Queen's Gambit on the Tomatometer

Given the current wave of Queen's Gambit Mania (October 2020; 'The trailer has almost 1.4 million views and 2500 comments'), I wasn't surprised to see that half of my picks on the short list for this month's video were also about the Netflix series titled 'The Queen's Gambit'.

How Anya Taylor-Joy Became Beth Harmon in 'The Queen's Gambit' | Rotten Tomatoes (9:04) • '[Published on] Oct 20, 2020'

After reading the video's description by Rotten Tomatoes...

How do you turn yourself into the world’s most formidable chess prodigy when you barely know how to play the game yourself? That was the question facing Anya Taylor-Joy as she prepared to step into the mind of Beth Harmon, the protagonist of Walter Tevis's novel 'The Queen’s Gambit' and its lavish Netflix adaptation, which arrives on the service this month.

Set in the 1950s and '60s, the series follows Harmon’s rise from orphan with a talent to teen prodigy to national champion, all as she deals with addiction to tranquilizers -- crippling, but sometimes useful when she’s plotting her moves alone at night -- and the men of the chess-world boys' club who want to keep her out.

...you might think you don't have to watch the series or read the book, but there's much more to the story than that. The description continues by explaining that the clip is about the back story:-

Ahead of the series’ release, Taylor-Joy sat down with us to break down how she tapped into Harmon’s pain, why she relates to her solitary pursuit, and how her dance training helped her feign a mastery of pawns, rooks, and knights.

For more from Rotten Tomatoes, see The Queen's Gambit (rottentomatoes.com). There's nothing rotten here. The series gets 100% on the Tomatometer from the critics and 97% on the Audience Score.