"Encore" is the 129th episode of the Mission Impossible TV Series (1966-1973) and the 2nd Episode of Season 6 that aired on September 25, 1971
Story[]
The IMF team must find evidence of a murder to bring a pair of Syndicate Crime Bosses to justice.
Plot[]
Thomas Kroll and Frank Stevens are a pair of crime bosses who have just killed a old woman Gladys Collins; {she had been a witness to a crime committed by them years before} along with a doctor, a Detective and two policemen. However she had managed to speak about it before she was killed: On June 30, 1937 Kroll and Stevens had killed a rival gang boss Danny Ryan and hid the body and guns used in the crime in a old cafe. At a movie studio at Long Island the IMF has created a recreation of Crowley Square where the crime took place. At Kroll's regular barber shop and later on the movie set the IMF drugs and disorients Kroll back to June 1937 where one of Ryan's thugs tried to kill Kroll; he was only saved when a bullet hit and dented his old fashioned pocket watch. While searching Kroll's apartment for the watch Jim Phelps is seen by Kroll's mistress-who alerts Stevens about Phelps. In one close call, a thug of Stevens tries to force an IMF member at the Studio to tell about the whereabouts of Kroll-but is knocked out by Phelps. In another close call, Kroll in a jail cell knocks a drunk to the ground-in which a coin dated 1964 falls out of his pocket! However Kroll doesn't notice the dated coin. In a recreation of Kroll's old apartment Kroll and a IMF member disguised as a young Stevens plot the killing of Ryan by using Gladys Collins as "bait" at the Cafe. Kroll is still disoriented-he remarks on how he and Stevens arranged for Collins to be killed-until he sees a 1930's airplane fly overhead! In the Cafe Ryan is "killed" by Kroll and Stevens while Collins runs out. Hearing Police sirens and under pressure to dump the body, Kroll and Stevens take the body to the cafe basement to hide it in a fake room that held prohibition booze. While Kroll tries to remember how to open a secret door, four members of the IMF team speed away. Meanwhile two IMF members {Barney and Willy} go to the real abandoned cafe and find the remains of Ryan and the murder weapons. Back on the deserted stage set a bewildered Kroll runs out and as his makeup runs down his face he meets the puzzled Stevens who has come to the Movie lot via a back gate. With the newly found evidence in the killing of Collins and Ryan both Kroll and Stevans are out of business.
Cast[]
Regular Cast:
- Greg Morris as Barney
- Linda Day George as Casey
- Peter Lupus as Willy
- Sam Elliott as Doug
- Paul Mantee as Bill Fisher
Guest Villians:
- William Shatner as Kroll
- Michael Baseleon as Stevens
- Linda Day George as young Collins
- Paul Mantee as young Stevens
- Sam Elliot and Charles Picerni as Danny Ryan
- James Daris as Arthur the thug
- Frank Orsatti as thug
- Janaire as Carol Swanson
Others:
- Sam Edwards as Drunk
- William Benedict as Gate Guard
- Paul Bryar as Detective David St John
- Martin Ashe as doctor
- Alex Gerry as Propriter
Trivia[]
- Ironically in a episode of Star Trek "A Piece of the Action" Shatner as Captain Kirk has to confront a planet that has modeled itself as 1930's Chicago gangland
- Likewise in another Star trek episode "The Deadly Years" Shater as Captain Kirk rapidly ages as a result of radiation- a never made scene would have had him go from old to young by stages; ironically in "Star Trek The Next Generation" episode "Too Short a Season" an old admiral goes by stages from old to young!
- Last episode with Sam Elliott