Maybe because I learned about the series shortly after I fumed over the inherent male bias that marked a headline story in a leading newspaper's weekend edition about why women sucked at chess, I relished watching The Queen's Gambit. Were it not for my partner's discipline, I would perhaps have binge-watched it.

Each time an episode ended, he had the wisdom to close the Netflix app on my laptop, and that small gesture enhanced our viewing experience. We got to spread the seven episodes over a little longer than a week. As a European, my partner made abundantly clear his irritation over the characterisation of non-Americans in the series, and couldn't resist pointing out various implausibilities in the plotline.