personal mission, where he visits his small hometown and learns that several of his childhood acquaintances have been murdered and the local law enforcement chief is unqualified to cope. In another episode, a friend of Phelps is framed for murder, giving Phelps only 24 hours to find the real killer, prove his friend's innocence, and save his life. On two occasions, he is captured and the team has to rescue him. In "Cat's Paw", team members volunteer to go against the organization responsible for murdering Barney's brother. Willy is shot and captured in one episode, and captured and tortured by a drug kingpin in another. Paris is kidnapped and brainwashed in an attempt to get him to kill Phelps. Jim and Rollin are on a hunting trip when Jim is taken mysteriously ill. (It turns out the residents of a "Norman Rockwell" town are hired assassins, who attempt to poison Phelps when he stumbles on their secret.)


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In the 1980s series, former IMF agent Barney Collier is framed for a crime he did not commit and the IMF team has to extricate him, leading to a reunion of Barney with his son and IMF agent Grant Collier (played by real-life father and son Greg and Phil Morris).


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The original series was mostly filmed on the Paramount lot, with location work around Hollywood and the Los Angeles Basin. The pilot episode was filmed at Mount St. Mary's College (Brentwood Campus) with special guest star Wally Cox. Other first season locations included the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County () and the Los Angeles Union Pacific rail yard (). Pasadena and the Caltech campus were common locations. Another noted location was the Bradbury Building, used in other films and series (from "The Outer Limits" to "Blade Runner"). One episode () was filmed at the Stalag 13 set of "Hogan's Heroes".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Paramount had the option to cancel the series after the seventh season, and did so because it could make more money syndicating the show than producing new episodes.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The was composed by Argentine composer, pianist, and conductor Lalo Schifrin and is noted for being in time. About the unusual time signature, Schifrin joked that "things are in or because people dance with two legs. I did it for people from outer space who have five legs." The Morse code for M.I., the initials of "Mission: Impossible", is two dashes followed by two dots, corresponding to the rhythm of the main theme. Schifrin wrote in his book "Music Composition for Film and Television" that he sometimes used Morse code for inspiration, to create unusual rhythms, for instance on the score for "The Concorde ... Airport '79". "The Plot" was also composed by Schifrin, who scored three episodes in the first season and went on to score at least one or two episodes for most of the other seasons (season two is the only one to have no Schifrin-scored episodes, in part because he was helping to launch Geller's new series "Mannix").


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Schifrin was awarded two Grammys at the 10th Grammy Awards for his work on the first season (Best Instrumental Theme and Best Original Score for a Motion Picture or TV Show). He was also nominated for two Emmys (for the first and third seasons). Among the other composers to work on the series were Jerry Fielding, Walter Scharf, Gerald Fried, Richard Markowitz, Benny Golson, Robert Drasnin, and Hugo Montenegro. Gerald Fried worked on "Mission: Impossible" concurrently while working on the "" television series and re-used the infamous "Star Trek fight music" in several "Mission: Impossible" episodes.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Although two albums of re-recorded music from the original series had previously been released under Schifrin's name, "" (Dot, 1967) and "" (Paramount, 1968) the original scores were not commercially available until 1992 when GNP Crescendo released "The Best of Mission: Impossible – Then and Now" featuring five scores by Lalo Schifrin for the original series and five by John E. Davis for the revival (Schifrin also scored three episodes of the revival, including the premiere, but none were included).


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: An electronic dance version of the theme by U2 bandmates Larry Mullen, Jr. and Adam Clayton was released in 1996 to coincide with the release of the first "Mission: Impossible" movie. The single was a success, and it was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance (losing out to Béla Fleck and the Flecktones' "The Sinister Minister").


