Fantasy Netflix's The Witcher - General Discussion Thread

[DeadPresident]

I’m struggling to see merit to any serious lambasting of the series. I felt like the middle episodes were a little shaky - but the season ended brilliantly and the final three episodes particularly were really great.

After watching some streaming of Witcher 3 gameplay I feel like Cavill’s iteration of Geralt is pretty good, the voice is quite a good take and his acting is decent - not sure why there was a storm in a teacup over that.

Overall a solid foundation for them to build on and I can definitely see it being quite popular, hopefully the next season has an increased number of episodes.

 

[LoganGambit87]

holy crap EW deserves to be dragged for their review even the showrunner blasted them on twitter

how you gonna negatively review a tv show when you admit you watched episode 1 then skipped to the finale in your review

 

[Legendver2]

Didn’t need realise this was only 8 episodes

It's comparable to most 10 episode HBO/Showtime series though, seeing as Witcher episodes are legit 60+ minutes, with the exception of ep 7 at 47 min. That's about an extra 10+ minute of show time compared to a typical episode on Showtime or HBO. So really it's about 9 episodes length plus some minutes if you put it all together in comparison to the premium cable shows.

 

[Legendver2]

I’m struggling to see merit to any serious lambasting of the series. I felt like the middle episodes were a little shaky - but the season ended brilliantly and the final three episodes particularly were really great.

I had a similar issue with s1 of GoT. I was entirely new to the world, never read the books, and there were no games bout it that I can even familiarize myself with, so I had a hard time keeping up with the slow burn of politics and drama until that last episode when they executed Ned. Then things just got turned up to 11 from then on. I'm sure a majority of viewers probably had a similar experience, since the series didn't explode until season 3 or so, there was probably a lot of word of mouth to get new viewers to sit through the iniital 8 episodes of season 1. I know I had to do it for a couple of my friends.

Witcher seems to have a bit of that going on, and I'm sure most new series with big lore behind it as well, since it takes time to build up to that properly. Although Witcher had the advantage of more fantasy elements in the monster sequences in between the slow burn until the last 3 eps.

the voice is quite a good take and his acting is decent - not sure why there was a storm in a teacup over that.

The voice does take some getting used to, since we all know it's not natural for Cavill. I legit thought it was bad acting and too try hard, until by episode 3 for me. Since I've never heard Cavill speak that way, it was almost like him doing an impression of Bale as Batman lol.

 

[MeenieWK]

I’m struggling to see merit to any serious lambasting of the series. I felt like the middle episodes were a little shaky - but the season ended brilliantly and the final three episodes particularly were really great.

After watching some streaming of Witcher 3 gameplay I feel like Cavill’s iteration of Geralt is pretty good, the voice is quite a good take and his acting is decent - not sure why there was a storm in a teacup over that.

Overall a solid foundation for them to build on and I can definitely see it being quite popular, hopefully the next season has an increased number of episodes.

You’ll always have your ... not as good as the books crowd
And because of the genre, the... its not GoT crowd
And then the click bait on line reviewers are just looking for traffic
And then the edgy bunch who can’t like anything that isn’t “high art”

unfortunatly

 

[Black Narcissus]

Finished it.

Eh, a jerry springer type highfantasy. I will continue to watch when season 2 comes on. Some of the cgi/cinematography is still iffy to me, which I don't understand... Netflix has money.

 

[heatvision38]

Starting a re-watch knowing the whole story now. Just finished Ep 1 again and I found it more potent and I've noticed things I didn't notice before.

 

[TheVileOne]

holy crap EW deserves to be dragged for their review even the showrunner blasted them on twitter

how you gonna negatively review a tv show when you admit you watched episode 1 then skipped to the finale in your review

Didn't skip to the finale, just episode 5. Only 5 episodes were provided in the review screeners.

 

[TheVileOne]

it's nice to come up with possibilities but somehow I doubt that's the reason.

It's not rocket science. I would say a lot of actors are simply private about their private parts and are skittish about appearing nude onscreen. Emilia Clarke has talked about it and how producers have tried to persuade her into appearing nude onscreen when she was reluctant to do so.

 

[DeadPresident]

I had a similar issue with s1 of GoT. I was entirely new to the world, never read the books, and there were no games bout it that I can even familiarize myself with, so I had a hard time keeping up with the slow burn of politics and drama until that last episode when they executed Ned. Then things just got turned up to 11 from then on. I'm sure a majority of viewers probably had a similar experience, since the series didn't explode until season 3 or so, there was probably a lot of word of mouth to get new viewers to sit through the iniital 8 episodes of season 1. I know I had to do it for a couple of my friends.

