Go Filmography - Television Dramas

Occidental Films Oriental Films TV Dramas Oriental Dramas Anime Other TV Various


1) 12 Monkeys
    Year: 2015-2016
    Cast: Aaron Stanford, Kirk Acevedo, Peter DaCunha
    Watch: Atari Clip
    Comment: The Syfy online channel's time travelling thriller "12 Monkeys" has episode
      1:4 called "Atari". In a flash-back a character called Ramse mentions Go that he 
      used to play. He and his friend (4 minutes in). Cole are in rather dire predicament 
      and he tells Cole that they are in atari. "No, we're in Atari... It's a game called 
      Go. A game I used to play when I was a little kid. It means you're out of moves, 
      got one move left, whether you like it or not." "So atari is bad?" Cole replies. 
      "Mmm, stay out of atari brother." Atari is also mentioned during an interogation 
      sequence. Later (at 14:20 in) when surrounded by men with guns he radioes 
      through "Sorry buddy... I am in atari". Finally when the scene is replayed (36 
      minutes in), this is repeated.

         

      In episode 1:8 "Yesterday" at 22:00 we find Ramse's son Sam playing with white 
      and red stones that he says represent bood cells. Ramse says "Smart kid like you, 
      you got to know how to play the game 'Go'. This is an ancient Chinese game. The
      game was invented 1000s and 100s of years ago... Kings and emperors would
      play this game and they were so smart and I think... I know you are smart 
      enough to win at this game." He then asks him to count out 10 of each colour 
      whilst he goes elsewhere.           

      In episode 1:9 "Tomorrow" at 3:30 we find Sam playing with his mother Elena in the 
      background on a mat on a large round table. Elena says "Now what are you going 
      to do?" "I keep taking you" says Sam. "You got me!" she replies.
           
         

      In episode 1:13 "Arms of Mine" at 31:40 Ramse, who has changed his name to Mr
      Seki, is in an armed stand-off against Cole and says "Sometimes you're out of 
      moves." "Atari?" asks Cole. "Atari."

      In episode 2:3 "One Hundred Years" at 22:30 Ramse is playing Sam with thick
      stones on a wooden board. Sam plays a white stone and looks very smug. Ramse
      says "Are you kidding me? You got good at this! You win fair and square... round
      two: gotta teach you a lesson."

        

      In the final episode (4:11) Ramse is shown playing his son on a nice set with 
      wooden bowls in a comfortable room as his idea of paradise.   

2) 24 (Episode: 3.15)
    Year: 2003
    Cast: Kiefer Sutherland
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In Series 3 of "24" (Episode 15 3:00am-4:00am), an agent called Wong 
      enters a seedy LA club where three games of Go are in progress in different rooms.
      The male players are variously drinking and smoking and being watched by loose 
      women and other men. 

      Later the hero, agent Jack Bauer, catches a terrorist suspect and then questions 
      him seated at a Go table with a recently abandoned game on it. When Jack fails to 
      get a response from the suspect, in frustration he scatters a lid of prisoners with 
      his hand. The scene continues in the room at the start of Episode 16 (4:00am-
      5:00am) and the Go Club incident is twice referred to in later episodes.      
         

A1) Ally McBeal (Episode 2.37 Pyramids of the Nile)
    Year: 1997
    Cast: Calista Flockhart, Lucy Liu, Greg Germann
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: There is a scene of two characters playing Go.
      It is not just a background scene, as the scene starts 
      with a birds-eye view of the game. The Go game wasn't much 
      of a game but at least the position was legal - at least 
      until Richard Fish (played by Greg Germann) was put off his
      game by Ling Woo (played by Lucy Liu) talking dirty to him.
      

A2) Altered Carbon
    Year: 2018
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: In this Netflix series set in the future, a man who has been 
      in suspended animation, the character Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), 
      plays Go against his sister, in a flash back scene in episode 7 "Nora Inu", 
      on a roll-up board and with wooden bowls (40 - 42 minutes in). A Goban 
      appears in episodes 9 and 10; one character plays with a stone.
       

