Episode
Mission: Impossible: A Game of Chess
Overview
Nicholas Groat, a grandmaster chessplayer, organizes a team that plans to steal gold intended for the underground in an Eastern bloc country that was intercepted by the country's authorities. The IMF must recover the gold from the authorities and keep Groat from getting it. Groat forces the authorities to move the gold from a bank to a vault at the hotel where he (and Rollin) are playing in a tournament. The hotel puts a time lock on the vault for extra security, but Groat notices that Rollin is cheating, using a hearing aid. When he forces Rollin to demonstrate, the computer ""inadverently"" accelerates timepieces, so Groat wants to use it to get into the vault. Rollin agrees, but requires Groat use his team. Willy fakes a typhoid outbreak and Dr. Phelps administers shots to the guards which are actually sedatives. With Groat's help they get into the vault, then take the gold at gunpoint and leave him there.
Details
- Series
- Mission: Impossible
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 17
- Air date
- 1968-01-14
- Runtime
- 50 min
Episode context
A Game of Chess is Episode 17 in Season 2 of Mission: Impossible. It aired on 1968-01-14. The runtime is 50 min.
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Episode 16: The Spy
Felicia Vabar, an enemy spy, has procured one of two overlays that was being sent to a meeting between NATO and a small European country. The overlays combined form a detailed map of NATO's missile defense system. Felicia has recruited Captain Cherno, head of the European country's security, to get her the second overlay. The IMF must stop her. Felicia plans to get the overlay out of a safe during an air-raid drill, but Jim beats her to it when Barney fakes an air-raid siren. Jim fires the overlay out to Rollin. Jim has been hypnotized to resist interrogation ujntil someone tries to kill him, while Rollin slips a picture of the overlay to Cinnamon who makes a fake. Rollin negotiates with Felicia, while Cinnamon (pretending to be an American embassy official) convinces Dubov, Cherno's superior, that she knows where the overlay is. As Dubov looks on, Cherno arrives there and gets the overlay from Rollin who escapes. Then Felicia arrives, buys the fake overlay from Cherno and shoots him.
Episode 18: The Emerald
A plan to devaluate U.S. currency was concealed on a valuable emerald by a U.S. spy, and the emerald was inadvertently obtained by Victor Tomar, an international arms dealer. Tomar is traveling by ship, as is Yorgi Petrosian, an enemy agent sent to recover the emerald. Rollin as a card shark gets together with Petrosian and they make a deal - Rollin will cheat Tomar and give Petrosian the gem and keep the winnings. Cinnamon tricks Tomar into getting to a game when Jim pretends to take her expensive bracelet. Tomar loses to Petrosian, but Rollin double-crosses Petrosian and gets the cash and the emerald. Petrosian tries to kill Rollin but Willy knocks him out and they fake that he's been lost overboard and found by a passing trawler. Petrosian wires a message to his aide, William, to kill Petrosian. Then they knock out Petrosian, put him in Rollin's cabin with a mask, and Williams kills Petrosian-as-Rollin and disposes of the body.
More episodes from this season
Episode 15: The Photographer
David Redding is a photographer and a spy working for the other side, who has supervised the infiltration of 150 agents into the U.S. The agents are apparently carrying some kind of biological plague, and only Redding knows the code. The IMF must get it from him. To do so, they set up Cinnamon as a former fashion model and scientist married to Jim who is working with a bacillus-suspension formula. This gives Redding a reason to accept the assignment - he tortures ""Jim"" who claims the U.S. is planning a nuclear strike. Redding and his assistant Morley plan to take refuge in Redding's bomb shelter and command center after sending a signal to his country (which is blocked by Barney), but Rollin and Willy arrest them. When the IMF fakes a nuclear attack Redding leads the others to the shelter, then ""kills"" Willy. He tries to send more coded messages (again, blocked by Barney), and Rollin witnesses Redding coding them. At the end he leaves as it is revealed that the IMF switched Redding and
Episode 19: The Condemned
In Spain, David Webster, a friend of Jim's, is framed for murder by his girlfriend. Acting on Jim's personal behalf, the team goes into action. Rollin and Willy, disguised as priests, hide Webster in his own cell thanks to a collapsible wall. The murdered man, Corley, had apparently stolen a Greek crown worth ten million dollars. Constantine, the financier for the theft, hires Jim to get the crown back. Rollin, disguised as Wsbter, confronts the girlfriend and she flees to her accomplice, who is killed in a fall. The accomplice is actually the dead man Corley, disguised with plastic surgery. The dead man, rendered unrecognizable due to a shotgun blast to the face, was a plant. They find the crown but must clear Webster. Rollin disguises himself as Corley and fakes an escape from the police which ends in a rigged car crash. The police, having it confirmed that Corley was guilty all along, recover the crown from where the IMF planted it in the car and go back to Webster's cell to find hi
Episode 14: Echo of Yesterday
Neo-nazi Colonel Marcus von Frank is planning a resurgence of the Party with the aid of Otto Kelmann, munitions magnate. With Kelmann's financial base, von Frank plans to become a second Hitler. Jim infiltrates their meeting as an American Nazi leader, while Cinnamon gets close to Kellman, aided by her resemblence to his dead wife, murdered by Hitler in '32. Jim goads the paranoid von Frank into distrusting Cinnamon, who is convinced that she will destroy him. The IMF drugs Kelmann and sets up an elaborate ""hallucination"" of Rollin-as-Hitler murdering Cinnamon-as-Kelmann's wife back in '32. When von Frank burts in and shoots Cinnamon because of his own paranoid suspicions, Kelmann shoots him.
