Never thought I'd enjoy a show about chess--a game I've played maybe twice in my life--but here we are. Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Beth, a shy and gawky kid who learns chess at an orphanage, becomes a top-ranked player while still a teen, and achieves celebrity status on the tournament circuit--all while trying to cope with loneliness, alcoholism and drug addiction. (She's at her best, she confesses to a friend, when her mind is a little clouded.) Watching young Beth blossom is a treat in itself, and Taylor-Joy's performance is so subtle, so carefully calibrated, that she nearly always appears to be doing nothing when in fact she's doing a lot. (It doesn't hurt, of course, that the camera adores her.) Her complicated relationship with her adoptive mother, played by the superb Marielle Heller as a hard-drinking woman who needs her daughter every bit as much as her daughter needs her (maybe more), is also worth watching. The best and most touching moments in the series--when Beth is learning chess at the orphanage--are early; the final episodes--when she is forced to ask herself: should I listen to my friends and clean up my act, or stash my Big Dream away in a drawer somewhere and forget about it?--pack some punch, too. The rest of the series--with all its chess matches, pre-and-post-match skull sessions, and endless patter about moves and counter-moves and legends of the game--would, I imagine, interest no one but chess freaks. No doubt the folks behind "Queen's Gambit" believed they were making chess seem exciting and suspenseful, sexy even, but for us dumbbells who couldn't tell a knight from a king or a bishop from a pawn, those match-heavy marathons were a bit of a slog. If you're like me, you'll love the opening, dig the end, and spend the rest of the time scratching your head.