Thoughts on The Witcher (Netflix)

Witcher or Wiedźmin is a famous Polish book series that has gotten several adaptation over the years. The games have been a huge international success where as the tv show not so much. Now finally in 2019 we have the new Netflix adaptation that aims to faithfully adapt the story for binge hungry modern audience. Does it succeed? Well, yes if you considered limping to the finish line a success. 

Before everything, a context on what type of fan I am is necessary. This is because what your experience with the show will be is dependant on what you expect and what you already know. I’m a huge fan of the whole trilogy of games and consider the 3^rd entry to be among my favorite games. I’m also a big fan of the books although I have not finished all the novels. That said despite my previous investment in the franchise, I went in with a fresh mind. I firmly believe an adaptation doesn’t have to be exactly similar to the source material as long as it can hold up by itself.

Also except for one section, this review is spoiler free.

Let’s start with the positives.

The acting is surprisingly very good. I’ll be honest and admit that I was very skeptical when the casting was announced but not only is the acting good they actually made the lead trio of Geralt, Yeneffer and Ciri look faithful to the books. That’s not to say there’s not problem but we’ll get to that later.

The atmosphere and color palate are pretty great. It’s appropriately colorful when the location calls for it and fittingly muted when the situation turns grim. The set design and location choices are usually well made too though there was 1 particular scene that I felt was a bit too obviously CGI. The music is also well made and adds to the mood, Zaskier’s ballads being very catchy.

Fight choreography for sword fights are really good, the first episode being a standout. I have heard that Henry Cavill did most sword fights himself so that deserves special commendation. It’s obvious through out the show that Henry was committed to the role.

If you wanted to enjoy this show just a fun piece of fantasy entertainment and not think too much on the details of story, it's a very fun to show to watch. But the moment you start thinking about if the plot details make sense, then the flaws get magnified.

Even from the first episode you can tell that the show is trying to put it’s own unique style to the story. I understand different mediums has different strengths and each should play to it’s strength but The Witcher changes story details just for the sake of it. There’s almost no change that benefits the story and only serves to make events seem contrived.

Let’s talk about two changes that could have been good, the multiple timeline to give a sense of over arching story from the beginning and original backstory to Yeneffer. This makes a sense in concept since in the books, there’s only short stories connected by an unrelated over arching story to the main novels. But the problem the show runs into is the 2 lead characters do not age. When your main focus of the story doesn’t change, people not familiar with the source would get confused, as many were. Yeneffer’s backstory is kept mysterious in the books and while that works, making new comers care about the character with a tragic backstory seems good in concept too.

But that’s the problem, it’s all good in concept but not in execution at all. Multiple timelines are not only confusing but also take away from the length of the stories. Yeneffer’s backstory in it’s attempt to make her likable instead makes her come off as a special unique character, which she is not.
A powerful imposing rebellious witch? Yes, but not much more special than her peers.

In order to better illustrate my point on show changes from the books are unnecessary and hurt the story I will talk about episode 1 in detail.

[Episode 1 spoilers]

I had read about the books many years ago and after watching the first episode I felt like something was really off, maybe the book stories weren’t as good I remember? So to confirm my suspicion I went back to read the “Lesser Evil” story, and it all became clear. Like they say, devil’s in the details and while the show adapted a surface level version of the story with some changes, it missed the heart of the story. An important character in the book version of this story is the Alderman which the show completely removes and instead chooses to introduce Renfri early.
For lack of time it makes sense the removal of alderman’s character cause he doesn’t contribute to the plot. But the show’s problem is what it substitutes in his place doesn’t do the job at all, specially since Alderman is the connecting thread in the plot elements. Plus it even removes the humorous fairy tale connections which is a staple in the books and a big charm of the stories.

Alderman is the one that invites Geralt into the village and his house, even when the villagers didn’t like him. Geralt for all his “don’t get involved” policy is very loyal to his friends and has a strong sense of justice. This is why he stays in the village and tries to make sure nothing goes wrong, and this is reason entirely missing in the show. Then after learning of Renfri’s curse Geralt has a long conversation of with Renfri which is severely cut down in the show. Which turn makes the whole situation feel very rushed and like an overcompensation cherry on a mistake cake, the show makes Geralt have romantic sex with her which implied romantic connection which feels even more rushed. In comparison in the books they have casual sex.
After this the show tries to make a contrived excuse to get involved in the revenge plot which ends in bloody battle, an amazingly choreographed battle being the high of the show. This is contrast to the book where the high light is the tragedy of Renfri’s circumstance and how Geralt’s policy of not taking sides lands him in more trouble and he should be in.

Even if we ignore all this problems in the plot, the show shoves in 3 different plotlines or different timelines in a single episode making the whole pacing of the story incredibly off.

[Spoiler End]

Just like the 1^st episode every episode has problems of unnecessary changes and poor pacing. Not to mention all the character changes like Jaskier is changed from a charismatic humorous bard that has long introspective conversation with Geralt into a mumbling comic relief. 

The monster fights are almost as bad as the human sword fights are good. Plus some of the CGI monsters look really bad, specially the golden dragon which looks like a malnourished chicken. But I can ignore short comings like that due to lack of budget. This is the only the first season after all. Technical short comings can improve with bigger budgets. But story changes and poor writing is hard to overcome.

Poor writing is poor writing. Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred.
If I’m to choose between one flaw and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.

There’s a chance second season would be better since the plot should be more linear but I’m very skeptical. There’s just too much wrong with the writing in first season to be fixed easily. But we can all hope right?