A3) Andromeda 
    Year: 2000 - 2002
    Cast: Kevin Sorbo, Lexa Doig
    Source: IMDB  Go on Andromeda
    Comment: Go playing or Go references appear in several episodes. In various episodes
      Captain Dylan Hunt (the hero played by Sorbo) plays 3D Go (three blue-glass with 
      white lines 11x11 Go boards stacked on top of each other, supported by a clear 
      plastic column in one corner, just like the 3D Chess they used to play on Star Trek). 
      The stones are the half-sized sort and are kept in a single light-pink bowl. He also
      often thinks by the Go board because of the connections with his old first officer
      Rhade. He gets the Seamus Harper to make a hologram of Rhade for him to play against.
      Another of his opponents is Prince Erik.

      Episode S1E05: Double Helix 
         In this episode the Captain, Dylan Hunt (played by Sorbo), is seen reflecting on what 
         to do whilst holding a single white stone. In a series of flashbacks (between 27 minutes 
         and 32.5 minute in) he is seen playing with his former first mate Gaheris Rhade 
         (played by Steve Bacic). Hunt does not know how to pick up a Go stone properly, 
         sometimes using his thumb and in one clip seen trying to move the stone to the 
         correct fingers. Rhade warns him "Careful Captain! 10 moves until I win". Hunt 
         says "I have played Go with you for 3 years now, why do you treat winning like 
         a matter of life and death?" "Because it is" Rhade replies. Sorbo then spots a 
         missing stone on point "5d4". Rhade says it is only cheating if you get caught 
         and reveals the stone in his fist. When asked if he has always been cheating, 
         he is surprised the captain hasn't been also cheating "in order to win". No  
         positions can be seen clearly, but what can be seen does not look much like a 
         real Go position. 

      Episode S2E02: Exit Strategies
         At the end of this episode, Dylan Hunt and Tyr sit down for a Go game and Hunt invites 
         Tyr to make his move.

      Episode S2E16: In Heaven Now Are Three
         This episode contains several references to the game of Go. In one scene, Hunt's
         approach to complex battle situations is said to be as if he were playing a game 
         of Go thinking many moves ahead. In another scene, when faced with a life-and-death 
         duel, the he suggests that he would rather settle the conflict by playing a game of Go.

      Episode S4E18: Trusting the Gordian Maze
         In this episode Dylan Hunt says "I am excellent at Go." Indra Xicol replies "...I can beat 
         anyone at Go."
         

A4) Arrested Development
    Year: 2004
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In the latter episodes of the first series of this US comedy, 
      the mother adopts a teenage Korean boy called Annyong (played by Justin Lee).
      At the very end of the last episode of the series (episode 22 "Let 'Em Eat Cake"), he
      is seen playing the girl Maeby (played by Alia Shawkat). They have small stones and board
      and there are heaps of mixed-up stones on the table all around the board.
      

A5) Astrid: Murder in Paris (orig. Astrid et Raphaëlle) 
    Year: 2021
    Cast: Sara Mortensen, Lola Dewaera
    Source: IDMB 
    Comment: In Season 2 Episode 2 "Irezumi" of this French language show there’s a 
      view of a thin goban with short legs on the floor of the office of a Japanese murder 
      victim, Mr. Kimura. The title character Astrid Nielsen, who has Asperger's 
      syndrome, works in the archives of the judicial police and excels at analyzing files
      of ongoing investigations. At 10:47 she sees the goban and says, “It’s a game of 
      Go, underway with black and white even”. There are 24 white and 23 black stones 
      on the board, the lid of white's box isn’t visible, black's has five white stones in 
      it and there's one black stone beside it. The assistant, Hiro, is then introduced as 
      having never beaten the victim. Astrid says the game is "unresolved with a very
      interesting ko", however the missing black stone is needed to make the ko. 

      At 27:20 we see a board again in the victim's flat, the same game, but "several steps
      on. Black won the ko, Now he's leading". At 44:32 another board is seen on a 
      lady friend's dresser with the same game. "The Black group is dead. White will win
      the game."
                           




B1) Billions 
    Year: 2017
    Cast: Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis
    Source: IDMB 
    Comment: In this American drama, starring Go player Paul Giamatti, season 2 episode 5 
      "Currency"  features Go.  The series, loosely based on a true story, portrays a high-stake
      legal battle between U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades and hedge-fund manager, Bobby Axelrod.
      In the episode, Rhoades (played by Paul Giamatti) enters a conference room to find one 
      of his lawyers, Brian, and finds him playing one of several active Go games. After Rhoades 
      points out that he had tried calling, Brian replies that they put all of their phones in a 
      basket before they play because “Go players didn’t have cellphones in ancient times.”    
      Rhoades gets back to business, telling Brian that he needs to coordinate with the FBI to 
      set up surveillance. He’s about to leave when he remembers, “Oh, I almost forgot…  You’d 
      better block that monkey jump at the bottom.” Naturally the games are realistic, one game 
      is nearly over and another in early middle game, played with smaller stones than normal.

