The Queen's Gambit

About

The Queen's Gambit is a 2020 American period drama miniseries following the life of female chess prodigy Beth Harmon. The miniseries, based on an 1983 book of the same name, gained significant popularity online and inspired viral memes and discussions both about the series and chess in general.

History

In 1983, American novelist Walter Tevis published^[1] The Queen's Gambit, a novel following the life of female chess prodigy Beth Harmon.

On March 19th, 2019, Netflix ordered a six-episode miniseries based on the book. The series, written and directed by Scott Frank, co-created by Allan Scott and starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon, premiered on October 23rd, 2020, with the number of episodes expanded to seven.

Set in mid-1950s and 1960s, the series follow the journey of chess prodigy Beth Harmon from her early years at the orphanage to her rise through the Grandmaster ranks as a young adult. The miniseries comprise elements of a coming of age story and a sports series and covers the themes of obsession, feminism and addiction.

Reception

The series received very positive reviews both from critics and the audience. As of December 8th, 2020, on Rotten Tomatoes,^[2] the series maintained a 99% critic rating based on 76 reviews and a 95% audience score based on over 1,200 reviews. On Metacritic,^[3] the series had a 79 average critic score based on 28 reviews and a 8.8 user score based on 116 ratings. On IMDb,^[4] the series had a 8.7 score based on nearly 150,000 ratings.

On the day of the premiere, the series became the most watched series of the day on Netflix.^[5] The Queen's Gambit topped^[6] the streaming rankings for the weeks of October 26th to November 1st and November 2nd to November 8th, 2020.

Fandom

The viral popularity of the The Queen's Gambit prompted memes about the series and fan art of it's characters, most notably of the protagonist Beth Harmon. In November and December 2020, a number of viral tweets about the series were posted; for example, on November 21st, 2020, Twitter^[7] user @_tasiams posted a fan art of characters Jolene and Beth Harmon that received over 15,500 retweets and 108,600 likes (shown below, left). On November 30th, Twitter^[8] user @hxc_clam compared the series to a Shōnen anime, with the tweet gaining over 10,400 retweets and 94,800 likes (shown below, bottom).

The series also became a popular subject of memes in the chess meme communities such as /r/AnarchyChess on Reddit, with multiple references and shitposts being made.

Search Interest

External References