Episode 20: The Counterfeiter
Raymond Halder is the owner of a chain of clinics and runs a drug counterfeiting ring. Gant Pharamaceuticals released a drug that helps against primary vascular disease, but the drug is being withdrawn since Halder flooded the market with potentially fatal counterfeits. Gant plans to resissue the drug and the IMF must stop Halder from counterfeiting the new version. The IMF as Federal agents put pressure on Halder, but he escapes. Cinnamon pretends to be a Gant employee in charge of protecting against counterfeits. Gang bribes Rollin the Federal Agent to frame Cinnamon to force her to give him Gant's anticounterfeiting strategy. However, the team use an ultarsonic laser to make Halder think he is suffering from primary vascular disease, and he ends up at one of his own clinics where Barney-as-a-doctor prescribes one of Gant's counterfeits. Terrified for his life, Halder confesses so that he won't get a dose of his own medicine.
Episode 13: The Astrologer
Nicholai Kurzon, despite being exiled from his home country of Veyska by a military junta, leads a popular rebellion. He has been captured by the country's head of security, Colonel Stahl, and has a microfilm that contains the leaders of the revolution. The IMF must rescue Kurzon. Cinnamon gets closer to Deputy Chancellor Grigov by pretending to be an astrologer who predicts danger for the Chancellor. Thanks to Rollin's impersonation the ruse succeeds. Barney and Rollin sneak onto the plane Stahl is using to fly Kurzon back to Veyska. Rollin cracks the safe holding the microfilm and replaces it with a fake listing implicating Grigov. Meanwhile, Cinnamon has used her predictions to turn Grigov and Stahl against each other. When Stahl consults the fake list, he arrests Grigov and his assistant, leaving Kurzon unprotected. The team grabs Kurzon and replaces him with an automated dummy, then fake an accident and ""Kurzon"" is blown out the airplane. When the plane lands Jim spirits Cinnamon
Episode 21: The Town
On holiday and going to meet Rollin at a mountain lodge, Jim stops off in a small town. However, a young couple drop a package containing a gas gun. Exposed, an old man named Doc takes Jim prisoner. The town is populated entirely by enemy agents and they plan to kill a Societ defector in L.A. Doc shoots Jim with curare and the young couple head off to kill the defector. When Rollin arrives, Doc claims Jim had a stroke and can't be moved, but Jim clues him in by blinking a warning in Morse code. Rollin mobilizes the team. Cinnamon goes in as Mrs. Jim and Barney as her chauffeur, and Willy as a trucker. Together the four of them have to get Jim out and thwart the assassination plot.
Episode 12: The Council (2)
Rollin-as-Wayne orders the death of Jim, who is impersonating a federal investigator, without getting the approval of the Syndicate Council. With Jim's killing a a distraction, Rollin breaks into the safe at Syndicate HQ and duplicates the financial records. The Council, unhappy with ""Wayne's"" independence and the fact that the murder is attracting headlines, condemn him to death. Rollin runs, but at the last moment switches place with the real Wayne, who has received plastic surgeon to make him look like Rollin. Wayne is killed by the hitman, Johnny, and the records are used to bust the Syndicate.
Episode 22: The Killing
Burt Gordon has set up a new version of Murder, Inc. for the Synidcate. The IMF need to get evidence of his actions. Jim and Cinnamon become Gordon's new neighbors, and their brother Rollin claims they are being haunted by the ghost of their long-dead sibling. Cinnamon seduces Gordon and wants him to kill her husband. A provoked Jim then attacks Gordon and is ""killed"" by Gordon's hitman, Connie and fake-disposed of in an incinerator. But then Jim's ghost comes back to haunt Gordon, ""killing"" Cinnamon. Gordon follows Jim's ghost-voice to his body and shoots it again...only to find out that the IMF disguised Connie as Jim. The police arrive and arrest Gordon for murder.
Episode 11: The Council (1)
Frank Wayne is the head of the Syndicate, and by putting the Mob's ill-gotten gains in a Swiss bank account, he threatens to ruin the U.S. gold reserve. The IMF must recover the funds and put Wayne away. Jim harasses Wayne, forcing the gangster to move his records to the Syndicate's office HQ. Then Jim and Barney subpoena and grill Wayne, while Rollin studies Wayne to impersonate his mannerisms. They fake an escape for Wayne long enough for him to call his henchman, but Rollin then takes his place. ""Wayne"" then orders Barney's death. With ""Wayne"" on the lam, the Syndicate insist that he leave town, but Rollin sells them on the idea of plastic surgery...to make ""Wayne"" look like Rollin!
Episode 23: The Phoenix
Former internal security director Stefan Prohosh has been demoted to director of a museum. He has stolen an experimental metal alloy and concealed it in a modern sculpture at his museum, and plans to sell it to a foreign power to get them to back his bid for power. The IMF must recover the metal and stop Prohosh. Rollin fakes an attempt on Prohosh and his call is interecepted by Barney, who sends Jim, Barney, and Willy. Jim reveals Cinnamon as Rollin's accomplice, and Prohosh is obliged to interrogate the two of them. This is a distraction that lets Barney and Willy secretly dismantle the sculpture, remove the alloy, and replace it with explosives. Jim slips a detonator into Prohosh's pocket and then detonates the explosive himself to make it look as if the chairman was responsible. No one is harmed in the ensuing blast but the chairman finds the detonator in the unwitting Prohosh's pocket and has him arrested.