A key thing you've touched on there is the power of investment in a show over time. I think a lot of folks are hastily cementing their opinions on this show based on its first season, and I'd be very curious to know what their opinions were about GoT after its first season. It's a little disingenuous for folks to compare S1 of The Witcher to the established fandom of GoT after like 8 seasons or whatever it ended up being.

If the Witcher is given 2-4 seasons worth of material I'd be curious to see whether the flagrant criticism changes.

Witcher seems to have a bit of that going on, and I'm sure most new series with big lore behind it as well, since it takes time to build up to that properly. Although Witcher had the advantage of more fantasy elements in the monster sequences in between the slow burn until the last 3 eps.

The voice does take some getting used to, since we all know it's not natural for Cavill. I legit thought it was bad acting and too try hard, until by episode 3 for me. Since I've never heard Cavill speak that way, it was almost like him doing an impression of Bale as Batman lol.

I was kind of in the same boat. In the first couple of episodes I accepted it but I also thought "Hmm, interesting choice, not sure about it" but having watched until the last episode now I can't picture him doing the role without the voice - so I have no idea why there was such a vehement reaction to it from certain quarters. It seems totally fine and I actually dig it now.

You’ll always have your ... not as good as the books crowd
And because of the genre, the... its not GoT crowd
And then the click bait on line reviewers are just looking for traffic
And then the edgy bunch who can’t like anything that isn’t “high art”

unfortunatly

Yeah - can't satisfy all of the people all of the time, but overall the reaction seems to be quite positive. I have no idea which tree a few of the critics fell out of with the patently detached reviews I'm seeing on a certain aggregator site.

 

[DeadPresident]

Also - I call bull**** on all the virtue signaling about the nudity in the Witcher; considering A) Its direct competitor in GoT had rape, nudity, and incest displayed on screen and somehow that's a universally lauded favorite, and B) Its been a standard occurrence in R-rated series for some time. Out of curiosity, where was the pearl-clutching when Drogo was raping what is generally described as a teenage Daenarys on screen…?

It's not even exclusive to GoT, there are tons of R-rated series that have a shedload of sex and nudity and I can't remember any of them being raked over the coals for it. I'm not the tinfoil hat type but I feel like a lot of people had their knives out for the Witcher before it even released and instead of changing their minds just tried to dig the knife in for whatever arbitrary reason they could find.

 

[Zorro]

Some good episodes but overall just alright. Interested in a possible season 2 but they need to improve as much as they can.

The nudity and sex is an issue? Don't know about the books but they happen in the games

 

[BlackFox]

Episode 3 was something straight out of Witcher 3...
Amazing

thoroughly enjoying this, casting, performances and production are great

Just rewatched this, its totally perfect in everyway of what I wanted from a live action Witcher program, I hope we get more like this, horror like,episodes in the future. The monster design and body transformation was really well done. The creature was something out of The Fly/Alien, not a CGI mess like a lot of films end up doing.

Its a shame some of the other creature werent done so well.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

It's comparable to most 10 episode HBO/Showtime series though, seeing as Witcher episodes are legit 60+ minutes, with the exception of ep 7 at 47 min. That's about an extra 10+ minute of show time compared to a typical episode on Showtime or HBO. So really it's about 9 episodes length plus some minutes if you put it all together in comparison to the premium cable shows.

Oh I wasn’t complaining, just thought it would be ten episodes at least and surprised I am so close to the end.

 

[TheVileOne]

Also - I call bull**** on all the virtue signaling about the nudity in the Witcher; considering A) Its direct competitor in GoT had rape, nudity, and incest displayed on screen and somehow that's a universally lauded favorite, and B) Its been a standard occurrence in R-rated series for some time. Out of curiosity, where was the pearl-clutching when Drogo was raping what is generally described as a teenage Daenarys on screen…?

It's not even exclusive to GoT, there are tons of R-rated series that have a shedload of sex and nudity and I can't remember any of them being raked over the coals for it. I'm not the tinfoil hat type but I feel like a lot of people had their knives out for the Witcher before it even released and instead of changing their minds just tried to dig the knife in for whatever arbitrary reason they could find.

Same thing happened with Goblin Slayer, but like with Goblin Slayer, it was generally isolated to a few idiotic yahoos.

 

[TheVileOne]

In terms of criticism, even while I was fine with the non-linear narrative structure, I found it a bit jarring that the sacking of Cintra happens so quickly in the first season. I would've held it off until at least the second episode. Build it up a bit more to ratchet up the tension. Really, I think the show probably could've used maybe 1 or 2 more episodes this season just to let some things breathe out a little more. For example, the mage Sabrina is fairly one note and devoid of character here.

