As a fan of both the games and books, Netflix’s first season of The Witcher was everything I could have ever hoped for and more. Amazing casting, coupled with equally terrific acting and a faithful adaptation of the short stories and novels created by Andrzej Sapkowski, resulted in must-see TV.
Despite how much I enjoyed it, the show wasn’t without its flaws, though. And while they may not have been detrimental to my enjoyment of things, the mistakes that were made should be rectified in the second season… unless we want another Game of Thrones situation on our hands.
Pacing
I’ll be the first one to admit that while I enjoyed the different timelines, the pacing of the first season of The Witcher was a bit weird.
Even with the foresight of knowing when things occurred (thanks to reading the books), there were plenty of instances where I questioned the show’s chronological order.
For the longest time, I thought that Yennefer and Geralt’s timeline was running parallel. In reality, it was actually three separate periods of time mixed in sporadically.
Non-book readers I know were even more perplexed when the plot reached the later episodes as a result of the order of the scenes, causing a lot of confusion and throwing off the season’s pacing.
For season two, avoiding three different timelines, and flashbacks in general, would definitely help make the pace of things a lot less muddled.
Slipping in the random side story of Geralt’s contracts wouldn’t really deter things all too much if they did decide to go down that route, though focusing on the plot of the main novels would probably work best.
CGI
CGI is always kind of tough to rely on. When it works well, like on Game of Thrones, it looks fantastic but drains the budget for the show.
When it doesn’t work well, or doesn’t have proper funding, it looks unnatural and can ruin the ambiance.
For the most part, The Witcher doesn’t rely too heavily on using CGI for that reason. Instead, it focuses more on practical effects.
According to the producer Lauren Schmidt, this was deliberate, as they avoid using CGI to make things more authentic. This was made pretty clear during one portion of The Witcher when CGI was actually used.
The scene, in particular, I’m referring to is the Golden Dragon, Villentretenmerth, in episode six. The CGI was bad enough that it looked more like the 2001 Polish adaptation of the books, The Hexer.
Unnecessary Filler
Considering that the first season of The Witcher was essentially just adapting Sapkowski’s first collection of short stories, The Last Wish, it isn’t surprising that content was created to add to the runtime.
And while I enjoyed more of the aspects of the added side plots than I hated, there were still a lot of unnecessary things added that should be avoided in the next season.
The first scene that comes to mind involves Yennefer and the Aretuza students in episode seven.
The conversations, the drama, and even the editing for the scene felt straight out of The CW. It was all out of character and unnecessary – which is why it wasn’t in the book.
Other small instances of this occurred with interactions between Yennefer and Geralt, including their odd kiss mid-battle in episode six. Even if you use the logic that Geralt used her energy from the kiss to create the blast, it felt more like a superhero cliche than anything else.
Fight Choreography
Episode one of The Witcher set the bar ridiculously high in regards to its fight choreography.
Both the fight with the Kikimora and the one with Renfri and her gang were excellent, featuring wide shots and combat that was both satisfying and easy to follow.
As the season progressed, the fights became worse, though. Jump cuts and other overall lazy editing techniques, coupled with things like Yennefer using a sword instead of magic, really pulled me out of what should have been gripping encounters.
Next season really needs to rectify this and be more consistent with how the battles are shot, as well as how the characters in them fight in accordance with their personalities.
Give me more messy Kikimora swamp battles and calculated Striga fights and less generic, close-up sword combat, please.
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