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Witcher (TV Series; Netflix)

I loved the Witcher game series by CD Projekt Red, especially the last installment Witcher 3, which is still a better game in all respects than anything else presently on the market, and is a classic imo.

The book series is fun. I only became interested in the books after completing the first Witcher game after buying it in the bargain bin at my game store back in the day. The various stories did weave a compelling narrative and world, with many interesting and well written characters with very earthy dialogue. No doubt it is even more compelling in Polish.

Finally to the TV series. The brief wasn't hard. The game has a worldwide following and is a brilliant evocation of the solid groundwork provided by the books. So, bring that world to life for a larger audience, and the newbies won't know any better, and the fanbase will be appeased. This, they did not do. Casting is a mess and is very immersion breaking. There are a couple of bad examples of costuming too. The worst thing about the series is the completely disjointed and broken timeline. It isn't hard to tell a story sequentially so it makes sense, rather than making unannounced leaps into the past so that the audience will have no hope of following what is going on unless they have read the books. In short, the writing is pretty bad, and obvious devices such as the use of Jaskier (aka Dandelion) the bard as a narrator to explain the continuity are not used, despite the comic potential. The upsides are that Cavill is surprisingly good in the role of Geralt, and the special effects budget has produced some good looking spells and monsters. In summary, I don't hate the series, but I am not in love with it either, and I'm far more interested with the next interpretation CD Projekt Red do of the Witcher universe than I am of the Netflix offering, which I give a C+ to.
 
I loved the Witcher game series by CD Projekt Red, especially the last installment Witcher 3, which is still a better game in all respects than anything else presently on the market, and is a classic imo.

The book series is fun. I only became interested in the books after completing the first Witcher game after buying it in the bargain bin at my game store back in the day. The various stories did weave a compelling narrative and world, with many interesting and well written characters with very earthy dialogue. No doubt it is even more compelling in Polish.

Finally to the TV series. The brief wasn't hard. The game has a worldwide following and is a brilliant evocation of the solid groundwork provided by the books. So, bring that world to life for a larger audience, and the newbies won't know any better, and the fanbase will be appeased. This, they did not do. Casting is a mess and is very immersion breaking. There are a couple of bad examples of costuming too. The worst thing about the series is the completely disjointed and broken timeline. It isn't hard to tell a story sequentially so it makes sense, rather than making unannounced leaps into the past so that the audience will have no hope of following what is going on unless they have read the books. In short, the writing is pretty bad, and obvious devices such as the use of Jaskier (aka Dandelion) the bard as a narrator to explain the continuity are not used, despite the comic potential. The upsides are that Cavill is surprisingly good in the role of Geralt, and the special effects budget has produced some good looking spells and monsters. In summary, I don't hate the series, but I am not in love with it either, and I'm far more interested with the next interpretation CD Projekt Red do of the Witcher universe than I am of the Netflix offering, which I give a C+ to.

Spot-on review. The disjointed chronology is what's bugging me the most. I even had to check whether episode 7 had been broadcast in the wrong order, as it made little sense.
I have no problems with Cavill, whose semi-detached emotions and occasional grumpiness seems just like the Witcher 3 game.
 
Aargh the plank walk never never ever would be that mad :omg:

If you watch closely, the young woman in the pink coat at 4:30 removes BOTH of her safety ropes to get past him. There is a scream but I'm sure she didn't fall, but just realised how dangerous a situation she was in.
 
It turns out there's a russian version of Toss A Coin To Your Witcher. I like that one better.

There seems to be a great love for the dreadful song in the series. The chorus is quite catchy, but generally I think the song's awful, and I think it's supposed to be awful.
 
There seems to be a great love for the dreadful song in the series. The chorus is quite catchy, but generally I think the song's awful, and I think it's supposed to be awful.

All the songs in the game are awful, but Dandelion (the bard) is supposed to be rubbish. He's the comic relief.
 
All the songs in the game are awful, but Dandelion (the bard) is supposed to be rubbish. He's the comic relief.
That's what I thought. People seem to like Toss a Coin ironically.
 
Some filming apparently going on in Hawley Woods around 3 miles from where I live.
Rumour on the local network is that they're filming some scenes for series 2 of The Witcher!
I may have to pop down there to have a look!
 
Finally to the TV series. The brief wasn't hard. The game has a worldwide following and is a brilliant evocation of the solid groundwork provided by the books. So, bring that world to life for a larger audience, and the newbies won't know any better, and the fanbase will be appeased. This, they did not do.

I think I'd have to broadly disagree with that.

Granted, yes, I'm a huge fan of the games (The Wild Hunt remains the best game of this current console generation even several years after its release) but I have also read the books.

