The Name of the Game (1968)
The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The show had an extremely large budget for a television series.
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Episode 1 - Fear of High Places
Release Date: 1968-09-20Jeff Dillon (TF) investigates the death of a beautiful model. The murder involves an industrialist who is about to assume an important government post.
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Episode 2 - The Witness
Release Date: 1968-09-27When a Mafia informant is assassinated, Dan Farrell (RS), senior editor of Crime Magazine looks for the only other witness to a major mob crime. She allegedly committed suicide eight years earlier, Farrell discovers that she is living in a village under an assumed name; unfortunately, he is being followed by the mob assassin.
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Episode 3 - The Taker
Release Date: 1968-10-04Glen Howard (GB), Crime Magazine publisher, refuses to support a powerful businessman who backs a crooked political candidate and finds himself in a battle of wits in the takeover of his publishing empire.
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Episode 4 - Collector's Edition
Release Date: 1968-10-11Jeff Dillon (TF), investigative reporter for Crime Magazine. Max, a phtographer, had once saved Dillon's life when the two were on assignment in Vietnam. Now Max is accused of murder, and he's counting on Dillon's help in clearing his name.
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Episode 5 - Nightmare
Release Date: 1968-10-18Dan Farrell (RS) patiently prepares to exact his revenge upon the robbers that murdered his wife.
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Episode 6 - Incident in Berlin
Release Date: 1968-10-25Howard (GB)goes to Berlin to arrange the release of one of his top editors who has been arrested in East Germany as a spy.
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Episode 7 - Shine On, Shine On, Jesse Gil
Release Date: 1968-11-01Howard (GB) assigns Dillon and Peggy to investigate the complexities of small-town politics after a murder occurs. A woman accuses a shrewd financial manipulator of being responsible for her brother's death.
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Episode 8 - Lola in Lipstick
Release Date: 1968-11-08While in Rome, publisher Glenn Howard (GB) finds corruption, illicit romance and narcotics at every turn.
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Episode 9 - The Protector
Release Date: 1968-11-15Howard (GB) goes up against a bigoted millionaire who sets out to solve the nation's racial problems with his own private army.
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Episode 10 - Ordeal
Release Date: 1968-11-22A woman sits on death row hoping that Farrell (RS) can find enough evidence to prove that she did not murder her husband.
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Episode 11 - The White Birch
Release Date: 1968-11-29Howard (GB) travels to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he and other rival journalists try to get custody of an ailing author's latest work.
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Episode 12 - High On A Rainbow
Release Date: 1968-12-06When drugs start appearing in the hands of school children, Farrell (RS)and Peggy pose as a truck driver and car-hop as they investigate a narcotics ring.
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Episode 13 - The Black Answer
Release Date: 1968-12-13Crime Magazine reporter Jeff Dillon(TF)is investigating the fire-bombing death of a black newspaper editor who advocated nonviolence. The chief suspect is Joe X Lee, a leading black militant. The motive may have been that Lee was about to be exposed as a fraud, who'd sold out his brothers to the cops.
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Episode 14 - Pineapple Rose
Release Date: 1968-12-20This time the focus is on researcher Peggy Maxwell, who is kidnapped while digging up information on a famous rock star. The series' regulars sit this one out, permitting correspondent Andy Hill (Cliff Potter) to investigate Peggy's disappearance. With the help of an FBI agent, Hill unearths a hotbed of mob-motivated intrigue.
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Episode 15 - The Revolutionary
Release Date: 1968-12-27Howard(GB) helps an exiled president of a South American nation regain control in the midst of a counter-revolution.
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Episode 16 - Swinger's Only
Release Date: 1969-01-10Farrell (RS) takes a hand in the investigation of a murder at a ""Swinging Singles"" apartment. The victim is the mistress of one of Farrell's editors. The wife of the victim who despite her despair over her husband's pecadilloes urges Farrell to find the guilty party.
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Episode 17 - The Inquiry
Release Date: 1968-01-17Howard (GB) is called before a Senate committee to answer charges that he stole a fortune in U.S. Army funds while serving with the OSS in Italy during World War II.
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Episode 18 - The Incomparable Connie Walker
Release Date: 1968-01-24Conway ""Connie"" Walker is the first black mayor of a large unnamed city. In addition to suffering the slings and arrows of racism, Walker is the target of accusations that he has been accepting kickbacks. Crime magazine reporter Jeff Dillon (TF) investigates when a city accountant is murdered.
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Episode 19 - Love-In At Ground Zero
Release Date: 1968-01-31Howard (GB) is kidnapped by a group of protestors who demand he witness their suicide and then write an expose of the army's testing of chemical warfare weapons.
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Episode 20 - The Suntan Mob
Release Date: 1969-02-07Dan Farrell (RS) convinces a moll to help him prove that the mafia is controlling a tiny island.
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Episode 21 - Keep the Doctor Away
Release Date: 1969-02-14Jeff Dillon (TF) investigates a doctor who is really a bungling killer.
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Episode 22 - The Bobby Currier Story
Release Date: 1969-02-21Currier (Brandon de Wilde) is a young, small-town perennial loser. He kidnaps the daughter of the local sheriff and goes on a murder spree. Dan Farrell (RS) tries to unearth the circumstances that turned the hapless Currier into a murderer.
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Episode 23 - A Wrath of Angels
Release Date: 1969-02-28Dan Farrell (RS) investigates as a man and a priest try to clean up the slums and end up having a showdown with a powerful Mafioso.
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Episode 24 - The Third Choice
Release Date: 1969-03-07Howard (GB) tries to save a Howard Publications editor kidnapped by a man who hopes to use the ransom to overthrow an African government.
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Episode 25 - Breakout To A Fast Buck
Release Date: 1969-03-14Dan Farrell (RS ) is called in to investigate a prison break. One of the escapees is an elderly former building contractor, who didn't want to join his fellow cons in their breakout. Farrell suspects that the contractor is being sprung in order to help break into one of the buildings that he designed.
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Episode 26 - An Agent of the Plaintiff
Release Date: 1969-03-21Howard (GB) is the victim of a conspiracy hatched by his own attorney, the lovely-but-lethal Bethany Cromwell, and plaintiff Harold Wyler.