Episode
Mission: Impossible: The System
Overview
A gangster, Constantine Victor (aka ""Mr. V"") has had the last witness against him on a murder indictment killed. Johnny Costa, Victor's associates and a casino owner, is the only one with enough evidence to get Victor convicted. The IMF must con Costa into talking. Phelps as a syndicate killer warns Costa that someone has put a contract on him. Cinnamon charms Costa and has him endorse minor credit slips which the IMF then forges for bigger ones. Rollin is a bookkeeper who supposedly works for Costa, finds an unlisted $25,000 planted by Barney, and the fake credit slips. Thanks to a prerecorded call from ""Victor"" mimiced by Rollin, Costa is relieved of duties. Costa confronts Cinnamon and gets her to admit she is working for Victor. Fleeing from Willy as another hit man, Costa locks himself in the casino vault to protect himself until he can testify against Victor.
Details
- Series
- Mission: Impossible
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 15
- Air date
- 1969-01-26
Episode context
The System is Episode 15 in Season 3 of Mission: Impossible. It aired on 1969-01-26.
Previous / Next
Episode 14: The Test Case
A scientist of an enemy power, Dr. Oswald Beck, has developed a bacteria which causes cerebral spinal meningitis and mutated it into a form that kills and then becomes inert after a few hours. The IMF must destroy the preliminary culture and stop Beck. Rollin replaces the prisoner chosen for a test of Beck's bacteria, and Barney switches the bacteria cylinder for one with knockout gas and then uses a balloon to capture the gas. Rollin ""dies"" but then Jim, who has infiltrated the base as a military medic, ""discovers"" that Rollin isn't dead. Meanwhile, Barney releases the knockout gas into the control room, knocking out Beck's superiors. Beck thinks they are dying from his bacteria and believes they'll think he's a traitor who tried to kill them rather than the test subject. He flees but is shot while Jim destroys the bacteria.
Episode 16: The Glass Cage
Anton Reisner, a reistance leader in a tyrannical country, has been imprisoned in the automated Trast Prison and is being tortured by Major Zelinko in order to get the names of the other resistance leaders. The IMF must get him out of the prison. Reisner is in a video-monitored escape-proof glass cubicle. Barney and Willy get themselves imprisoned when Cinnamon as head of the country's prison system arrives for an inspection. She distracts Zelinko long enough for Barney and Willy to escape, wreck the video system, and get to Reisner. But..they tell him to stay in the cell but act different, then get recaptured. Zelinko notes the discrepancy between the door counter and the written log and puts two and two together (incorrectly) with Reisner's odd behavior and assumes Reisner is an imposter. Zelinko and Gulka plot to keep the switch secret but Cinnamon arranges for Zelinko's underling Vasney to overhear it. She has Zelinko arrested and takes Barney, Willy, and the Reisner-as-the-imposte
More episodes from this season
Episode 13: The Mind of Stefan Miklos
Walter Townsend is discovered to be a double-agent: the U.S. government has leaked false information to him to give to the enemy which will cause them embarassment if believed. However, Townsend's contact Simpson has discovered the information is false and reported to his superiors Townsend is a defector. Simpson's superiors know of his jealousy toward Townsend and send their best intelligence officer, Stefan Miklos, to discover the truth of the matter. The IMF must make Miklos believe the information is true and Simpson the liar. Rollin-as-Miklos gets Simpson out and then takes Simpson's place. The IMF sets a series of clues to make Miklos belief that Townsend truly is a traitor and preparing to defect, including tickets and a passport. However, Miklos spots a planted ""clue"" that convinces him the IMF are doing exactly what they are doing: framing Townsend! He identifies them and then receives the information from Rollin-as-Simpson and Jim when he's spotted Jim as one of the IMF opera
Episode 17: Doomsday
Carl Vandaam, a bankrupt European tycoon, is masterminding the theft of plutonium to make a hydrogen bomb and sell to the highest bidder. To keep such a bomb from falling into the wrong hands the IMF must stop Vandaam. Jim and Cinnamon get close to Kura, one of the bidders, by offering to bankroll him in return for oil rights. Vandaam demonstrates the bomb's plutonium core but afterwards Barney manages to steal the plutonium and replace it with an empty cylinder. Vandaam's aide discovers the theft and seals the building while Vanddam bluffs it out hoping they catch the thief before the bidding is over. Kura wins the bidding unaware that Cinnamon has planted a device in his money. Cinnamon insists they see the plutonium again, Vandaam is forced to reveal the theft, and Kura wants a refund. Cinnamon destroys the money by remote control. Kura has Vandaam shot while the IMF escape and summon the authorities.
Episode 12: The Exchange
During a mission in a half Western/half Communist country, Cinnamon is caught and arrested after delivering information to the team. She is tortured and proves immune to everything except effects involving her claustrophobia. As intelligence officer Strom gets close to breaking her, Jim decides that the team must try and trade her for a valuable Eastern spy, Rudolf Kurtz. The IMF have to covertly get Kurtz out of prison, get him past the Western police, and get the information from him. The IMF fakes ""rescuing"" Kurtz and taking him to an office in the Eastern zone, where he gives up his information to superior officer Jim. Strom is forced to trade Cinnamon, but shoots both her and Jim during the exchange. Believing them dead and with Kurtz keeping silent about the information he spilled to protect his own life, Strom departs...as Jim and Cinnamon, wearing bulletproof trenchcoats, make their escape.