And it needs to be made very clear this is not an adaptation of the games, nor was it ever intended to be. The games (while brilliant) have taken a number of liberties from the books, rearranged a number of events, changed the appearances of certain characters. It works in that context, but it is not a 100% faithful adaptation.

There are some liberties taken in the Netflix adaptation, too. In particular, the timeline has been changed to bring a much longer period of time between the earlier Witcher stories (which form the majority of the stories in Season 1) and Ciri's entrance into the saga much closer together. In the books there are decades between those two points. For the sake of a more coherent story arc that has been shortened to years.

I personally feel that in terms of the material being adapted, while it may not be perfect? It's largely pretty faithful. It's just that the games do some things very different to the books.


Casting is a mess and is very immersion breaking. There are a couple of bad examples of costuming too.

Can I question what it is which you find immersion breaking? Again I don't really see anything which jars dramatically with the books.

There are some episodes where clearly the budget only goes so far. I will say that I was somewhat disappointed with the adaptation of The Edge of the World - the first encounter with the Aen Seidhe elves, and the 'divil' plaguing the village. In the books this is a very funny and important story, and it has not been adapted well. The Sylvan should have been a huge lumbering horned beast. A huge monster talking in a broad and comedic regional accent, kicking Geralt up the arse, and being physically imposing. The rubber-faced guy, of ordinary height and stature smaller than Cavil, did not achieve that. Here things looked like we were back in the 90s, watching Xena Warrior Princess.

It really undersold the Aen Seidhe too. While they should clearly seen to be a fallen people, they should still possess a sense of grace and poise in rags. The whole episode looked a little too cheap.

But broadly I would say that the casting has been very good. MyAnna Buring's Tissaia, and Lars Mikkelsen's Stregabor, in particular. Jodhi May's Queen Calanthe too.

I honestly did have some concerns in the prepublicity over Anya Chalotra as Yennefer but was quite pleasantly surprised with how she grew the character across the course of the series. I think she works well.

I do understand some of the to reaction to Triss (who, to be fair, we have seen very little of so far) but again I would make it clear that this has largely been in relation to liberties which have been taken by CD Projekt Red. Triss has very much been their pinup girl. But the likeness they have, of a pale and staunchly caucasian woman, with pillarbox red hair, green eyes and a heaving bosom is a pure invention of the games.

The Triss of the books does not match that description.

In the books Triss has hazel coloured hair and eyes. Her skin tone is never mentioned. And Anna Shaffer may be a mixed race actress, but she doesn't clash with the source material, only with the expectation of those who played the games. I'm sure that the decision was taken to make a clearer distinction in the games between her and Yen. But really that is CD Projekt Red's change.


The worst thing about the series is the completely disjointed and broken timeline. It isn't hard to tell a story sequentially so it makes sense, rather than making unannounced leaps into the past so that the audience will have no hope of following what is going on unless they have read the books.

I've heard this argument a lot. But I honestly think that it's a bit of a lazy argument to make. Non-linear timelines have been a storytelling technique which has been so very commonplace in television for the past 20 years. It's not a big ask of the viewer to realise that what they are seeing may not be in sequence. I twigged it by episode 3.

I would also point out, again, that the books themselves are not laid out chronologically. We do leap between time periods. It isn't always abundantly obvious where stories take place in relation to each other. The reader has order a timeline themselves. So does the viewer.

In short, the writing is pretty bad, and obvious devices such as the use of Jaskier (aka Dandelion) the bard as a narrator to explain the continuity are not used, despite the comic potential.

You say obvious, but again I have to question whether that is because this is exactly how the games do it. :) The books do not.


The upsides are that Cavill is surprisingly good in the role of Geralt, and the special effects budget has produced some good looking spells and monsters. In summary, I don't hate the series, but I am not in love with it either, and I'm far more interested with the next interpretation CD Projekt Red do of the Witcher universe than I am of the Netflix offering, which I give a C+ to.

I'm not actually sure that CD Projeckt Red are planning more Witcher games. The third seemed very much intended as a finale, and they're now ploughing all efforts into Cyberpunk.

I do know what you mean, though. I'm not in love with it either. But I like it a lot. I think it's a very promising start. But it does need some improvements.
 
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I have just been rewatching the series. I feel it's better than I gave it credit for. There are politics and character motivations that I probably missed the first time.
 
Earlier this year the Teesdale Mercury* in Barnard Castle, County Durham ran a story about High Force and Low Force waterfalls being closed to the public.
This wasn't to do with lockdown, security guards had been deployed and one keen-eyed reporter spotted a camera crew. Rumours about Henry Cavill being seen out and about in the Durham Dales and the Lake District were confirmed.
One security guard admitted it was a Netflix production, after a thorough grilling by one of the Mercury's finest.