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Each episode's title sequence was composed of a number of very short clips of key scenes from the subject episode. Although this was, and remains, very rare for series television, it was already being done on "I Spy", which like "Mission" opened with the lighting of a fuse. Several British teleseries produced by Gerry Anderson and his then wife Sylvia Anderson, the contemporaneous "Thunderbirds" (made in 1964) and the mid-1970s "" (which starred "Mission: Impossible" alumni Martin Landau and Barbara Bain) amongst them, also showed clips in the opening sequence. The reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" TV series also used this device. The clips in the opening sequence were chosen to showcase dramatic moments in the upcoming mission, such as moments of surprise, moments of violence, or equipment in use. In particular, the first clip shown was often someone getting punched and/or knocked out. For the first two seasons, the closing credits showed clips from that mission in freeze frame. At the start of 1968, when Paramount took over from Desilu, the same clips were shown during the closing credits across episodes; later seasons eschewed that approach, featuring a freeze frame of the hand lighting the fuse.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: "Mission: Impossible" is still recognized for its innovative use of music. Composer Lalo Schifrin wrote several distinctive pieces for the series. The visual cuts in the main title sequence were timed to the beats and measures of the theme tune—written in (unusual) time. Most episodes included fairly long sequences showing the team members—particularly electronics expert Barney Collier—making technical preparations for the mission, usually to the accompaniment of another easily recognizable tune called "The Plot." Lalo Schifrin also wrote a theme for each main character, and the sound track for each episode incorporated variations of these throughout. Even when an episode's score is credited to some other composer, Desilu's music supervisor Jack Hunsacker would re-edit it, adding Schifrin melodies from the library. The series had great impact on film and TV music. Before "Mission: Impossible," a common compliment was along the lines of "the score worked very well but never got in the way or called attention to itself." By contrast, "Mission: Impossible" was praised for the prominence of its music.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The original version of "Mission: Impossible" held the record for having the most episodes (171) of any English-language espionage television series for over 35 years (about 10 more episodes than its nearest rival, the UK-produced "The Avengers)." Its record was broken during the eighth season of "24" in 2010.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Reruns of "Mission: Impossible" are still shown weekly on Me-TV affiliate TV stations. The original series' seven seasons are available on the Paramount+ paid streaming service and an its own dedicated "channel" on the Pluto TV free streaming service.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The secret message tape scene has been parodied in other shows. One example is in the animated TV series "The Houndcats" where, after the Chief gives the Houndcats their instructions, he warns them that the "message will self-destruct in five seconds" at which point the team panics as it then desperately tries to get rid of the message before it explodes.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In North America, "Mission: Impossible" received limited VHS format release in the waning days of video cassettes: There was a subscription through Columbia House; GoodTimes Home Video issued a sell-through version of Episode 3, "Memory" (under the multiply erroneous title "Butcher of Balkins"); and Paramount Home Video released twelve two-episode volumes of "The Best of Mission: Impossible," six tapes at a time, in 1996 and 2000. Here are the episodes on the mentioned VHS releases:


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: For laserdisc, Volumes 1-6 are available on that format, and in Japan's case, the first four seasons in their entirety are released onto the format by CIC video.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment) has released all seven seasons of "Mission: Impossible" on DVD in Regions 1, 2 & 4. The episodes of the original series of "Mission: Impossible" on the CBS DVD/Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment DVD releases were presented digitally restored and remastered from the original film negatives for picture clarity and sound, and are also presented in its original broadcast presentation and order.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: On December 11, 2012, Paramount released "Mission: Impossible – The Complete Television Collection" on DVD in Region 1. The 56-disc collection features all 171 episodes of the series as well as bonus features.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: On October 6, 2015, CBS Home Entertainment released a repackaged version of the complete series set, at a lower price.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: On December 1, 2020, CBS Home Entertainment released a Blu-ray Disc version of the complete series set.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In 1980, media reports indicated that a reunion of the original cast was in the planning stages, for a project to be called "Mission: Impossible 1980". Ultimately this project was delayed into 1983 (with the working title suitably updated repeatedly) before being canceled altogether due to one plot after another being deemed inappropriate and unacceptable. In 1984, another proposed "Mission: Impossible" reunion was to have been a theatrical film, titled "Good Morning, Mr. Phelps (Mission: Impossible – The Movie)". Ultimately, the proposed large budget sank this project.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In 1988, the American fall television season was hampered by a writers' strike that prevented the commissioning of new scripts. Producers, anxious to provide new product for viewers but with the prospect of a lengthy strike, went into the vaults for previously written material. "", for example, used scripts written for proposed during the 1970s. The ABC network decided to launch a new "Mission: Impossible" series, with a mostly new cast (except for Peter Graves, who returned as Phelps), but using scripts from the original series, suitably updated. To save even more on production costs, the series was filmed in Australia; the first season in Queensland, and the second in Melbourne. Costs were, at that time, some 20 percent lower in Australia than in Hollywood. The new "Mission: Impossible" was one of the first American commercial network programs to be filmed in Australia.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: According to Patrick White's book, the original plan was for the series to be an actual remake of the original series, with the new cast playing the same characters from the original series: Rollin Hand, Cinnamon Carter, et al. Just before filming began, White writes, the decision was made to rework the characters so that they were now original creations, albeit still patterned after the originals, with only Jim Phelps remaining unchanged.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The new series was not a hit, but it was produced cheaply enough to keep it on the ABC schedule. The new "Mission: Impossible" ultimately lasted for two years; the writers' strike was resolved quickly enough that only four episodes were actual remakes, which, along with the decision to change the character names and backgrounds, resulted in the series being considered a continuation of the original series, rather than simply a remake.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The original series formula described above was largely repeated in the second "Mission: Impossible" series of the 1980s, though the writers took some liberties and tried to stretch the rules somewhat. Most notably, by the time of the revival series, the Impossible Missions Force was no longer a small, clandestine operation, but larger in scale, with references now made to IMF divisions and additional teams similar to the one run by Phelps. One episode of the later series featured the only occasion in which a regular IMF agent was killed on a mission and subsequently disavowed. The 1980s series also had IMF agents using technology that nearly pushed the series into the realm of science fiction, such as one gadget that could record dreams, and another that allowed the IMF to change the surfaces (actually digital screens) of special playing cards to appear to be whatever cards the plan required.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The revived series included special appearances by several 1960s–70s IMF veterans, including Lynda Day George, and Greg Morris as Barney; Morris's son, Phil Morris, played Barney's son in the new series. Four guest stars from the original run all played targets here, Alex Cord, James Shigeta, and in the same episode, Barbara Luna and Australian Michael Pate.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In the early 1970s, the second season two-part story "The Council" was distributed to European movie houses, theatres and cinemas as a full-length feature film titled "".


