(slight spoilers for the entire season)Fuck.
That's the word that is uttered in hilarious ways at multiple points of the series by Geralt of Rivia, its protagonist. But that's also the word that should be on the minds of the audience - Netflix's new show, which is already breaking records, is a baffling mess that has huge potential but the first season of it is an embarrassing fiasco, filled with awful visuals and even worse storytelling. Yet in the world where trash like Joker made a billion dollars, it's not in the least surprising something that is so poorly made became a hit.
Everything in this show is so pristine. Frankly, it looks cleaner than my apartment. Nothing in that show looks lived in and it is just so distracting when you are watching it. It instantly makes you aware you are watching actors playing parts in a TV series and completely ruins whatever immersion would be possible otherwise. Some of the visuals from the show, like the ones during the ball in mage academy, make CW series look like masterpieces.
You would think that Netflix, which is responsible for one of the best and most expensive shows of 2019 - third season of Stranger Things - made sure that the special effects in their new series are really good. Nope. With the exception of striga in the third episode, the CGI is truly embarrassing. The further you venture into the season it gets worse and it culminates in the shittiest looking dragon ever, at least since we attempted to adapt the source material here in Poland. Nearly two decades ago. On a minuscule budget. And the result was in the same "what the fuck?!" territory as it is now. Spare me "oh they had small budget" excuse. If you can't afford something, don't do it.
Then there is the world building issue. There is barely any. There is practically no backstory for anything here so you have no idea why there is war or even how many kingdoms there are, who rules them, etc. We don't know anything about that other than that there is a CONTINENT and some lands on it. Remember when Bran was taught about the kingdoms on Game of Thrones? Within an episode into the show you knew everything that was vital to know. Here you are constantly lost.Another thing that the show skips entirely is telling us about what are the powers of the characters. Things just happen and you understand neither why they are happening nor how them happening is even possible. Yennefer is fucking a guy while some people are watching, turns out it was an illusion conjured by her. Why? Who knows. A couple during a wedding start levitating. But why? And why was the groom cursed? I sure as shit don't know. Why does Yen sometimes use magic and sometimes a sword? No explanation for that either.
What makes things worse to comprehend is that this is told like Dunkirk with 3 main stories, each starting in a different point in time. And that is not even revealed in a way that could be a cool twist, it's just kind of "wait a minute..." moment when you realize there's non-linear storytelling happening here. It is exciting when all the stories finally collide, but that only happens in the last episode. But then the finale ends with in the dumbest line possible so there's that...
Surely at least the characters are interesting? Eh. There are two here, that are very fun - Renfri, who is sadly in one episode only, some hallucinations in finale aside, and Jaskier, a cheerful bard, who is sure to be everyone's favorite character. He is so much fun and his interactions with serious and humorless Geralt are hilarious. Jodhi May is also a lot of fun as the Queen. Unfortunately, two of those characters die in season 1.There is a series of diversity hires in this show which is all right but they went and cast Anya Chalotra, who is really not very good, to play the most important female character. She is given such juicy material and she delivers very mediocre work. Eva Green would deliver better Yennefer in her sleep and her career is flat-lining so she would do this, but hey, she's white, so I guess it was a no-go. Look, representation and diversity on screen are great. But when you favor that over who is the best person for the job, that's a problem. And you cannot tell me this chick was the best out of the possible choices.
The show tries to hide how terribly cast she is by having her constantly show her breasts as a distraction and not even Game of Thrones resorted to that, just to hide the actress' complete lack of allure. The true low point though is when Yennefer, again for no reason, conjures an orgy, in I guess an effort to show Yennefer is sensual, since the actress cannot convey that with her limited abilities. What's worse is that she's not even the most interesting or charismatic character in the mage academy, that would be the teacher played by lovely MyAnna Buring. Yen is really annoying and selfish and the only way to make a character like that entertaining is to have an actor with charisma play her. Chalotra has very little of that. Instead of being this powerful sorceress, watching this Yennefer is basically like cringing at an instagram model throwing "fuck you" and "I'm better than you" hashtags around.
Freya Allen as Ciri does not fare any better but that is because she is given truly awful material to work with. This one can improve in the future. Chalotra won't, she was given plenty of opportunities here and I cannot say she impressed me in any of her scenes. I also found the chemistry between the actress playing Renfri and Cavill stronger than the absolute flat-lining that occurs on the screen when him and Chalotra are supposed to be flirting. There's a moment where they kiss mid-fight that is almost as embarrassing as that dragon was.To give you the idea of the quality of the series I probably should have opened this post with the statement that Cavill is actually one of the best things about it. Yes, this mediocre actor who got this lifeline for his career from Netflix after WB was done with him is actually the bright spark here so this should tell you how bad everything surrounding him is. The fight choreography is all right, it's nothing spectacular.
What about the villains? Well, what about them. They are invading other kingdoms and practice dark magic and keep chasing Ciri. That's it. That's all I know.
Does this show have a potential? Yes. There's so many creatures in Slavic mythology that would be amazing visually, even if the CGI sucked, because they would be unique. What is needed here is bigger budget, more imagination and decent writers. The horrible casting calls will perpetually drag this show down but there is still room for improvement. But the way it is now, the most entertaining thing about The Witcher is just how bad most of it is.
32/100