      Previously the dialogue of season 1 episode 9 "Where the F*ck Is Donnie?" refered to Go 
      by calling one of the actions in a case a "kikashi play". 
      

B2) Blindspot 
    Year: 2018
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: In epside one "Hella Duplicitous" of season 4 of this FBI crime thriller
      two players can be seen seated at a table playing Go on a board with short 
      legs and wooden bowls. 
       

C1) Caprica
    Year: 2009
    Cast: Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Alessandra Torresani
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In episode 2, "Rebirth", of this prequel to Battlestar Galactica as two characters
       walk through a market an old man is seen playing Go with a nice looking board (21:40 mins in).

C2) Chessgame
    Year: 1983
    Cast: Terence Stamp
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Terence Stamp stars as a spy master. He had a board on his office desk and would
      occasionally place a stone for dramatic effect. British dan-level player Michael Culver
      appeared in this as Nick Hannah, so it is assumed that Go was introduced by his influence.

C3) Counterpart
    Year: 2017-2018
    Cast: J K Simmons, Harry Lloyd, Nazanin Bonicidi
    Source: IMDB Youtube Episode 1
    Comment: This new thriller, available on Starz, involves two parallel universes which 
      started due to an experiment in the cold war thirty years before. Howard Silk works
      in Berlin in the building where the gateway between worlds is but is unaware of that
      until his double comes across to our world. 

      The title sequence features many patterns and one is a Go board pattern being 
      populated very quickly. It appears four times - the last time with just black stones 
      that form into the title. 

      In the free episode one the first scene after the titles (at 4:45 in) shows Howard 
      playing a friend, Andrei, seated at a round glass table of a riverside open air cafe. They 
      have a folding board, glass stones and wooden bowls and place the stones properly 
      in real positions. We see a double threat being set up in close up. The friend 
      suggests Howard loses on purpose, but Howard replies how else would he teach him. 

      At 25:09 they are back in the cafe, and talk philosophy of existence. We see the friend
      atari five stones that cannot escape due to shortage of liberties. In both games Howard
      resigns. 

      There are further Go and Go book references throughout the series and in episode 5
      Howard nearly beats Andrei which is integral to the plot.
               

C4) Criminal Minds
    Year: 2005
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Go featured prominently in the 22nd September 2005 premiere of CBS Criminal Minds 
       television drama. Discovering a Go board in the attic room of a suspect's house,  
       FBI profilers Greenaway (Lola Glaudini), Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Gideon (Mandy 
       Patinkin) and Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) discuss the game: 

         Greenaway: What kind of game is it?
         Reid: In China, it's called weiqi, here we call it Go. It's considered 
               the most difficult board game ever conceived.
         Gideon: Chairman Mao required his generals to learn it.
         Reid: It also looks like he's playing himself.
         Greenaway: How can you tell?
         (Spins board which is mounted on a turntable)
         Reid: This might provide an advantage; actually Go is considered to 
               be a particularly psychological revealing game. There are profiles 
               for every player: the conservative point counter, the aggressor, 
               the finessor.
         Hotchner: What kind of player is this one?
         Reid: Extreme aggressor.
         

D1) DaVinci's Demons
    Year: 2013
    Cast: Tom Riley, Blake Ritson
    Source: Wiki
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: This fantasy adventure series is set in the mediaeval Florence of the Medicis and 
      is a fictitious account of Leonardo DaVinci's early life as he searches for the mythical
      Book of Leaves. 

      Episode 3 "The Prisoner" is structured to parallel a game of Go. The game is played by 
      Count Girolano Riario and the eponymous, mysterious prisoner in the pope's castle 
      through the grille of the prison cell and is interspersed with the action. It is played 
      with a set of small Chinese-style stones with what looks like a thin card "Ariel" Go set
      stuck onto wood.
 
      The opening words of the episode are "Shall we... I find the game fascinating, deceptively
      simple isn't it?" The prisoner says he has already begun to play before he has even touched
      the board and explains that first you obviously take the corners as they are easier to defend.
      The game is only won by pursuing seemingly opposing objectives simultaneously. A stone can 
      inhabit one of three states: alive, dead and unsettled. The latter of which may case problems.

