The Witcher - The Netflix Series

[Sly Boots]

I saw something the other day suggesting that some of the writers on the series actively dislike the Witcher books and games, so I wonder if that’s convinced him to go.

Get new writers then. If you are making a show based upon a series of books (and probably influenced by the characters in the games too), then you need to base the fucking show on what has proven so fucking popular rather than think a bunch of wannabe writers can do better which they inevitably can't. And yes Wheel of Time and Rings of Power I am looking at you.

Ah well, season 2 was pretty fucking awful with Cavill the only saving grace. I am not sure I have the patience to do another season unless they sort the screenplay out majorly for S3, so Liam Who may well inherit a show I no longer have an interest in.

This.

[Wrathbone]

I’m trying to imagine what it would be like trying to write for a show you dislike. I get that it’s a highly competitive market and all but a handful of top screenwriters probably take any gig they can, but if you’re trying to be creative for something that doesn’t appeal to you then it’s inevitably not going to work. I wonder what Aaron Sorkin would go through (other than a big pile of drugs) attempting to write an episode of Emmerdale, for instance.

[Hatredsheart]

[Solitaire]

We just watched the first two seasons over the course of the last few nights. I've got to say that the jumping timelines in season one had me befuddled for a while, until I figured out what must be going on. Not a fan of having no indication; even a brief "Year 1232" would have been much less distracting than spending brainpower to piece things together. But whatever, got past that. Some of the dialog is atrocious, gotta say, and the stilted acting and overly-pregnant pauses and lingering shots got tightened up a bit in season two, thank goodness. Cavell is the lynchpin for this entire series, imho, so I'm not keen on the season four pinch hitter... But remains to be seen, soon, how season three is - might not need bother worrying to watch four, depending. There's lots of stuff that I find annoying in the worldbuilding, like these ridiculous monoliths, or some really modern-day sounding dialog and music anachronisms, or some of the stupid decisions that characters make, just for the sake of the plot. It's the Witcher himself that kept my interest the whole way through.

[Snowy]

Surprised to see little commentary in here on S3. Or am I?

Gods below it is weak! I have played the games and read the books, so I do get the political element, but there is virtually no exposition to explain it to the viewer. Added to which, the script and a lot of the acting is incredibly bad.

Worst of all though - the show is The Witcher. A show about Geralt. Unfortunately they are wasting so much screen time with characters that I care absolutely zero about, all whiffling away self-importantly about politics I care zero about and other characters (zero) that often the few scenes with Geralt actually appearing feel a bit of an afterthought.

I have, so far, ground my way through three episodes. Each one I have struggled to maintain much enthusiasm about, they are just so fucking tedious. I will maybe work through to the end of the show, but from there I suspect I will be done. Without Cavill - who remains the sole saving grace of the series - I just can't be bothered.

Oh, and why is Dandelion not called Dandelion? It annoys me every episode that wailing wand appears in!

Edit: Scratch that last point, I just Googled it. To save you the effort, apparently Jaskier (the bard in the show) is the name in the original Polish books. Jaskier translates to English as Buttercup and the original translator of the books into English felt Buttercup didn't fit the character so changed it to Dandelion instead. So - wand in show named for actual book character. Snowy mollified, but on that point only...

[Sly Boots]

I gave up a few episodes into S2 and nothing I've read about S3 could induce me to return to it, love the source material but the showrunners have butchered it.

[Mantis]

We watched it the week the two parts came out and I thought it was absolutely trash. I've not read enough of the books to know how much it deviates from the material, I just thought it was god awful writing and pacing in its own right.

I particularly disliked wasting an hour watching Ciri in a desert on her own for an entire episode. It was so poor.

[Wrathbone]

I intend to watch season 3 but so far I’ve not mustered any enthusiasm for it. Given how Cavill practically begged for the role in the first place and clearly knows his onions with the source material, the fact that he jumped ship told me everything I needed to know about the direction it’s going.

[Sly Boots]

I particularly disliked wasting an hour watching Ciri in a desert on her own for an entire episode. It was so poor.

The amusing irony of this is that there is a looong section in the books that is exactly this - and it was fairly tedious there too.

For all that they butchered the source material and lost book/game fans, they did this bit faithfully and lost most of the show fans too

[Solitaire]

Oh right, I meant to update after I watched season 3 but apparently forgot it existed, after having my common sense assaulted for 8 tedious episodes. I won't mention any spoilers, but let's just say that the fight scenes which don't include Geralt are mind-numbingly stupid, period. btw Ian, you're right that Geralt is an afterthought - it gets worse as the season slogs on. The only enjoyment I got out of any of this is watching the pretty ladies in their various scenes, whatever it is they're doing.

There's just no sense of scale in this world. At least with Game of Thrones, it didn't take many episodes to create a solid continent and understand basic distances and where one city or location was from another (we'll ignore the teleporting that most characters did in later seasons - well, let's just ignore the later seasons, period ). I get that some characters can actually teleport, but it'd be nice if they showed this happening every time. It seems like various people go out for a wander and happen to run into each other, like this is even remotely possible on an entire f'ing continent, and this happens all the gd time...

I get the feeling that the diversity knob was dialed up to ten thousand for this whole series, sure okay whatever, I guess I'm becoming numb to it all. I haven't read the books, but I bet an 80s Polish fantasy author didn't have all this in mind. The singing bards and troubadours or whatever we want to call them are anachronisms in the extreme, and I hate every scene that anyone is singing anything.

Cavill saves the episodes, every time, even if he's only in his own show for ten minutes at a time.

[Hatredsheart]

[Sly Boots]

No thanks!

[Hatredsheart]

No thanks!

I'm inclined to agree. Cavill nailed it and, for me anyway, he's a hard act to follow.

[ManBearSquid]

"The Switcher" was my favourite comment on that trailer.

I thought the show was pish from the start, unfortunately. I do agree that Cavill was pretty cool in the part of Geralt, though.

[Maturin]

I did enjoy the first season, but only now after seeing the excellent Last of Us and Fallout shows, it has rather gone down in my estimation (when it comes to game adaptations). In hindsight, it was pretty patchy.