A young, genius, chess prodigy turned grandmaster and world champion from the 1960s in the form of Beth Harmon portrayed by Anya Tarloy-Joy runs the Netflix world today as The Queen's Gambit - a Netflix original coming-of-age period drama miniseries is hailed the streaming platform's number one show, and is definitely breaking viewership record, at the same time receiving praises and appreciation from all aspects of the viewership community all around the world.
The series revolves around Taylor-Joy's Beth harmon, who once had her mother by her side, became an orphan, learned to play chess after playing with their orphanage's custodian, got adopted, played chess, won and lost at some, yet ending up as world champion by defeating then chess authorities from the Soviet Union. The show featured a 1950s-1960s setting which was incredibly visualized by the production design, as well as other characters that helped Harmon to become a better version of herself.
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The data presented by Netflix themselves depict the factor of the number of people or viewers who watched a certain show or series by through its first two minutes. The chess themed historical drama, based on a fictional novel by Walter Tevis, has set an amount of 62 million households had already watched at least two minutes of the series on the first 28 days of release. This marks the 60s set-show as one of Netflix's most popular releases in history.
The Critics and Chess Community's Take on the Chess-Centered Series
On released shows and movies in the industry, not all numbers based on popularity equate the critics' rating. But in the case of The Queen's Gambit, it seems like an exception as the series nabbed a top-notched 100 percent on top American aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 70 reviews. They pointed out the imperfect perfection of the series, with Taylor-Joy's performance labeled as impeccable, the on-point production design, and incredibly emotional narrative.
Being a series that centered around the sport of chess, the sport's community worldwide received the show with a praiseful reception. Woman Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade via Vanity Fair mentioned that the series "completely nailed chess accuracy." "Well choreographed and realistic" were the words expressed by British chess champion David Howell as he described how he felt watching the show.
The Netflix Fever Continues
Even before the pandemic, Netflix, one of the most sought after show and movie streaming platforms in the world is already widely seen as a different media outlet for shows and movies, where it now has a subscriber base of 182.8 million subscribers, making it one of the world's largest entertainment services to date.
Its entry to the mainstream media entertainment primarily sparked when one of their first original series, Stranger Things rose to the occasion as one of the most watched franchise series of all time, establishing itself as a modern-day sci-fi franchise but having a retro and nostalgic factor as it is set in the mid-80s. Netflix series are known for providing astounding production design on their original series shows, being on-point and as accurate as going through a time machine.
Yet another lockdown-brought success for the virtual entertainment industry is greatly felt on Netflix. In the third quarter of 2020 alone, the streaming platform royalty has garnered a revenue amounting to a massive 6.44 billion US dollars.
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