      He mentions a strategy called "crossing the sea unseen" which means identifying a weakness
      and exploiting it. The next comment is about breaking off the local exchange and starting a 
      new front. At 46 minutes in two black stones are captured and the prisoner says he has been 
      taught well, but warns to be "careful not to press a desperate foe too hard or you may
      find yourself at the mercy of a divine move, the inspired play that turns a losing game into
      victory."

      At 56 minutes in, the game ends and they discuss strategy and which path to follow, before the
      board is tipped over with the stones going flying. The last words of the episode as the prisoner
      snuffs his torch are "As one game ends another begins".
            

D2) Devs
    Year: 2020
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: "Devs" is a 8-part sci-fi series available first on streaming channels and later shown
      on BBC2. The series is set at a tech company called Amaya which has a mysterious quantum
      computing division called "Devs".  In Episode 5 (9 minutes in) the main character, Lily Chan 
      (played by Sonoya Mizuno), is shown in flash back to her childhood, playing Go with her father.
      They sit at a table in a window bay and play a real-looking game with Chinese stones (with the 
      correct fingers), held in wooden bowls on a thick table board. As the play a joseki, the 
      father asks in Chinese how many moves ahead she thinks (maybe three) and why a stone 
      was played where it was; she replies that she liked it because it feels strong. He agrees. 
      Later (40 minuntes in) Lily is seated alone at the board making patterns with the stones.
      The Go scene was filmed at Harefield in England.
      

D3) Diagnosis Murder
    Year: 1997
    Cast: Dick van Dyke, Barry van Dyke, Charlie Schlatter, Michael Beck
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In the series 5 episode "Deadly Games" (episode 89),
      Frank Waldeck (Michael Beck) is a body guard who is in hospital 
      and plays himself at Weiqi whilst recovering. Dr Mark Sloan (Dick van Dyke) 
      admits he has played Weiqi occasionally and very badly. 

      Waldeck also plays whilst on duty watching over his client. 
      Mark is then challenged to a game when Waldeck and so spends some 
      time with Steve Sloan (Barry van Dyke) and Jesse Travers (Charlie 
      Schlatter) studying and reading from a Go leaflet at home. 
      By the time they play, Mark suspects Waldeck of plotting
      a murder and tries to understand his plan from his Go strategy.
      Eventually Waldeck's plan is sussed, but at the end Steve produces
      a Mancala set and convinces Mark that they'd be better off playing that. 

      Several of the Weiqi scenes look more like 5-in-a row and 
      in one a close up is a different position. In the game Mark add a
      second stone to remain in atari and Waldeck plays the capturing 
      move without removing. 
 
      The set is a mini set with black and white bags for the "men". At 
      least they have a try at holding the stones properly, Waldeck picking
      up the stone with his left hand and placing it between his two right
      fingers, but it is hard with mini-stones. First shown 9th October 1997.
               
         

D4) Diamonds
    Year: 1981
    Cast: John Stride, Hildegard Neil, Simon Ward, Michael Culver
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: It is reported that this UK drama series about diamond merchants 
      included an character playing Go and has a Goban visible in the background 
      of several episodes. British dan-level player Michael Culver appeared in 
      this as David Kremer, so it is presumed to be him playing Go. Intriguingly 
      two episodes are called "A Taste of the Orient" and "Middle Game". 

E1) Enterprise (Episode: 2.48) "Cogenitor"
    Year: 2003
    Cast: Scott Bakula, Connor Trinneer, Jolene Blalock
    Source: Star Trek Webpage
    Comment: The Enterprise's engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III (played by Connor Trinneer)
      teaches Go to a Vissian cogenitor (third gender being) (played by Becky Wahstrom) seated
      at a goban on the floor of his cabin. 

      Trip captures a white stone and the Vissian takes a clearly long dead black stone off of 
      the board and asks if it means it has won. Trip reveals that in two years of playing of 
      playing this (Go is not named) that was the first time he was beaten.
         

H1) Have Gun - Will Travel
    Year: 1962
    Comment: In Episode 186, "The Coming of the Tiger"  (season 5 episode 30) of this 
      classic TV Western, the hero, Paladin (Richard Boone) is shown playing a game of Go
      in San Francisco. To the dismay of his Japanese opponent, Paladin announces that 
      the position is seki. The game is interrupted by a crisis and resumed at the end 
      of the episode. It looks more like they were actually playing Five-in-a-row though,
      if so, white has already won!  
      

