The Witcher series (Netflix)

[Maundie]

So finished this last night, actually thought it was quite good and am looking forward to the next series

 

[nands]

Netflix have released a nice interactive timeline/map.

https://www.witchernetflix.com/en-gb

 

[tyler_jrb]

I finished watching a week or so ago. As a fan on the witcher anyway, a lot made immediate sense and i thought it was excellent.

Henry caville fits the role of Geralt absolutely perfectly and it was awesome to see he was a fan of the series (big fan of the games). Although I know it is mainly based off the books.

Nice ending for the first series as well. Looking forward to future seasons/episodes.

 

[Jono8]

Really enjoyed it. Cavil was better than i thought he would be. He isn't that wonderful an actor though which did show in places. Solid, just not excellent. He certainly looked the part though.

I will echo what has been said about it needing a few more episodes and to have have some of the characters and relationships fleshed out a bit though. It is a shame they couldn't have made it a 10 episode season.

I would give it 8/10 overall.

 

[SixTwoSix]

I really enjoyed this series and watched The Critical Drinker's season review last night and he pointed out a very good point in regards to the world building which I never picked up on.

Basically, you never really know what's where and the scales of distance between countries/kingdoms. Lot's of places are mentioned and there are a few blink and miss them maps around but you never have a sense where everything is in relation to anywhere else.

 

[chroniclard]

7/10 for me, enjoyed it on the whole bit it lacked a bit of world building and everything could have been fit together/explained better. As mentioned above could probably have done with a few more episodes.

 

[No1newts]

I thought it was ok but timeline wise it was a mess, even sticking date tags on scenes would have made a huge improvement.

Also, the battle at the end was pretty terrible. Considering in the books how horrific the result was for Nilfgard this felt massively underplayed and unclear.

I liked the series well enough but if anything it was too close to the books in terms of following the jumpy timeline in literal order. For a TV show it could have been edited a lot better.

I'll be back for season 2 but felt it could have been better just through some pretty simple bits of decision making.

 

[Squark]

Nah
One of the interesting aspects of the series was working out how the story threads tied together; it was apparent fairly early on that they weren't concurrent.

 

[AndyCr15]

I thought it was ok but timeline wise it was a mess

Nah
One of the interesting aspects of the series was working out how the story threads tied together; it was apparent fairly early on that they weren't concurrent.

I agree it just made it a confusing mess, especially perhaps for someone that doesn't know the books or the games. Yes, I know there was more than one timeline, but as someone else said, when two of the three main characters don't age... it was a mess...

 

[Glanza]

After the internet jumped on Mark Hamill to play Vesemir they've cast Kim Bodnia who is probably know more for his role in Killing Eve.

https://www.thewrap.com/the-witcher-vesemir-kim-bodnia-season-2/

 

[Darujhistan]

Six episodes in, I'll finish it now, it started off really well in the first 2-3 episodes, then lost its way especially in 5-6. Despite its obvious problems, the terrible script with jarring modern language (can't escape "I've got your back" etc in any TV/movie setting it seems), the confusing skipping timelines which are not explained at all (fine if you've read the books I guess), and the utterly cringey, boring, inevitable love story, the bard carachter who may as well be cast straight from the BB Theory with all phrasing of language, mannersims etc I mean come on are we expected to believe these carahcters at all? You cannot create a believable fantasy setting when too many of the carahcters and the way the speak and their gestures come straight from modern TV.

Early on it looked as if we might get some dark fantasy masterpeice, but no, it's another lowest common denominator show that can't tell a good story effectively set in its own world. Someone earlier mentioned world building, its crying out for that. Cavill doesn't have it either, he's not charsimatic enough, he's not bad he's just not enough to carry the show, neither is the actress who plays Yennefer, a carachter who I could not care less about post hump. The acting overall is mediocre and flat, no-one has any presence at all. There's absolutely zero drama, tension or excitement and the payoffs at the end of episodes aren't worth the time it takes to get there. Ok, here we go again, dragons, a fantasy staple fair enough, and what do they do with it? nothing, it just peters out with half arsed battle scene and some more garbled exposition and emoting at the end.

A lot problems with shows, like the obvious lack of budget here, the cringe dialogue, some ropey acting can be overcome if a good story is told well and it is paced correctly, creating some tension and drama and you get invested in the carachters. This has none of that.

Last show I finished was Narcos Mexico S2 and coming to The Witcher straight after is a real come down.

