The Witcher (Netflix series)

Title: The Witcher
Created by: Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (based on the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski)
Network: Netflix

3.6 (Not great, not terrible) / 5

In the first big fantasy series since the end of Game of Thrones, monster-hunter-for-hire Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) finds his simple life increasingly complicated by a relationship with restless, anarchic sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Cirilla (Freya Allan) a princess fleeing the invasion of her homeland. 

Overall, this show felt more frustrating than anything else, as there's gold here but it keeps getting smothered in dross. It's more Lord of the Rings than Game of Thrones, more Dungeons and Dragons than Lord of the Rings, cheaper than either though thankfully not quite Shannara Chronicles cheap. Despite some elements that work rather well--Cavill's swashbuckling especially--I don't think it does enough to really establish its own unique voice or presence and differentiate itself from other fantasy properties.

The action, as I said, is great fun to watch, both kinetic and balletic, and the big fights in Blaviken in episode 1, as well as at the court and with a monster called a "striga" later on, are collectively the high points of the show. Cavill does the brooding tough guy shtick with just enough charm to make him likeable, and Joey Batey as the bard Jaskier makes a good foil despite sometimes teetering over the line from amusing to annoying. The female leads are less well-served by the script, and I found Yennefer's motivations in particular seem to change about twice per episode.

The set, prop and costume design is competent if unspectacular, some of it good, some of it feeling plasticky and as thin as a Young Adult romance. The dialogue is worse, often opaque and gnostic (a line about flowers dying gets repeated N times but I still haven't the faintest what that's all about) or else jarringly anachronistic, such as when a queen refers to a formal ball as a "shindig." 

The structure is another area that needed a bit of honing. The adventures of the Mandalorian with a sword were fun, but honestly I felt too much time was wasted on Yennefer's backstory and Ciri's adventures, without the writers giving either character enough to do. The show cross-cuts among these three plot lines, without telling you they are actually happening at completely different times, which can be a bit baffling until about episode 4 when things fall into place. While it's nice that the show trusts the audience to pay attention and figure things out, even just a small hint, a line ot text like "five years later..." or whatever would have helped keep things straight.

Thematically, it's a bit vague. At first, I thought we were going to get a kind of rebuttal of Game of Thrones' theme that you have to be a bastard to survive in the real world: Geralt lives in a grim, grey world, yet still manages to be both practical and moral. But a lot of the stories feel lobomotimzed. Many of the adventures are drawn from "The Last Wish" collection of short stories, a series of deliciously twisted fairy tales that reflected on our relationship with myths and monsters. While the basics of the stories have been kept, most of the flavor has been lost. 

For example, in episode 1, Geralt is caught between a wizard and a vengeful bandit leader, each of whom try to hire him to kill the other. We see him refuse to take sides, then at the end he suddenly goes on a murder spree for no apparent reason. In the original short story, we learn that although the bandit is a good person who has done some terrible things, and their quest for vengeance is actually pretty justified. The wizard, by contrast, is a fairly awful person, but currently not harming anyone. That's an interesting dillemma, a sort of "trolley problem, but swords". But in the show, nope. It's just suddenly time to do some stabbing.

Similarly, in another episode Geralt is captured by fugitive elves who have been persecuted and driven from their homes by humans. In the original story, there's some soul-searching about the fact that yes, what happened to the elves was a crime, but murdering innocent humans is also a crime, and in any event no amount of fighting will ever make things the way they used to be again. Here? Wisecracks and abortion jokes, and then the elves let Geralt go because shrug. 

This narrative incoherence is capped by the climactic battle at the end of episode 8, where none of the geography works and I have no idea where any of the characters are in relation to one another from scene to scene. What the start of Last Jedi was to the end of Force Awakens, the end of the season was to its start. A rousing climax that truly made the audience say, "What?"

There's a fateful reunion that should feel impactful, but instead falls kind of flat. It just happens. Huh.

To me, this is kind of the killer, because without a theme or thrust or direction, you're kind of left wondering what the point of it all is. 

So I think the bones are good, the foundation is solid, I just wished Netflix had been able to construct something a bit more solid on top of it.