H2) Hell on Wheels
    Year: 2016
    Source: WikiPedia
    Comment: This western series, set around the construction of the American railroads, has a
      game of Go being played (between 43 and 45 minutes) in season 5 episode 10 "61 Degrees".
      The board is quite full as two men play in a dimly lit wooden-panelled room, whilst some
      women watch, the scene viewed through the bars of a screen.
      

H3) Humans
    Year: 2016
    Source: WikiPedia
    Comment: There is a Go scene in the second episode in season 2 of this drama (shown on UK's
      Channel 4) about how humans cope with androids called Synths, some of who gain consciousness.
      One of the scientists, Milo Khoury, in a US AI laboratory plays Go in the rest area against 
      Eric, the son of one of the other workers. At the end of his game talks about Go to Doctor 
      Athena Morrow. He explains to her about the number of positions and the number of atoms in 
      the observable universe.
      

J1) JAG
    Year: 1997
    Cast: David James Elliott, Catherine Bell, John M. Jackson
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: In the episode "The Game of Go" (S2/10 first shown 28th February 1997), the
      team investigate a Columbian drug lord, Carlos Estruga, who is a Go fan. We first 
      see him holding a black stone to the camera and placing it on a board with thick 
      lines and an ornamental edge (14 minutes in). The stones are flat topped and kept in 
      blue pottery bowls. Later we see the board with several stones spaced out on it (28
      minutes in).

      Commander Harmon Rabb is familiar with the game and when he visits Estruga, he finds
      Estruga at the breakfast table with a mostly complete game (35 minutes in). The 
      commander assumes he is playing white and Estruga agrees as white is the one almost 
      surrounded. However they are playing in the squares, it does not look like a real 
      game and has fewer stones on it than at the start of the scene. 

      At the end Estruga is surrounded in a bamboo grove and he congratulates the commander 
      on his excellent play.  
               

L1) La Femme Nikita
    Year: 1997 - 2001
    Cast: Peta Wilson, Roy Dupuis
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In one episode it is explained how Go is very popular 
      among their super spy group. They show a Go board that uses 
      triangular stones and the board is a glass see-through table 
      with black lines painted on it.
 
L2) Last Resort
    Year: 2012
    Cast: Andre Braugher
    Comment: The series is about a renegade U.S. submarine crew on an island in the 
      Indian Ocean. In episode 10 ("Blue Water"), a Chinese diplomat named Zheng visits 
      the crew offering humanitarian aid. He meets with Captain Marcus Chaplin, who is 
      wary of what strings might come attached with the aid. 

      The first Go scene (13 minutes in) opens in a shack with Zheng at a table pouring 
      small Go stones from pots into porcelain bowls. Zheng then offers Chaplin his 
      grandfather's Go set as a gift, which is in a wooden case. Chaplin says "I'm more
      of a Chess man." Zheng says "In Chess, the victor is the one who annihilates his 
      opponent's armies. In Weiqi or Go, victory goes to the one who can control the most
      territory with the fewest armies. A better game for our time... maybe." 

      Later in the episode (24 minutes in), they sit sit on the veranda at night and
      play a game against each other. Again the stones are small and held in flat wooden
      trays. Zheng catches one of Chaplin's black stones. "A tricky game: you caught me." 
      This mirrors exactly what the captain fears might be the real-life situation if he 
      accepts Zheng's aid. 
            

M1) The Man in Room 17
    Year: 1965
    Source: IMDB 
    Watch: YouTube Episode 1
    Cast: Michael Aldridge, Richard Vernon, Willoughby Goddard, Denholm Elliot
    Comment: This British crime drama from 1965 (Series 1) and 1966 (Series 2), 
      featured a "Mycroft Holmes" approach to crime-solving. The two men never left 
      room 17, but directed minions by telephone who went to catch the criminals. 

      In between crimes the men played Go. The scripts are full of Go allusions like
      "We must surround the opposition before launching our attack, then drive them 
      into our territory". The was also an explicit reference to the similarity 
      between crime-fighting and Go playing, though Go itself was never explained. 
      
      The title sequence of Series 1 was a graphic of a sequence of blocks of stones 
      being added to a Go grid, and more graphics appeared at ad breaks and the end. 

