Overview[]
The third season lasted from September 29, 1968 to April 20, 1969, and consisted of 25 episodes, four of which were part of two 2-part episodes ("The Contender" and "The Bunker").
Jim Phelps continued as head of the IMF team, for his second year.
This was Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter's last season on the series, as the actors who played them (Martin Landau and Barbara Bain) left the show to star in the sci-fi series Space: 1999.
Episode List: 1968-1969[]
| Image | Title | Writer(s) | Director(s) | Airdate | # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 150px | The Heir Apparent | Writer: Robert E. Thompson | Director: Alexander Singer | 9/29/68 | #54 301 |
| A blind princess who disappeared as a child returns years later. But a military general planning a coup doesn't realize that it's really Cinnamon Carter in disguise.
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| 150px | The Contender - PART 1 | Writer: William Read Woodfield & Allan Balter | Director: Paul Stanley | 10/06/68 | #55 302 |
| Barney Collier must pass as a former boxer returning to the ring. The team's mission is to stop a mobster who controls the gambling on all professional boxing.
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| 150px | The Contender - PART 2 | Writer: William Read Woodfield & Allan Balter | Director: Paul Stanley | 10/13/68 | #56 303 |
| As Jim Phelps and the others work on discrediting the mobster in the eyes of his syndicate partner, Barney Collier is ordered to take a fall during his first big fight.
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| 150px | The Mercenaries | Writer: | Director: | 10/27/68 | #57 304 |
| As Jim Phelps and Cinnamon Carter distract a greedy soldier-of-fortune, Barney Collier and Willy Armitage concoct an ingenious method for stealing his gold.
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| 150px | The Execution | Writer: | Director: | 11/10/68 | #58 305 |
| An exact replica of a gas chamber is built in order to make an assassin think he is going to be executed ... unless he starts naming names.
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| 150px | The Cardinal | Writer: | Director: | 11/17/68 | #59 306 |
| A power-hungry general replaces a beloved cardinal with a look-alike. But Jim Phelps and his crew cleverly devise a plan to switch them again.
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| 150px | The Elixir | Writer: | Director: | 11/24/68 | #60 307 |
| A vain female ruler with a fanatical following in her country is fooled into thinking she can look ten years younger with an experimental operation.
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| 150px | The Diplomat | Writer: | Director: | 12/01/68 | #61 308 |
| The IMF recruits the wife of a presidential aide in order to make an enemy agent believe he can give her a fatal overdose and steal information from her husband.
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| 150px | The Play | Writer: | Director: | 12/08/68 | #62 309 |
| An anti-American play gets staged behind the Iron Curtain, but is then doctored by the IMF team to make a top official appear disloyal.
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| 150px | The Bargain | Writer: | Director: | 12/15/68 | #63 310 |
| A dictator using a mobster's money to fund his return to power is made to believe that he can predict the future ... and foresee a double-cross.
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| 150px | The Freeze | Writer: | Director: | 12/23/68 | #64 311 |
| A prisoner who has hidden stolen money is tricked into thinking he has a fatal disease, and can only be cured in the future if he is cryogenically frozen.
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| 150px | The Exchange | Writer: | Director: | 1/04/69 | #65 312 |
| During a mission behind the Iron Curtain, Cinnamon Carter is captured and tortured. And the only way to get her out is to exchange her for a political prisoner.
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| 150px | The Mind of Stefan Miklos | Writer: | Director: | 1/12/69 | #66 313 |
| Jim Phelps' toughest assignment yet is to try to outwit a brilliant enemy intelligence officer who has come to America to verify a double agent's information.
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| 150px | The Test Case | Writer: | Director: | 1/19/69 | #67 314 |
| Rollin Hand's the guinea pig for an experiment being performed by a scientist protecting a deadly virus. But is Jim Phelps's plan fails, Rollin could die an excruciating death.
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| 150px | The System | Writer: | Director: | 1/26/69 | #68 315 |
| In order to goad him into testifying against his long-time syndicate boss, a casino manager must think that he is being phased out ... for good!
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| 150px | The Glass Cage | Writer: | Director: | 2/02/69 | #69 316 |
| Since it's virtually impossible to free a resistance leader being held in a glass cell, the enemy has to be convinced that he's an impostor.
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| 150px | Doomsday | Writer: | Director: | 2/16/69 | #70 317 |
| As Barney Collier works on stealing the plutonium used to make a hydrogen bomb, Jim Phelps and Rollin Hand work on stalling the auction that could sell it to the highest bidder.
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| 150px | Live Bait | Writer: | Director: | 2/23/69 | #71 318 |
| In order to protect a double agent, the IMF must place suspicion upon the one man who suspects him, and free the only man who might expose him.
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| 150px | The Bunker - PART 1 | Writer: | Director: | 3/02/69 | #72 319 |
| Jim Phelps and his team need to rescue a nuclear scientist and his wife being held in an underground laboratory. But an enemy assassin may get to them first.
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| 150px | The Bunker - PART 2 | Writer: | Director: | 3/09/69 | #73 320 |
| Willy Armitage's rescue of the scientist's wife goes as planned, but then the assassin changes his appearance again ... to look like master-of-disguise Rollin Hand.
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| 150px | Nitro | Writer: | Director: | 3/23/69 | #74 321 |
| A truck carrying explosive nitroglycerin is deliberately put in the hands of a plotting general, with the hope that he will use it and be accused of treason.
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| 150px | Nicole | Writer: | Director: | 3/30/69 | #75 322 |
| When Jim Phelps is sent on a routine mission to retrieve a list of double agents, he is captured by the enemy and falls for a beautiful agent with an agenda of her own.
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| 150px | The Vault | Writer: | Director: | 4/06/69 | #76 323 |
| The finance minister of a Latin American country believes he can get away with stealing millions from the treasury vault and frame his president for the theft.
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| 150px | Illusion | Writer: | Director: | 4/13/69 | #77 324 |
| Cinnamon Carter impersonates a German cabaret singer who resembles a woman killed by a top candidate for the secret police. But will he kill again?
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| 150px | The Interrogator | Writer: | Director: | 4/20/69 | #78 325 |
| A prisoner who refuses to give up top-secret information regarding an attack on the United States is tricked into thinking he is now his own torturer.
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