The Queen's Gambit
Overview
Beth Harmon visualises chess games on her bedroom ceiling, the pieces drifting across it in a tranquiliser haze — and that one image tells you what kind of show this is. Set in the 1960s, the seven episodes follow Beth (Anya Taylor-Joy) from a Kentucky orphanage, where the janitor Mr. Shaibel teaches her the game in the basement, to the top of the tournament circuit, where she's usually the only woman in the room and often the sharpest mind in it. Her gift comes at a price: a growing dependence on the green pills the orphanage handed out, and later on drink. Taylor-Joy is magnetic, and she's well matched by Marielle Heller as her adoptive mother and Moses Ingram as Jolene, the friend who knew her before any of it. Scott Frank and Allan Scott adapted Walter Tevis's 1983 novel, and somehow made chess feel like a contact sport. Viewers responded — chess sets sold out, online chess exploded, and the series swept eleven Emmys. It's a story about genius, addiction and a girl who refuses to lose, told with real style.