      In Episode 1 "Tell the Truth" first aired on UK's ITV on 11th June 1965, the men,
      Oldenshaw and Dimmock, are first seen sat at their coffee table playing Go, though
      the stones are all in clumps. Dimmock drops a stone and is later told "Tactically 
      sound, Dimmock, but you may regret it strategically." At the end of the episode 
      they get the board out again, but Dimmock has been drugged and instead of chosing
      which hand for colour, he slumps forward his head ending on the two decorated white
      ceramic bowls.

      Most positions shown do not look like real games, apart from theat in Episode 3.
      They do not play Go in every episode, and some some have other pursuits, such as 
      Tarot, Monopoly or the crossword. In Epsiode 9, the final words are "I taught him
      Why-Chi".
         

M2) Marco Polo
    Year: 1982
    Cast: Ken Marshall, Denholm Elliott, Tony Vogel
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In a scene in this mini-series in the imperial palace you 
      see a Go board in the distance.

N1) Navarro (Commissaire Navarro or Commissario Navarro)
    Year: 1989 - 2007
    Cast: Roger Hanin, Sam Karmann
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In one episode of this French crime drama, a Go player kills all others 
      to win a tournament.

O1) Orange is the New Black
    Year: 2013
    Comment: A prison-based US comedy released on Netflix, the episode "Fool Me Once" (S1/12) 
       features a Go board seen on a table for about 6 seconds (about 29:30 minutes in), 
       near to two talking characters. The board is a mini board, small black stones can
       be seen and there are things piled on the board including some bananas. 
       

O2) The Originals
    Year: 2014
    Watch: Season 2 Trailer on YouTube
    Comment: The CW Network's "The Originals", a spin off from the popular Vampire Diaries, 
      featured a Go game between two characters in a key scene in Season 2 Episode 1. Original
      vampire Klaus Mikaelson (played by Joseph Morgan) is seen playing Go with Marcel (played 
      Davis), a vampire he sired in the 1800s who then became his enemy in later years. 
      The game represents a kind of detente between the two characters, in their ongoing
      fight to control New Orleans, and prevent the witches, the werewolves, and the 
      humans from getting the upper hand. The game featured is a famous one and is played on
      a Goban with ornate side panels. 
      

P1) Pine Gap
    Year: 2018
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: In this Australian espionage series in episode 6, there is a brief 
      monologue by a Chinese character talking to an American about how Chess 
      verses. Go thinking affects how each country responds to the other. To 
      drive home the point, a few scenes later the same Chinese guy compliments
      another person on how well they played the long game.
       

S1) Sliders
    Year: 1995 
    Cast: Jerry O'Connell
    Comment: In series 1 episode 7 "Eggheads" Quinn Mallory explains 
      that the game "Mindgame" is just like Go or Othello.

T1) Teen Wolf
    Year: 2014
    Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Arden Cho, Tamlyn Tomita 
    Comment: MTV's popular drama "Teen Wolf" features Go prominently in episode S3/21,
       "The Fox and the Wolf". Part of the episode is set in a Japanese internment camp,
       during the second World War, and a character named Satomi uses Go throughout the 
       episode, to help control her emotions. "You take too frequently, and you take too 
       much," Satomi tells a younger woman, in a conversation at the Go board that is as 
       much about stealing supplies for sale on the black market as it is about the game. 
       "The young fox always knows the rules so she can break them, the older wiser animal
       learns the exceptions to the rules," says Satomi as she captures a stone.  

       In the next episode (S3/22) co-star Dylan O'Brien, as Stiles Stilinski, has been 
       possessed by a dark fox spirit, the Nogitsune, who is controlling his mind and body.
       Go is alluded to, when two werewolves are discussing strategy. One is trying to use
       a Chess board to figure out what Stiles would do, but the older werewolf observes 
       "Chess is Stiles' game, it's not the game of a Japanese fox". Later, using psychic
       werewolf powers, Stiles' friends are able to enter his mind, where they find him 
       engaged in a game of Go with the Nogitsune. Like all good Go players, he is immersed
       in the game, and deaf to the cries of his friends. It appears that while his mind is 
       trapped in the Go game, the Nogitsune has complete control of his body. We see the 
       board from multiple angles, with Stiles playing white. Unfortunately, the only move 
       he makes on the board is an empty triangle, although the board position is at least 
       reasonable. The spell is broken when Tyler Posey, as Scott McCall, transforms into 
       a werewolf and his howl gets through to Stiles. Suddenly realizing what is going on, 
       Stiles looks up at the Nogitsune, and then sweeps all the stones off the board. 

