The Witcher

Finally finished this and it's pretty much a 6.5 - 7 for me. As someone who's currently reading Last Wish, the show does very much feel like it's more based off that book than anything else, a collection of stories that are not necessarily in sequence. For a book it's great but for a TV show it's disjointed, especially for someone that has no background on the books or even the games (like the wife for example). So it's hard to accurately follow what's always going on. I get the criticism about Triss but honestly I didn't even think she had that big of a role to even give a damn what her skin color was. She's in like maybe 3 or 4(?) episodes and a side character at that. The acting overall was all over the place though. No issues with Yennifer and Cavill nailed the role.

As far as adaptation, they obviously changed a lot from the books in order to get some of these other characters screentime (ex: Triss is not even in the story about the Striga in Last Wish). Still, plan on watching S2 because I would expect they will be a little more coherent in the story. The show as a whole is still more watchable that a lot of other garbage that's on TV these days (especially Netflix).

Gavinmad said:

The setup was cheesy (she's fine all evening but pukes as soon as Geralt invokes the law of surprise) but it was all worth it for that "Fuck".

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But Destiny bro. She can't throw up until he's trapped by it.

watching this now.

yeah, lol shes totes pregnant scene done as comedy was fucking retarded.

Im on ep5 now, with Yennefer is a mass rapist, pyscho. Seriously, so much time spent on her, and making her so unlikeable.

Kumquat and Viagra magic... ffs... DnD does this too. Witcher has plenty of time anachronistic elements, sure. Mirrors, out of period armor and weapons... seems weird to make use of fruits and vegatibles which are very notably NOT from Europe though. Tomatos, and bananas, and shit... The Kumquat was introduced to Europe in 1846. Shit is jarring.

Caliane said:

Witcher has plenty of time anachronistic elements, sure. Mirrors, out of period armor and weapons... seems weird to make use of fruits and vegatibles which are very notably NOT from Europe though. Tomatos, and bananas, and shit... The Kumquat was introduced to Europe in 1846. Shit is jarring.

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Wait, this isn't Earth I thought?

No this is an historical period piece. Magic, dragons, all lost because we started relying too much on technology. Fruit is important to the integrity of the story.

I'm not a big fan of the show, but Kumquats? Really? Come on now

ShakyJake said:

Wait, this isn't Earth I thought?

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Psuedo medieval Europe. So I dont expect ipads, katanas, or kumquats.

Caliane said:

Psuedo medieval Europe. So I dont expect ipads, katanas, or kumquats.

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Wakandan they got dragons.

In the books Geralt makes references to existing fairy tales. Like this one:

Last winter Prince Hrobarik, not being so gracious, tried to hire me to find a beauty who, sick of his vulgar advances, had fled the ball, losing a slipper.

Was a decent show but the timeline being disjointed made it a bit of a chore at first. I would’ve liked it to be more about the Witcher though since that’s the actual interesting part and the guy is nailing the role

I couldn't get into the game (hated the combat controls) so I didn't put more than a few hours into it, but I've enjoyed this show. Still a bit confused as to who's who and the time jumping around didn't help. Not sure I would have even figured it out if I hadn't read part of this thread before starting.

I liked Geralt the most, for being the main character he could do with a few more scenes. Found myself waiting for him to get back on the screen sometimes.

Liked Yennifer story too although I didn't understand some of the mage college or the eel business. Thought she went from insecure to overbearing a little quick though. Thought she was pretty enough, thought the Indian DNA gave her a touch of the exotic which I liked.

Ciri story was a bit all over the place. I liked the grandmother (the actress is only 44 so I forgive myself for thinking she was pretty hot for a grandmother), black elf I couldn't really get a handle on.

Kirun said:

Just finished episode 4. I have no fucking idea what the fuck just happened. All of a sudden Sonic the Hedgehog shows up and invokes "The Law of Surprise!"? It feels like I'm missing some massive context, because that entire sequence seemed like a bad acid trip and came out of nowhere. Am I just dumb and didn't pay attention to other parts of the episode, or can somebody explain wtf was going on?

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Duny was cursed as a child. Geralt had actually met him before and helped him, which is presumably why he defended him when Calanthe ordered him killed. Duny had previously saved the life of Calanthe's dead husband King Roegner, who offered him the law of surprise as payment not knowing that Calanthe was pregnant with Pavetta. They basically condensed 2-4 episodes worth of content down into a single episode.

You can read up more about the Law of Surprise online if you want, but I recommend not reading anything more about Duny.

Finally finished season 1, was a bit of a struggle the episodes and writing is so wildly uneven. Henry Cavill, the bard, and Lady Dumbledore (rector) are the only always good things about the show, the rest of the casting is meh to terrible and the writing is generally really bad. action scenes are ok, nothing amazing and sometimes its really bad, some of the sets/CGI/etc are really bad too.

Still, end of the day I'd say if you like the source stick with it, at least its only 8 episodes long. Really makes you appreciate Watchmen or Mr. Robot a lot more, this show also tries to run a bunch of stories all in parallel and throw in a lot of mystery and misdirects and tie them together at the end but whereas Watchmen really pulls it off by the end, this show fails absolutely miserably at it. I've read the books and played the game and I am still pretty confused as to who was where and what happened when. I wonder how many people realize there are multiple timelines and the causality of the show (law of surprise and its results, how Yennefer and Geralt are bound, how Ciri and Geralt are tied).

Its really bizarre why they tried to make everything so weird and complicated, the show would have been far better with a much simpler and straight forward story. Or Xena/Hercules style weekly adventures would have been fantastic, with a 10 minute finale that introduces Ciri and her potential.

Its extremely disappointing that in a show called The Witcher about 50% of the show time is spent on Yennefer and Ciri and the two of them in the show so far are pretty shit characters but I guess in 2020 its not that surprising that a show can't be mostly about a guy having adventures and banging sluts.

The writing room has begun on season 2 and the current showrunner is leading it so i doubt anything will change much

spronk said:

Its extremely disappointing that in a show called The Witcher about 50% of the show time is spent on Yennefer and Ciri and the two of them in the show so far are pretty shit characters but I guess in 2020 its not that surprising that a show can't be mostly about a guy having adventures and banging sluts.

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That's how the books (which the show is based on) are written. CDPR took things in their own (mostly superior) direction when they made the games revolve pretty much exclusively around Ser Geralt the Thirsty.

The episode with the dragon was so wildly telegraphed and eyeroll worthy at the reveal.

Ya, when he said "no, Gold dragons are rarest" and Geralt was all "lol, that's a myth", you knew the dude was a gold dragon.