emeargeroom67

I love chess. Can play it for hours online or replaying the games of the greats from books. Never thought anyone could do a TV series and make it compelling viewing on binge level but thats what this show does for myself. It is not just the chess games/tournaments special effects and all that the writers have covered themselves in glory with as far as portrayal but the whole plot, setting and character choices they have created. All work so well when interwoven. You really identify with Beth Harmon the main character and her life struggles and the prejudices she encounters in a male dominated macho era. For any chess enthusiast, the obsession with the game is viscerally recreated in Beth's character. Only regret is it is a limited series over one season. You just want it to go on but in hindsight the ending makes for a perfect bookending between the characters lowly beginnings and rise to status of chess prodigy.

Take out all the scenes where characters had bedroom trysts which add nothing to the story progression and you would lost nothing in terms of plot. I am not prudish but I basically fast forwarded every such scene and still knew what was going on. It was as if the writers were given a mandate to do 10 x episodes and not one x less and ran out of ideas how to pad the script so went for the default option. Overall, not the worst show I have seen but it is a bit like soap opera grade acting and script writing. Starts off better than it finishes and the plot itself is a bit far fetched for the material it has to work with.

I found this movie to have lazy production values. You can see the hits coming before they are delivered. The main focus is on the mother (former killer/black ops style combatant) having to save the daughter she gave up when she opted out of the program and for FBI protection. Of course the killers track down said child (Zoe) and its the need to save the child that drives the mother to return to the frontline. Just about everything is so ho hum and dull though you will be left cheering the bad guys to track down Zoe ASAP and put this film out of its misery. To her credit, Zoe does her best to oblige.