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: A feature film based upon the series was first proposed in 1978, then to be made for TV. This was the first of several attempts through the 1980s, but no feature production materialized.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Later, six feature films were released, with two more in the works, produced by and starring Tom Cruise as team lead Ethan Hunt.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: IMF leader Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves in the original series, has a supporting role in the first of these films, and is played by Jon Voight; he is also killed as a blatant traitor. None of the other films feature any characters from the television series.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In 1979, game designer Scott Adams released "Mission: Impossible", a text adventure game that placed the player in the role of a secret agent trying to save the world. Adams had failed to acquire the rights to the title, and the game was quickly reissued as "Impossible Mission" and later "Secret Mission". Beyond the title and the name "Mr. Phelps" being mentioned on the tape recording at the beginning of the game, it had no overt connection to the TV series.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: The 1984 computer game "Impossible Mission" also featured a story in which the player takes the role of a secret agent who must stop an evil genius, but it also has no overt connection to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, although the game's designer Dennis Caswell claimed that the title was chosen because "it was, at least, somewhat descriptive, and the obvious allusion to "Mission: Impossible" was expedient."


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Of the above, only the 1967 "John Tiger" novel featured the team as led by Dan Briggs; the rest all featured the Jim Phelps-era IMF.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: Dell Comics published a "Mission: Impossible" comic book on a sporadic schedule that lasted from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. Only five issues were published before the series was canceled. The first four issues were original publications; the fifth issue was a reprint of the first. In 1996, Marvel Comics published a single-issue "Mission: Impossible" comic which served as a prequel to the 1996 feature film.


title: Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)

text: In 1968, the GAF Corporation of Portland, Oregon/Paramount Films released a View-Master (21 stereo pictures in three round discs) with a 16-page story booklet: "Good morning Mr Phelps. The man you are looking at is Dr. Erich Rojak, the nuclear physicist who has been missing..."


title: High-definition television

text: High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the generation following standard-definition television (SDTV), often abbreviated to HDTV or HD-TV. It is the current de facto standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, satellite television and Blu-ray Discs.


title: High-definition television

text: When transmitted at two megapixels per frame, HDTV provides about five times as many pixels as SD (standard-definition television). The increased resolution provides for a clearer, more detailed picture. In addition, progressive scan and higher frame rates result in a picture with less flicker and better rendering of fast motion. HDTV as is known today first started official broadcasting in 1989 in Japan, under the MUSE/Hi-Vision analog system. HDTV was widely adopted worldwide in the late 2000s.


title: High-definition television

text: The term "high definition" once described a series of television systems originating from August 1936; however, these systems were only high definition when compared to earlier systems that were based on mechanical systems with as few as 30 lines of resolution. The ongoing competition between companies and nations to create true "HDTV" spanned the entire 20th century, as each new system became higher definition than the last. In the 2010s, this race has continued with 4K, 5K and 8K systems.