 

[Darujhistan]

Well, after pulling it to peices and righly so during its middle section in particular, it really saved itself in the final 2 especially the finale. What a great episode, the battle was extremely well done and quite imaginative I thought. The use of magic by the mages was not OP, and the mages were dropping like flies. It all tied in nicely as well after a bewildering start for noobs, I'm hoping S2 gets darker and they learn from some mistakes made in S1. Finally they brought the the war with Nilfgaard to life. Looking forward to S2 now, but when that will be shown no-one knows.

 

[rids57]

The first season is made up from the first two books, both of which were short stories and really just to build a backdrop for the main story. Season 2 continues the main story, which starts at the end of season 1 with Geralt and Ciri meeting up. There will be no more short stories, it's all one huge story from here on and spans books 3 to 7 and yes, it gets a lot darker.

 

[ttaskmaster]

the confusing skipping timelines which are not explained at all (fine if you've read the books I guess),

I'd not read the books or played the games, but I didn't find it a problem keeping track...

You cannot create a believable fantasy setting when too many of the carahcters and the way the speak and their gestures come straight from modern TV.

So dragons and elves and magic spells are all very believable, but speaking like we do is not?

 

[Shamikebab]

Next he'll be complaining they're all speaking English...

 

[Bassmansam]

The first season is made up from the first two books, both of which were short stories and really just to build a backdrop for the main story. Season 2 continues the main story, which starts at the end of season 1 with Geralt and Ciri meeting up. There will be no more short stories, it's all one huge story from here on and spans books 3 to 7 and yes, it gets a lot darker.

There will be at least one short story Nivellen has been casted.

 

[Darujhistan]

The first season is made up from the first two books, both of which were short stories and really just to build a backdrop for the main story. Season 2 continues the main story, which starts at the end of season 1 with Geralt and Ciri meeting up. There will be no more short stories, it's all one huge story from here on and spans books 3 to 7 and yes, it gets a lot darker.

Good the short sories were crap to be honest, hope that's the end of that terribler bard who seemed to have come through a time warp from Friends or TBBT.

I'd not read the books or played the games, but I didn't find it a problem keeping track...

So dragons and elves and magic spells are all very believable, but speaking like we do is not?

Yes, exactly that. It's a fantasy setting therefore the usual elements are accepted. However, using language taken from from example, 21st Century US TV shows isn't believable. In the same way that if a modern Neil Gaiman story with fantasy elements was dramatized for TV, it wouldn't be believable if the carachters spoke in Olde English.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Yes, exactly that. It's a fantasy setting therefore the usual elements are accepted. However, using language taken from from example, 21st Century US TV shows isn't believable. In the same way that if a modern Neil Gaiman story with fantasy elements was dramatized for TV, it wouldn't be believable if the carachters spoke in Olde English.

Being set in an historically accurate Medieval environment is not essential to the Fantasy genre, though, any more than aving to speake wit yon tonge of ye Middel Englyshe, as evidenced in modern Shakespearean interpretations.
In fact, using modern culture to reflect the period equivalents and help the modern audience identify is a pretty clever and fairly common filming trick, used to very good effect in some other productions such as A Knight's Tale (2001) or Peter Jackson's series of Tolkien films.
As is, there are a few things that don't fully translate from the original Slavic, such as the Law of Surprise, to a Western audience, so is it any wonder that a few things seem slightly 'off'?

Moreover, this is on Netflix. It's intended to reach a far wider audience than just those few screaming fanboys who demand a 100% completely accurate documentary copy of the books.
But since this is also a made-up fantasy setting, people can talk however the **** they like, because IT'S NOT REAL... Hell, it's not even historical fiction like something penned by Cornwell, so no need to burden people with historically accurate bull ****. Even common speech of the 1800s would be unrecognisible to us today - You're already having trouble keeping track of fairly straightforward split timelines, so how would you cope with having to learn what is effectively a completely different language on top of all that?

As for the acting, I noticed a lot more subtlety than you'd usually find in today's modern spoon-fed drama, with all it's high-octane tension... and just because the plot isn't all laid out and explained to you every step of the way doesn't mean it's no good. You seem to have read the books, so you'll know the real reasons for the "cringey, boring, inevitable love story".
And you can **** off with criticising the bard - Being such an authority on the fantasy genre, you'l know that bards are meant to be utterly terrible!! Jaskier is absolutely the embodiment of the bardic tradition, while at the same time perfectly parodying it. The signature song with its awful lyrics doesn't take itself seriously at all, yet is already one of the most memorable bard songs in the whole genre!

 

[opethdisciple]

I'm two episodes in. Does this get any better.? Pretty poor so far. 6/10 if that.

Reminds me of Legend of the Seeker quality wise if anyone has seen that...

 

[slackrob]

If it's not your cup of tea, don't watch it.