Sky filmed a few scenes from the last series of Britannia at High Force.

* their website is very basic and not worth searching. I saw this story in actual print!
 
Earlier this year the Teesdale Mercury* in Barnard Castle, County Durham ran a story about High Force and Low Force waterfalls being closed to the public.
This wasn't to do with lockdown, security guards had been deployed and one keen-eyed reporter spotted a camera crew. Rumours about Henry Cavill being seen out and about in the Durham Dales and the Lake District were confirmed.
One security guard admitted it was a Netflix production, after a thorough grilling by one of the Mercury's finest.

Sky filmed a few scenes from the last series of Britannia at High Force.

* their website is very basic and not worth searching. I saw this story in actual print!

The waterfall at Bastard Castle cures blindness.
 
Hmmmm. I’m not sure whether I’m wrong on this or the canary in the coal mine. My issue with the first series was the lack of population in the world. So far the first 2 episodes continue the theme. Sparsely populated villages with no other inhabitants than those necessary to the plot. It’s understandable in a video game where they can only use so many assets but in this day and age (old man vernacular alert) It just looks cheap on TV. Like a rep theatre production or a scenarios on the polystyrene planets of TOS Star Trek.

That and I don’t think Cavill is all that good as Witcher. It’s like he’s filling in time waiting for something better to turn up.

I can’t put my finger on exactly what’s going wrong but it seems weird, it all feels empty.
 
TV-shows need to save money too.
I read the first Witcher book and found it a bit dull. The second series seems to share some of the storyline, as well as the dullness.
 
Ironically, they seemed to run out of footprints suddenly disappearing. There really should have been more of a trail in the snow. Suspense, narrative, storytelling. All that.
 
I finished binge watching season 2 today. I really enjoy this show. I might be a little bias because I think Henry Cavill is so very hot that I didn't think he was bad as the Witcher. I thought he did a great job because he is suppose to be void of emotional feelings, right? I thought he was going to be a lot like Spock from Star Trek, but he isn't, he actually has a lot of people in his life that he genuinely cares about.

Lots of interesting characters in this show. That guy who sings all the time had me laughing out loud quite a few times. There is going to be a season 3, I hate the thought of having to wait so long to see it.
 
Just watched episode 3.
In one scene, Frindabair tells fellow elf Filavandrel to "Go. Eat meat and be happy!"

I assumed that these Elves, rather like Tolkien's, who seemed to live quite happily on berries, mushrooms and Lembas bread, were vegetarian.
Doesn't feel quite right to picture elves ripping into a suckling pig, with grease dripping down their chins.
 
The only Veggie in JRRT was a mortal.

Not seen the series but I did enjoy the book, I wouldnt call the writer skilled but he has a way of telling a story so that you dont quite know what will happen until the end.

And a good knowledge of folklore. This is not generic fantasy.
 
Just watched episode 3.
In one scene, Frindabair tells fellow elf Filavandrel to "Go. Eat meat and be happy!"

I assumed that these Elves, rather like Tolkien's, who seemed to live quite happily on berries, mushrooms and Lembas bread, were vegetarian.
Doesn't feel quite right to picture elves ripping into a suckling pig, with grease dripping down their chins.
You can't take anything for granted when it comes to elves. They live in the woods and are accomplished archers, presumably not for shooting mushrooms or berries off trees.

On the whole, I liked the second season of The Witcher. I don't really like the utter de-mythologising of elves in modern fantasy, until they're just folk with pointed ears. Even Tolkien managed to maintain some ethereal mystery and otherness to elves. Much like the aliens in Star Trek, elves in The Witcher have become an analogy for race, without having to wade into real world race related issues. Which is understandable since fantasy movies and series really don't know what to do with race. But it's a shame to lose the folkloric mystery of elves. Just my thoughts.
 
The only Veggie in JRRT was a mortal.

Apart from the Laiquendi, or Green-elves, of Ossiriand, who appear to be vegetarian, as they despised hunting. They complained to the elf lord Finrod Felagund about Men:

"... these folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends ...".
 
I’m up to episode 3 and it is soooooo boring.
It doesn’t help that the audio renders the dialogue inaudible in places.
 
I think the Green elves were talking about `hunting beasts they believe belong to them`.

Its their land and a bunch of city Noldor come thrashing in, running round on horses, blowing horns, and running dogs everywhere...

...And we know what a silly racket Noldor hounds make; anyone would think they were yappy lap dogs...

Also they have a whole army of retainers to beat through the woods and scare all the game for miles.

Its like Orcs but with more style and much more entitlement.

But the result is the same; no food and its not like Green elves have farms.
 
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