title: High-definition television

text: The British high-definition TV service started trials in August 1936 and a regular service on 2 November 1936 using both the (mechanical) Baird 240 line sequential scan (later to be inaccurately rechristened 'progressive') and the (electronic) Marconi-EMI 405 line interlaced systems. The Baird system was discontinued in February 1937. In 1938 France followed with its own 441-line system, variants of which were also used by a number of other countries. The US NTSC 525-line system joined in 1941. In 1949 France introduced an even higher-resolution standard at 819 lines, a system that should have been high definition even by today's standards, but was monochrome only and the technical limitations of the time prevented it from achieving the definition of which it should have been capable. All of these systems used interlacing and a 4:3 aspect ratio except the 240-line system which was progressive (actually described at the time by the technically correct term "sequential") and the 405-line system which started as 5:4 and later changed to 4:3. The 405-line system adopted the (at that time) revolutionary idea of interlaced scanning to overcome the flicker problem of the 240-line with its 25 Hz frame rate. The 240-line system could have doubled its frame rate but this would have meant that the transmitted signal would have doubled in bandwidth, an unacceptable option as the video baseband bandwidth was required to be not more than 3 MHz.


title: High-definition television

text: Color broadcasts started at similar line counts, first with the US NTSC color system in 1953, which was compatible with the earlier monochrome systems and therefore had the same 525 lines per frame. European standards did not follow until the 1960s, when the PAL and SECAM color systems were added to the monochrome 625-line broadcasts.


title: High-definition television

text: The NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began conducting research to "unlock the fundamental mechanism of video and sound interactions with the five human senses" in 1964, after the Tokyo Olympics. NHK set out to create an HDTV system that ended up scoring much higher in subjective tests than NTSC's previously dubbed "HDTV". This new system, NHK Color, created in 1972, included 1125 lines, a 5:3 aspect ratio and 60 Hz refresh rate. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), headed by Charles Ginsburg, became the testing and study authority for HDTV technology in the international theater. SMPTE would test HDTV systems from different companies from every conceivable perspective, but the problem of combining the different formats plagued the technology for many years.


title: High-definition television

text: There were four major HDTV systems tested by SMPTE in the late 1970s, and in 1979 an SMPTE study group released "A Study of High Definition Television Systems":


title: High-definition television

text: Since the formal adoption of digital video broadcasting's (DVB) widescreen HDTV transmission modes in the mid to late 2000s; the 525-line NTSC (and PAL-M) systems, as well as the European 625-line PAL and SECAM systems, are now regarded as "standard definition" television systems.


title: High-definition television

text: Early HDTV broadcasting used analog technology, but today it is transmitted digitally and uses video compression.


title: High-definition television

text: In 1949, France started its transmissions with an 819 lines system (with 737 active lines). The system was monochrome only and was used only on VHF for the first French TV channel. It was discontinued in 1983.


title: High-definition television

text: In 1958, the Soviet Union developed "Тransformator" (, meaning "Transformer"), the first high-resolution (definition) television system capable of producing an image composed of 1,125 lines of resolution aimed at providing teleconferencing for military command. It was a research project and the system was never deployed by either the military or consumer broadcasting.


title: High-definition television

text: In 1986, the European Community proposed HD-MAC, an analog HDTV system with 1,152 lines. A public demonstration took place for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. However HD-MAC was scrapped in 1993 and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) project was formed, which would foresee development of a digital HDTV standard.


title: High-definition television

text: In 1979, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK first developed consumer high-definition television with a 5:3 display aspect ratio. The system, known as Hi-Vision or MUSE after its multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) for encoding the signal, required about twice the bandwidth of the existing NTSC system but provided about four times the resolution (1035i/1125 lines). In 1981, the MUSE system was demonstrated for the first time in the United States, using the same 5:3 aspect ratio as the Japanese system. Upon visiting a demonstration of MUSE in Washington, US President Ronald Reagan was impressed and officially declared it "a matter of national interest" to introduce HDTV to the US. NHK taped the 1984 Summer Olympics with a Hi-Vision camera, weighing 40 kg.


title: High-definition television

text: Satellite test broadcasts started June 4, 1989, the first daily high-definition programs in the world, with regular testing starting on November 25, 1991, or "Hi-Vision Day"dated exactly to refer to its 1,125-lines resolution. Regular broadcasting of BS-9ch commenced on November 25, 1994, which featured commercial and NHK programming.


title: High-definition television

text: Several systems were proposed as the new standard for the US, including the Japanese MUSE system, but all were rejected by the FCC because of their higher bandwidth requirements. At this time, the number of television channels was growing rapidly and bandwidth was already a problem. A new standard had to be more efficient, needing less bandwidth for HDTV than the existing NTSC.