I think it is foolish and unthankful to compare this to GOT. It's just not that captivating. GOT's writing, except for the last season, was way more advanced. I almost dropped The Witcher midway through the pilot and am still thinking whether to continue. The characters are too shallow, naive and not given enough time to introduce properly. They just don't seem to have the weight and emotional hooks like GOT had.

Remember how GOT started? It started with one or two of the many subplots, it let us spent some time with a few people , to get to know them, it hinted at a mystery and something supernatural up North, then worked itself out from that point, introducing new characters and subplots at just the right time.

The Witcher feels like it spilled its entire guts in one episode, like one of those trailers that reveals too much. It really feels like a game with levels and we are at level 1, we already know it must progress to level 2, etc, with a lot of first person sword swinging and that makes it boring already.

Fine, if you enjoyed the game and liked the books, and are now enjoying the series, but The Witcher doesn't need to burden itself with GOT. That's a high bar, and judging by episode 1 this is starting out as another one of those Netflix high calorie/low fibre shows, that just resembles the GOT setting.