Airdate: The Queen’s Gambit

US limited series The Queen’s Gambit, based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, begins this week on Netflix.

The 6 part series stars Anya Taylor-Joy as an orphan chess prodigy who struggles with addiction in her quest to become a Grandmaster in chess

It also features Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling and Bill Camp.

Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, the Netflix limited series drama The Queen’s Gambit is a coming-of-age story that explores the true cost of genius. Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s, a young Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) discovers an astonishing talent for chess while developing an addiction to tranquilizers provided by the state as a sedative for the children. Haunted by her personal demons and fueled by a cocktail of narcotics and obsession, Beth transforms into an impressively skilled and glamorous outcast while determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess. The series is directed and written by two-time Academy Award nominee Scott Frank and executive produced by Frank, William Horberg and Allan Scott, who also co-created the series.

Friday on Netflix.