Review: The Witcher – Season 1 (Netflix)

I have neither read any of the Witcher books (see here) or played any of the video games, so I came to this show with very little background other than:

• The main character is a gruff, sexy, outcast magic guy
• He has baths

The Netflix series is something very close to an unholy mess: a mish mash of fantasy tropes, corny dialogue, cliches, and sudden tonal shifts. It veers from quippy modern-speak to faux grandiosity mid dialogue and has the inevitable quota of blood and boobs that defines post-Game of Thrones TV fantasy.

In short this show should be a disaster. Somehow it isn’t. I’m not saying it is great (and episodes 1 to 3 were very mixed) but it repeatedly somehow pulls itself together. The biggest flaw and strength is the very odd narrative structure that it adopts for most of the show. Not knowing what to expect it wasn’t initially clear in episode 1 and 2 that what you see is essentially three quite different fantasy TV shows that (at least initially) are unconnected other than being set in the same world.

Show 1, is literally “The Witcher”. Hunky Henry Cavill plays the white haird Geralt of Rivia — a ‘mutant’ (their choice of word) with supernatural powers who is a professional monster hunter. Show 1 works as a monster-of-the-week fantasy show crossed with a Western. The gruff loner walks into town, the locals beg him for help, things get complicated, he kills the complication, the locals resent him and he leaves. The status quo of Geralt as a monster hunter is established with some extra levity from his unwanted sidekick, the bard Jaskier.

Show 2, is quite different. Aiming more for the epic battle and downfall of kingdoms style of story line, we follow Cirilla the crown princess of the kingdom of Cintra as her fearsome grandmother fights (and loses) a war against the empire building Nilfgaardians.

Show 3 runs off on a different fantasy plot altogether, the bildungsroman tale of a poor girl who discovers she has magical powers, goes off to a mage-training school and must suffer to learn. Yennefer of Vengerberg is mistreated by her family because she has a severe curvature of the spine and finds herself recruited by a mysterious woman to train in the art of magic.

It’s only in episode 3 that there is a clearer sense that the each of these stories take place at different times and along different time scales. This narrative approach is surprisingly effective. Yennefer and Cirilla are not side characters but drive their own narratives. When the narratives start colliding, we already have met various characters at different times in their lives.

It’s a corny, cobbled together fantasy world with random monsters and costumes that wander from the Dark Ages to the Regency but the three-track story does lend the world a feeling of depth and complexity without huge amounts of exposition.

I know many fans of the show would already be familiar with the core characters but I found it refreshing that after episode 3, I really had no idea where Yennefer’s story was heading. Less good was the whole element of her being transformed from her physical disabilities. I assume this was a plot element from the books.

Episodes 4 to 8, where plot lines and backstories tangle together, were each quite compelling. Episode 4, “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials”, essentially begins the main story arc that we’ve already been watching setting a whole series of events in motion with a story about a banquet that has a very satisfying feel of a fairy tale.

So by the end of season 1 I learned that:

• The main character is a gruff, sexy, outcast magic guy
• He has baths
• His best friend is his horse and not the bard
• There are a whole bunch of far more interesting characters