The absolute most common theme is for the protagonist to announce "checkmate" to his opponent, who is absolutely stunned by the move, as if he didn't see it coming at all.
We all know that if both players were any good, the player on the losing side would have resigned many moves earlier.
But that just wouldn't work well in a movie or tv show. Try to picture it. A player makes a move, which forces the win of material or a mate in three or something and the other player just says, "I resign."
The general public wouldn't get it. Ah, but "checkmate" is something they understand.
And about half the time the board is set up wrong as it is.
No, for the most part, chess just isn't properly portrayed on television or in the movies. It's been this way for about 50 years.
Chess on TV, are the producers idiots?
Most of the depictions have the board turned sideways. Who cares.
I guess I don't really care, but I do find it awfully strange. You'd think they'd get it right half the time.
The NSA must be involved. How else could they so often overide probability theory?
In Space Odyssey doesn't Hal announce mate in 3 or something when its mate in 4? And also in the Bond film where the ending of Petrosian - Spassky (?) is on the board but missing a couple of pawns from the position for no apparent reason
the bond position is Spassky - Bronstein and the director removed the pawns intentionally - he said he wanted some chance that casual players could see what was going on
thats right the kings gambit game isnt it
My favorite example is from the Star Trek episode titled, "Court Martial."
Kirk was accused of negligence which caused the death of a crewman. The evidence against him are the ship's computer tapes.
However, Spock determined the ship's computer had been tampered with. He determined this because he was able to beat the computer, at chess, several times. He's on the witness stand in an attempt to prove that Kirk's actions were within regulations and that the computer is wrong.
Defense Attorney: How many games of chess did you win from the computer Mr. Spock?
Spock: Five in all.
Defense Attorney: May that be considered unusual?
Spock: Affirmative.
Defense Attorney: Why?
Spock: I personally programmed the computer for chess, months ago. I gave the machine an undertanding of the game equal to my own. The computer cannot make an error. And assuming that I do not either, the best that could normally be hoped for would have been a stalemate after stalemate. And yet I beat the machine five times.
Spock should have said "draw after draw" not "stalemate after stalemate." (Very few of those draws are going to end by stalemate.)
What's interesting is that earlier, when initially talking to McCoy about his findings, Spock did say "draw."
I noticed that. It shows you how little the scriptwriters new about chess. Good episode, though.
The board is set up wrong 68.9% of the time. Some examples at http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2012/05/getting-it-wrong.html
The worst I ever saw was an episode of Columbo. In this one, a chess GM had killed a rival, and Detective Columbo was closing in on making the case against him. In a scene near the end, the GM is giving a simul, and Columbo shows up to ask a few more questions.
The GM is unflustered, and continues to make his way around the circle, making moves, answering questions, pointing out how an opponent missed something in his effort to play the such-and-such defense. Finally, as Columbo's questions near their real target, the GM starts to unravel, and as the climax is reached, one of his opponents makes a move and announces, "Checkmate."
The GM has a shocked and horrified look upon his face, and glances down to survey the position. The camera shows the board, and sure enough, it's checkmate. In fact it's FOOL'S MATE.
HOWEVER, I subscribe to HuluPlus. andthe Canadian show "Endgame" features a GM who plays from his hotel room and solves crimes on the side. It's a GREAT series, sadly cancelled after one season. They,at least, get it right.
Since nobody has brought it up, do you guys remember that 1960's "Mission Impossible" episode depicting an agent cheating in chess to maintain his cover?
There was a lady in the audience with a hidden camera in her brooch, feeding the moves to another spy sitting at one of those room-sized mid-twentieth century mainframe computers, and then the actual chess player (spy) sitting there at the board with a HUGE hearing aid?
It's like Boris Ivanov stuff, circa 1965.
Loved that episode. I remember there was the trigger phrase "when in doubt, push a pawn" that did something like trigger a post-hypnotic suggestion in his opponent. Don't remember the details exactly.
All of you people who watch tv are the idiots. I very seldom even bother to watch tv, I spend most of my time playing chess. Mostly I watch Judge Judy because I love the way she berates the poor idiots who come before her who are caught with their hands in the cookie jar and all the while she makes thousands of dollars for each episode while her "victims" don't even have enough money to pay their rent. When I do watch tv, instead of paying $100.00 for cable I use filmon which is entirely free.
Re: Mission Impossible.
I was going to bring up that series, but I didn't think anyone here was old enough to remember it.
There were actually TWO MI episodes which feature chess in a big way.
The first was episode #17, Season 2 called "A Game of Chess." In this one Rollin poses as a chessmaster, and was fed the correct moves via Barney.
The second was Episode #12, Season 7 called "Crack-Up." In this episode Phelps poses as a chessmaster. (And was also fed the best moves via Barney, as I recall.) This is the episode with the phrase, "When in doubt, take a pawn." Then the antagonist hears that phrase, he goes under an hypnotic trance. This episode was first aired in late 1972, just a few months after Fischer won the world title.
MrEdCollins
Shame on you for bringing them up 
, I watched them both on air 
. There was also a "Colombo" episode around that time with a semi-deaf US chess genius who murders his Soviet rival.
What is the proper response to, "Queen to Queen's Level 3."
(No fair Googling.)
Or bing
or duck duck go
or wolframalpha
or aol
or yahoo
or...
what does this mean anyways?
I swear, I saw a Criminal Minds episode, where Spencer Reid was being taught how to play chess, while he was on an airplane, by one of the detectives he worked with, then he quickly got real good. Then not much later, I saw an episode, where Reid's mother was talking about how he used to play in the park as a little boy, who easily beat all the adults there. Contradiction, big time.
Chess was in the TV show Longmire, August 19th episode.
It was used as a metaphor for the complicted plot line. But they still mis-used an opening system (Queen's Gambit) to generate a ersatz connection to the plot line.
The public thinks chess is boring. And for the hoi polloi, they're right.
Chess is portrayed as a game for deep thinkers. Enjoy the compliment, without being such purists.
Most of the depictions have the board turned sideways. Who cares.