       US Go teacher Joe Walters set the game up. It was one between Michael Redmond 9P and 
       Chino Tadahiko 9P played on 15th March 2012 in the B section of the Meijin. The
       empty triangle is the last move, after which white (Chino) resigns.

       The following episode features another conversation about strategy, with Kira learning
       about Go from her mother; she explains what the game is about and describes territory.
       Later in the episode, Kira's father tells her that Go is called Baduk in Korea, and that
       her mother is a very aggressive player - too aggressive for her own good.  

       The fourth Go episode is titled "The Divine Move". Early in the episode Mrs. Yukimura 
       advises a desperate Stiles, while the family is seated around a Go board, "He made a 
       powerful move by splitting the two of you." "So what's our move?" responds her daughter 
       Kira, as she places a stone on the board. "The Nogitsune has had sente until this point,
       what you need is a 'Divine Move' in order to turn this game around." responds her mother.
       Stiles does find a divine move, in the story arc at least, and his friends defeat the 
       Nogitsune at last.  Towards the end of the episode, Kira's parents are seen picking up 
       the pieces from the Go board, drawing a conclusion to the story arc.
                


T2) Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
    Year: 2009
    Cast: Lena Headley, Summer Glau
    Source: IMDB Youtube
    Comment: Season 2 Episode 10 is titled "Strange Things Happen at the One-Two Point". 

      Sarah and Cameron are investigating Dakara Systems and Xander Takagi, the son
      of the boss, who is the company programmer. 

      13:30 in, Cameron (Summer Glau) unfolds a Go board on the table, in front of Sarah 
      Connor (Lena Headley), and starts laying out stones. The stones have flat tops and 
      are held in clear glass bowls. 

      Cameron says that Xander does not play Chess but prefers Go, that
      the game was invented by the Chinese 5000 years ago and has more 
      possible games than atoms in the universe. He has offered to teach her  
      to play. She says that "strange things happen at the 1-2 point" is a Go 
      proverb, which means the usual rules do not always apply. 

      Sarah grabs some white stones and three stick her hand. There is a shot 
      of her hand above a Go board with a game in progress on it, which is 
      clearly a different set from that which Cameron had used to lay out just 
      a few joseki moves a few seconds earlier!
            


T3) Tower High
    Year: 2010
    Comment: In Episode 12 of this US teen drama, set in a mysterious school/prison, 
       a Go board can be seen (25 minutes in). Suki Sato (played by Dyana Liu) returns to 
       her room to find her mysterious elder brother Shinji leaning against her table. 
       On the table is a flat Go board with a position on and rectangular trays for the stones.
      


T4) Tokyo Vice
    Year: 2022
    Cast: Amsel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller 
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: This thriller about a gaijin reporter investigating the Yakuza is set in Tokyo.

      In season 1 episode 3, 22:30 in, a gang are seated watching the television news 
      and a thick table board and wooden Go bowls appear on a table to the left.

      

U1) The Undeclared War
    Year: 2022
    Cast: Hannah Khalique-Brown, Nitin Ganatra, Gavi Singh Chera
    Source: IMDB 
    Comment: This thriller, shown in UK on Channel 4, is about a cyber attack on the 
      UK in the lead up to the 2024 election that threatens war against Russia. 

      In episode 1, 8:00 in, the main character, Saara Parvin (Khalique-Brown) 
      meets her father Ahmed (Ganatra) in his den and they decide to play their
      game and we see him take out a folding board and a box (with the stones),
      but we do not see them play. 

      In episode 5, 2:00 in, after the father has died Saara's brother Sajid Parvin (Chera) 
      wants to play as the father never taught him. We then see the sitting across the
      board which has a raised strip round the edge and using dowel rod stones from
      the box which has hinged lids. They seem to be studying life and death and play 
      out some moves in a corner problem. 

          

V1) Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love)
    Year: 2003 
    Comment: around about episode 2080 of this German soap opera, while visiting Castle 
       Koenigsbrunn, Charlie Schneider plays Go with Count von Lahnstein. The Count is said 
       to be a descendant of Lasker and it is also said that he has won several times the 
       German Go Championship and that he often travels to Japan.

Last updated Fri Jun 07 2024.
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