The Witcher

The tidal wave of fantasy TV adaptations, trying to fill the void left by the miserable ending of Game of Thrones, is upon us. The first two big shows – The Witcher and His Dark Materials – have dropped, so today I’m going to talk about one of them.

I am coming at this from the standpoint of a huge Witcher fan. I have read all the books a few years ago and loved them. So a good number of my thoughts will be based on the comparison between the books and the show. But all my introductory rambling aside, what did we get with The Witcher?

LOOK AND ATMOSPHERE

I have to beggin by saying that the show captured Witcher’s atmosphere perfectly. It’s dark, gritty and brutal, following the grim dark trend set by Game of Thrones. The show leans quite a bit into horror at times and I feel like that is when it’s at its best, because some of the more light hearted moments just don’t land as well (unless they include Jaskier). The costume design is overall very solid apart from one glaring exception (seriously what the hell is that Nilfgaardian armor supposed to be? It looks like they spilled noodle soup all over it and just left it there). The look of the show really only has one major flaw and that is the CGI. Many of the creatures and most of the magic just don’t look quite right. If you’re not a VFX artist you probably can’t tell why exactly, but the human eye is very good at recognizing what is and what isn’t real and those shots just didn’t register as real. I’m sure that with the huge success of the first season, the second one will be given a higher budget and with a little bit more time spent in the post – production, this can be easily fixed.

THE ACTING

The acting was a little more hit or miss for me. None of it was necessarily bad, I just feel that some of the casting choices weren’t perfect fits.

Henry Cavill (Geralt of Rivia) did a great job. He brought Geralt’s brooding charm to the screen perfectly and I have nothing negative to say about his performance.

Freya Allan (princess Cirilla) didn’t necessarily get the opportunity to really show of her acting skills, but from the little we got I’m quite optimistic about Ciri’s future.

The first performance I wasn’t completely satisfied with, was Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg. Her acting was just fine, but I don’t think she really fits the character. I always imagined Yennefer with a really commanding presence and Anya Chalotra doesn’t exert that, even though she tries.

On exactly the opposite side of the spectrum we have Joey Batey (Jaskier). This man was born for this role. His an amazing comic relief, his chemistry with Henry Cavill’s Geralt is incredible and it really shows off Batey’s acting chops, because their interactions are often quite one-sided. My favourite performance from the series overall (even though it was quite annoying, having to get used to another name for this character – first Marigold for the Czech version, than Dandelion for English and now Jaskier).

STORY AND CHARACTERS

This part will be very rambling and might include minor spoilers, so stop reading, if you care about that. The show stayed true to the source material for the most part, taking stories from the first book and adding Yennefer’s and Ciri’s backstories for secondary storylines. I personally think Ciri’s storyline didn’t need to be as long as it is, because she really doesn’t do much, nor do we get to learn a lot about her character. I would have liked, if they’d have cut out Brokilon entirely, started Ciri’s storyline two episodes later and instead dedicated that time to developing Geralt and Yennefer’s on and off relationship, which felt rushed and hardly believable (You cannot build a relationship through a 20 second flashback). It would also help a bit with the weird time hoping, which didn’t bother me at all, but must be incredibly confusing for newcomers to the series.

FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS

Shoutout to Emma Appleton playing princess Renfri, she did an awesome job (I actually think she would have maid better Yennefer). The fight between Geralt and Renfri was great and I would like all the swordfights to remain on that level. Nilfgaard vs Citra looked weirdly small. I didn’t mind Anna Schaffer’s Triss like the rest of the internet.

ENDING THOUGHTS

All in all, I really enjoyed my time, watching the series, I think it was a good set up season and I’m excited for the second one.