Episode 18: Live Bait
Selby, a double-agent for the U.S. within an enemy country's intelligence service, is suspected by his superior, Kellerman. The IMF must keep Selby in the clear and eliminate Kellerman. Selby complains when Marceau, a courier who knows about Selby's identity, is taken from him by Kellerman. Selby claims Kellerman is the double-agent. Rollin, as a government official, gives Kellerman 24 hours to break Marceau. Using his underling Brocke, Kellerman works with Rollin to trap Selby. Kellerman comes to believe that Agent Jim has kidnapped Brocke's girlfriend to force Brocke to give away Marceau's location to Selby. In reality, Stephanie is shown a fake split-screen of Jim conspiring with ""Kellerman"" (Rollin in disguise on tape!) to kill Brocke and eliminate Marceau. Brocke believes Stephanie and accuses Kellerman but she recants under pressure. Meanwhile, Marceau is wired to an explosive. When Stephanie recants the IMF break in using knockout gas and use liquid nitrogen to free Marceau. The
Episode 11: The Freeze
Albert Jenkins, who robbed an armored car five years ago, double-crossed his associates and hid the $10 million. He then managed to get himself arrested as ""Raymond Barret"" on a burglary charge he did not commit. In this way he can outwait the statute of limitations on the armored car robbery from the safety of his cell. The IMF must bring him to justice. To do so, IMF ally Dr. Bowman tells Barret he has a fatal disease and gets him released early. Rollin as a doctor confirms the diagnosis and reveals that Jim, pretending to be a cryogenic doctor, can put him in stasis. Barret/Jenkins ""wakes up"" 12 years later in a futurstic IMF set and a graying Rollin tells him currency is no longer of value and the police want to question him. Barret escapes only to discover that it's a scam...but in the scam-within-a-scam, he thinks it's one day after the statue of limitations expires. He goes to the cemetary where he hid the money, along with his partners thanks to an IMF ploy, and all of them are
Episode 19: The Bunker (1)
Dr. Erich Rojak and his wife Anna are being held in an underground laboratory/bunker by a totalitarian enemy government. Another unfriendly government has sent an assassin, Ventlos, to kill Rojak. The IMF must rescue Rojak and his wife, destroy the test missile Rojak is working on, and stop Ventlos. The IMF infiltrate the base and Jim introduces a handstamp system, unaware that Ventlos has already replaced the bunker's security chief. Jim uses his system to expose security officer Cinnamon as a phony and she is imprisoned near Anna. Willy breaks in via the furnace and rescues Anna while Cinnamon takes her place...
Episode 10: The Bargain
An exiled general, Neyron, is living in his private estate in Florida. He's cut a deal with Frank Layton, a Syndicate man. In return for a big payoff of several million dollars to finance his coup, Neyron will let Layton have all gambling rights in his country when he returns to power in Surananka. Rollin and Jim (as a billionaire financier and his aide) try to buy out Layton's hotel, but Layton finds out it's a ploy to distract Rollin from cutting a deal with Neyron over the Surananka gambling rights. Meanwhile, Barney, Willy, and Cinnamon are on Neyron's kitchen staff and use IMF wizardry to convince him he has a disease that lets him predict the future. Neyron then foresees his murder thanks to a projection of Rollin-as-Layton and shoots Layton as he arrives to confront the general.
Episode 20: The Bunker (2)
With Cinnamon-as-Anna in place, she is taken to her ""husband"" and tells Dr. Rojak to be near an air vent. Jim as a security officer has placed a small remote-control flying disk in the bunker's air vent system and it holds a hypo. Barney steers it to Rojak's monitored cell and he uses the hypo to induce a heart attack. Jim summons Rollin (as a heart specialist) who advises surgery and instructs that ""Anna"" be at her husband's side. Ventlos the assassin plans to disrupt the operation by taking Rollin's place in disguise and the IMF quickly has to readjust when Ventlos tries to kill Rojak and destroy the installation.
Episode 9: The Play
Milos Kuro, minister of culture has been using propaganda to discredit his premier, Leon Vados. Vados is a progressive trying to negotiate a nonagression pact with the U.S. When in the U.S. Kuro witnesses a play written by Cinnamon that undermines Vados and the U.S. He arranges to have it staged in his country. But Cinnamon and Rollin leak the play's existence to Vados. Vados attends a rehersal and is seated beneath a special radar disk that creates a sound envelope so that Vados hears only the special dialogue the IMF has created that makes Vados out to look like a fool. Vados has Kuro arrested.
Episode 21: Nitro
General Zek of Karak is opposed to a peace treaty between his country and Agir, and is working with a munitions maker named Ismir Najiid to start a war by destroying King Said during his announcement of the treaty. The IMF must stop Zek and Najiid for good. The two conspirators hire Aristo Skora, a terrorist, to plant the explosives and incriminate Agir. Barney as a systems analyst sets up Najiid's factory's alarm system so Rollin can sneak in and steal the nitro from Najiid with Willy's help while letting himself be seen. Meanwhile, Jim has identified Cinnamon to Zek as an ally of ""Hakim"", the Agirian terrorist Rollin is pretending to be. Rollin and Willy grab the real Skora and then Rollin-as-Skora tells Zek their plan won't work. The IMF let Zek follow Cinnamon to an unconscious ""Hakim"" (actually a drugged and masked Skora) who has the nitro and a radio-controlled truck so Zek takes over his plan which he believes is the Agirians. Meanwhile Najiid has been drugged during Said's spee