The Good
1 - Acting - generally on a very high level. Henry Cavill does ok, even tho at times it feels as if he's trying to do a voice. Anya Charlotta is great especially in episodes 2 and 3. Freya Allan is good too. Special shout out to Sándor Köleséri, who played the dwarf slave in episode 2 - completely unknown actor, but in the shoes scene, his performance, the look on his eyes - moments like this is why I watch cinema. Another one that deserves a mention is Emma Appleton as Renfri, she pretty much saved the horrible pilot, but I'll get to that later. (even the so-called "woke" cast did very good - Anna Shafer(Triss), with what little she's given and I very much liked Mimi Ndiweni(Fringilla)'s transformation from a timid student to ambitious and ruthless mage throughout the season).
The Bad
1 - Pacing - absolutely horrendous. You can moan all day about "but you piece it together by episode 4-5"and while that is true you have to keep a few things in mind. The Wither started off as short stories, published in a magazine and is thus semi-contained within each story, with no major overarching storyline up until book 2 or 3. In my humble opinion if they made an entire season only about Geralt e.g stick to book 1, it would make for a more engaging and cohesive storytelling. Instead we got confusing time jumps, the main character is pushed aside to make room for 2 more origin stories (Yen and Ciri) and some GoT-like-half-baked attempt at showing the politics that move the world (ep 8).
2 - The pilot - now I know Netflix releases the whole season at the same time, but this is no excuse to make such a bad pilot episode. Aside from good acting and good fight choreography, there is nothing to like here - editing is too abrupt, reminiscent of something made by a 1-st year student in the arts academy, music seems too low key at times, while being turned up a bit too much at others. The holding hands part between Calante and Ciri - ok, I like long drawn-out scenes, weighing heavy with emotion, but doing it twice in the same episode? Plain overkill. Also Renfri's ultimatum about killing the townsfolk was just a pass-by line, which dilutes a lot of why Geralt has to go against his principle and chooses the lesser evil. Don't tell me they couldn't fit it in her first visit in the woods, its just 1 line...
3 - CGI - Xena: Warrior Princess had better special effects and that says a lot.
4 - Story - I touched on this but the entire season felt, disjointed, with each short story from the book - a separate entity. Not enough time spent with Geralt, and at this point other characters seem much more interesting, engaging and important. On top of this some of the stories deserved an entire episode, maybe even 2 to get a grip and immersion in the world of the witcher (Filavandrel part, dragon hunt and possibly even the last wish). Instead they got crammed into 1 episode, intertwined with another plot in-between the abrupt edit cuts, which resulted, as expected, into a product that feels rushed and unloved by those who made it.
The Mediocre
1 - Costumes - Northern armor was good looking, but Nilfgraard ...oh, the horror! Some of Geralts costumes are ok, some look like cosplay (his full armor so to speak looks way too new, despite being stitched at a few spots). Geralt's wig is a whole other matter, but I don't want to be overly negative in this review, so I shall speak no more of it.
2 - The music - While they gave us the gem of "Toss a coin to your witcher", the rest of the music wasn't as memorable as I'd have liked.
Final thoughts - I hope they do better than season one with the next one, now that the timelines are connected and most of the main characters can be together in the same scenes. I also hope they finally realise what this franchise is about - character building and adventures - not LotR level battles or GoT level machinations.
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