The Witcher

Mixed feelings. At times a dark romp, an atmospheric chivalric epic, a visually captivating show. At times a confusing mess of characters, cardboard sets and boring side-quests in the script. A viewer unfamiliar with the source material will sometimes be terribly confused, or even completely unable to grasp the new characters and locations. Praise for the imaginative concept of separate mini-episodes, which in many ways are not very related and yet in individual details systematically bring each character to the point where their fates intersect at expected moments, even in unpredictable situations. The first bold episode, which, by the way, is the only one that offers absolutely every reason the viewer should give Witcher a chance, is followed by others where those unfamiliar with the source material already feel a certain decline in the way the story is presented and conceived. The action in Blaviken in the opening episode remains by far the best moment of the entire season. (02/09/2020)

I’m not sure if it is any good to start watching this series without having any previous relationship to The Witcher. Moreover, it is not good either to have read all of the books, played all of the games and hope that this series won’t disappoint you. It is something in between, but as for me as a fan of this universe, it didn’t disappoint. Of course I found a few unclear or illogical points of which you can find a lot more the deeper your relationship to this series is. Still, it is a quite good fantasy piece for which I’m glad because there are currently very few of those, and I’m really glad for every hope that appears in this respect. Netflix didn’t film this series in a bad way, it just did it in its own way. Henry Cavill whom everyone was uncertain about as a main character eventually played his role with flying colors. He really reminds me of the Witcher from the game series. I would say that the story isn’t as good but let’s be honest, with that many characters and unclear story line, the same problem occurred with Game of Thrones as well. We had to wait for the following seasons to see it became a legendary series. And I think that it would be similar with The Witcher. Moreover, in The Witcher you can count on greatly filmed action scenes which are a delight to your eyes. For now I rate it with 5 stars. To hell with it, I was simply thrilled! (12/25/2019)

Well, I can pretend to be a man who is detached and sees that if I drank a shot at every mention of the word fate, I would die of alcohol poisoning after one episode. It could have been even better thought out in terms of working with time storylines, so that even the average viewer could understand before the third part that they were not parallel. It was certainly possible to have a better tempo and escalation of some parts, as well as the tonal consistency. But this is all "flaw by design". Sapkowski wrote a fantasy soap opera where horror, romance, a fairy tale and cruel parables about the world on the brink of destruction all eclectically meet. And to my great surprise, Netflix made a completely faithful (albeit deviating in detail and narrative storyline) adaptation, which is excellently cast, funny, exciting and romantic, appropriately crazy and engaging to me. You say that it doesn't have as much coherence and clarity as GoT and others? This is an Eastern and Central European tradition of melting pots of cultures, folklore and deep traditions. I've been missing this for years. A series that I will stay with and that I will dream about at night. This hasn’t happened to you? Well, you probably haven't read all the books ten times over and given yourself a nickname based on one of the characters. But thanks to the series, you also have a chance to get into it completely. Great job. I suppose the next series could raise the bar a bit higher, because it will no longer focus on various short stories, but rather on a novel pentalogy. (12/22/2019)

The Witcher has several major problems, namely the appalling CGI (no matter how much the series relies on it), through the lame setting and costumes, a bunch of amateur actors playing supporting characters, unjustifiably different concepts of several key characters (mostly Yen, but at least she is an interestingly grasped character, despite being different) and, above all, a significant deviation from the key Slavic stylization of The Witcher towards the generic Western concept of fantasy. Which goes even more against the grain, because in terms of storyline the adaptation follows the original source material (short stories) more than you would have expected. But the essence is there. That’s for sure. This is not a new Game of Thrones. It is much closer to The Last Kingdom  than to anything else. Yes, it's basically a fantasy series in B-movie style. But to be honest, the original stories are too. So as long as it has no ambition to play big political games (in which Sapkowski also fails), to have a perfect setting, etc., but it's all about Gossiper, Marigold, Ciri and especially the grumbling Geralt in the woods, swamps, pubs and brothels spouting a lot of one-liners, then it *is* The Witcher. Even because Cavill clearly enjoys playing Geralt, from the veiled, cynical one-liner through the intimate conversations with Gossipers / Marigold to the action sequences. These sequences, by the way, have excellent fight-scene choreography (although unrealistic, but even more impressive but because of that). Thus, although a lot does not work here or is clearly on the edge, the series is essentially solid in terms of genre. And that counts. | S1: 3/5 | (12/20/2019)

Well... I also liked the Polish series, which we stayed up late for week after week back in high school so we could discuss what we'd seen in the morning and how (un)different it was from the books. Even then we scoffed at some of the changes, the gimmicks, Marigold, but we didn't mind because the show was just fun, had a great atmosphere, and Geralt was our hero. This is actually pretty much the same case, except that the new Witcher with the excellent Henry "Mhmmmm!" Cavill is even more entertaining. It has a better Marigold, better tricks, and is much better told – the clever interweaving of the three timelines felt original and fresh, and I enjoyed it whenever the series subtly reminded me which timeline I was in. The last time I read Sapkowski's books was fifteen years ago, give or take, but they were so excellent that I still remember quite a bit of them, especially their atmosphere, which in spite of its departure from Slavicism Netflix has managed to revive nicely. I probably liked the Striga and Hedgehog episodes the best, but each had something to it. Plus the beautiful music! (11/10/2021)