The Queen's Gambit

Netflix | Release Date: October 23, 2020

3.3	USER SCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 795 Ratings

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User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

BleblehhSep 16, 2021

A boring tv show that makes us sleepy after showing us the lack of charisma that anya taylor joy delivers

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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bellatraAug 20, 2021

I like chess so I thought this would be cool but turns out it's just overrated. One extremely unlikeable main character while the other characters seemed pretty pointless and weird even. I mean what was the point of all that? Idk it's justI like chess so I thought this would be cool but turns out it's just overrated. One extremely unlikeable main character while the other characters seemed pretty pointless and weird even. I mean what was the point of all that? Idk it's just not for me I guess.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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MaebeeDec 6, 2020

The most overrated series of 2020. Someone didn't do their homework about the era the series was set in.

6 of 16 users found this helpful610

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Johann7Feb 2, 2021

"The Queen's Gambit" gets two points for its art direction: it's beautiful and wonderfully evocative of the period. And that's all, because that is all there is to the series.

It's not character-driven: our protagonist is an empty shell,"The Queen's Gambit" gets two points for its art direction: it's beautiful and wonderfully evocative of the period. And that's all, because that is all there is to the series.

It's not character-driven: our protagonist is an empty shell, with a flat affect that fails to communicate any emotional engagement with anything happening to or around her. I suspect this is intentional, meant to represent some combination of an obsessive (perhaps autistic?) prodigy and the effects of her tranquilizer addiction, but it simply doesn't work on screen (as it could on the page) without a compensatory conceit like an inner monologue narration, because all we have as an audience is the actual performance. The result is what looks like lazy, uninformed Hollywood stereotypes of a savant and pill addict, with no emotional hooks for the audience to grab. The robots on "Westworld" - literal empty vessels - have more characterization and development than Beth.

As a result, we also get no character motivation for any of Beth's actions. A few times, she's explicitly dismissive of her supposed obsession in dialog; without a countervailing emotional performance, we have no reason to suspect that she is anything other than actually dismissive, negating one of her only two - informed, never truly shown - character traits. I was left wondering why she did anything she did throughout the entire series, and my conclusion was that it was because it's an adaptation of an existing narrative, so TV-Beth does X because book-Beth did X.

Beth's flat affect and lack of intelligible character motivation also render her relationships meaningless. Friends, foes, loss, and triumph all yield the same lack of any response, leaving an audience feeling no sense of consequence to anything that happens (or that we're told happens, because...)

It's not plot-driven: the plot focuses on the rise of a chess prodigy, but we have almost no playing chess, discussing chess, or depictions of our prodigy obsessing over chess. I've seen reviews note that this is likely because a mass audience isn't going to be sufficiently familiar with chess to appreciate particular moves, references to famous games, etc. (I am that audience - I know enough to play legal moves, and get badly beaten by just about anyone), but that's only a hindrance if the CREATORS also know nothing about chess; a more skillful creative team could use that as a way to engage the audience by teaching while entertaining. (And that can be true even if what they're teaching is wrong - consider "House, M.D.", for example, on which at least half the medicine was BS, but was used to engage the audience whether real or not, instead of avoided over concerns about alienating anyone who isn't an M.D.)

We're frequently not even shown important plot beats, instead being told of them after the fact in scenes that jump forward hours or days in time. This tendency is presumably informed by not wanting to actually show chess in our chess story, as well as not wanting to show emotion that might guide an audience unfamiliar with the game.

It's not even conflict- or tension-driven, because there is none of either. This also relates to the aforementioned problems. Beth is apparently a tranquilizer addict, given how many pills she buys and swallows, but this doesn't create any evident problems for her; she doesn't "struggle" with addiction in any meaningful sense. We're occasionally informed that she has financial difficulties, but her stable housing (in adulthood), apparent food security, and plot-necessary ability to travel across the country and even world make these claims come off as blatant lies, to an even greater degree than supposedly working-class sitcom characters living in $20 million Manhattan apartments. There's no real character conflict because there's no real protagonist character to have conflicts. There's no plot-related conflict because we skip nearly every scene that might create it in order to be told what happened after the fact.

Given the buzz about The Queen's Gambit and many of the critical reviews, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps Netflix released two different adaptations of the book in 2020, or if I've suffered a psychotic break. But the likelier explanation seems to be that the accolades are a function of pure projection: by providing a beautiful setting with a cardboard protagonist, the show essentially demands that the viewer fill in all of the missing pieces, which many appear to do with whatever they would like best, and then respond not to what is actually on the screen but what it prompts them to imagine, buoyed by a lead actress who looks odd enough to be notable (Anya Taylor-Joy has extremely wide-set eyes) while still being thin and White enough to be conventionally attractive. It's a clever trick, but a trick nonetheless; if you're looking for a TV series rather than an imagination-projection canvass, watch literally anything else.… Expand

3 of 8 users found this helpful35

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moosakhnJan 23, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Below average narrative packaged in deceptively good art direction. Reduces character to a cardboard cutout loosely defined by her addiction to addictions, moving chess pieces on a board and pronounced ability to act like a sore loser. If you're going to stylize a book don't insult it by caking it in colour, makeup and hairspray.… Expand

3 of 9 users found this helpful36

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joaoReidonadaSep 16, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. não merece os emys que tá ganhando, e muito ruim... um descaso ter ganhado de wandavision… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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EholyCRITICSNov 24, 2020

Very repetitive after the first 3 episodes which were great the plot was very basic and and repetitive

5 of 16 users found this helpful511

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hyunwestMay 10, 2021

did not see why this was so hyped. didnt really get the message that this show was trying to say and even tho the whole chess visualization effect was cool, i felt like the character had no dimension to her. it was just that she was great atdid not see why this was so hyped. didnt really get the message that this show was trying to say and even tho the whole chess visualization effect was cool, i felt like the character had no dimension to her. it was just that she was great at chess. could not relate to/empathize with her. it was great performance by Harry, though. did not recognize him as the Dudley from Harry Potter at all.… Expand

1 of 5 users found this helpful14

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LoucetiosDec 27, 2020

just another massive feminist circle jerk. strong wamen don't need no man, chess edition. completely fictional btw.

3 of 20 users found this helpful317

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YabaniJan 2, 2021

Netflix'in buram buram erkek düşmanlığı kokan dizilerinden birisi. Fragmanına erkeklere laf sallayarak başlamışlar. Beni hiç şaşırtmadı.Nasıl bol propagandalı dizi çekilir öğrenmek için izlenilebilir.

1 of 15 users found this helpful114

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