The way the Doppler subplot ended was kinda anti-climactic. Edge of the World subplot just abruptly ends and we don't actually see what happens with Geralt, Jaskier, and Filavandrel.

Not really sold on casting for Triss, Cahir, and Fringilla yet. I see what they are doing with Cahir, but they made it seem a little too sociopathic at the start. And his armor was awful. We saw very little of Vilgefortz, so it's sort of too early for me to pass an opinion on him. I kind of hoped a more prolific character actor would've gotten to play Vilgefortz as he's a very pivotal character.

 

[Legendver2]

Also - I call bull**** on all the virtue signaling about the nudity in the Witcher; considering A) Its direct competitor in GoT had rape, nudity, and incest displayed on screen and somehow that's a universally lauded favorite, and B) Its been a standard occurrence in R-rated series for some time. Out of curiosity, where was the pearl-clutching when Drogo was raping what is generally described as a teenage Daenarys on screen…?

It's not even exclusive to GoT, there are tons of R-rated series that have a shedload of sex and nudity and I can't remember any of them being raked over the coals for it. I'm not the tinfoil hat type but I feel like a lot of people had their knives out for the Witcher before it even released and instead of changing their minds just tried to dig the knife in for whatever arbitrary reason they could find.

We got shows like Dexter that shows people getting cut up into parts, but people are pearl clutching on a little boob and butt action. Really shows how messed up priorities of some reviewers/viewers are in terms of censors.

Just rewatched this, its totally perfect in everyway of what I wanted from a live action Witcher program, I hope we get more like this, horror like,episodes in the future. The monster design and body transformation was really well done. The creature was something out of The Fly/Alien, not a CGI mess like a lot of films end up doing.

Its a shame some of the other creature werent done so well.

I'm indifferent about the CGI atm, since even with a large budget, it still takes a few seasons for CGI to really nail it in most series. Even GoT's CGI were pretty crap in the early seasons. The baby dragons looked like something from the SyFy channel until about season 3. Granted, GoT didn't have too many fantastical elements until the latter seasons, so the bad CGI isn't noticed since there's a lack of it.

 

[Lilbaz]

Also - I call bull**** on all the virtue signaling about the nudity in the Witcher; considering A) Its direct competitor in GoT had rape, nudity, and incest displayed on screen and somehow that's a universally lauded favorite, and B) Its been a standard occurrence in R-rated series for some time. Out of curiosity, where was the pearl-clutching when Drogo was raping what is generally described as a teenage Daenarys on screen…?

It's not even exclusive to GoT, there are tons of R-rated series that have a shedload of sex and nudity and I can't remember any of them being raked over the coals for it. I'm not the tinfoil hat type but I feel like a lot of people had their knives out for the Witcher before it even released and instead of changing their minds just tried to dig the knife in for whatever arbitrary reason they could find.

Loads of people complained about the nudity in got. Didn't mind the gore though. Never understood that.

 

[RockSP]

I only know about The Witcher through briefly watching my homeboy play one of the games a few years ago. He probably mentioned it was based on some books, but I don't remember. Point being I had no expectations whatsoever going into the show. I find it enjoyable enough. Brings to mind some of the old fantasy movies I used to watch on hbo as kid: Krull, The Sword and the Sorcerer, etc. Those films weren't great (or even all that good lol) but they were entertaining (at least at the time. I should revisit them just for laughs) and this show seems to fall in that category from what I've seen so far (3 eps in).

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Rewatched it and still love it.

There's definitely room for improvement but I'm in.

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Did they miss any of the short stories? I wonder if they're just going to stick to the novels from now on.

 

[Punisher_MAX]

Cavill is growing on me but his delivery is still nowhere near as good as game Geralt.

The sacking of Cintra should've been the last episode but cutting out Geralt meeting Ciri in Brokilon and how underwhelming The Last Wish was really hurts this season.

Ep 3 was good.

Also absolutely hate the Triss and Fringilla casting but have come around to Yen and do like Ciri.

 

[Legendver2]

I love that episode 3 was practically an extended version of this trailer:

Spoiler

 

[heatvision38]

Question about Tissaia turning some of the students into eels... did those students volunteer (knowing that was their best way to serve) or did she straight up essentially kill them? They didn't seem to freak out when the first one got turned, they just calmly stood there. Did they see it as doing their part?

 

[Legendver2]

Question about Tissaia turning some of the students into eels... did those students volunteer (knowing that was their best way to serve) or did she straight up essentially kill them? They didn't seem to freak out when the first one got turned, they just calmly stood there. Did they see it as doing their part?

I remember she mentioned there was 2 types of mages to Yen: ones who are unemotional and in control of their emotions, and ones who are emotional like herself and Yen. I figured those 3 were the unemotional ones so they know their roles as conduits.