Could've worked as a horror series, which they get right here & there in both this series and the games. Take the swamp hut from the game, or the cliffside castle from s3: you know there's something awful in there, the witcher knows there's something awful in there... and sure enough there's something awful in there. Its like exploring the crawlspace under your house as a kid.

Exploring dread and wickedness, and the mental fortitude/delusion required to go through with it, could have easily filled out a few seasons with enough content to make us all fear the dark. Instead we get a relatively mild teen-chosen-one drama set in a tiresome fantasy backdrop, including a princess, a magic academy, feuding richpeople, and even a good old tolkienesque racewar.

Fight scenes were awkward, like there was a directorial conflict between fancy-dancy and realistic, and the outcomes seemed more luck than skill. Use of magic seemed heavily proscribed by budget, which was probably saved-up for one particular ep.

Vfx would have been OK in 2003: heaps of sunlit-but-overcast greenscreen shots & matte issues... though some of the simulation fx were great, especially the portals.

Stylistically, one thing that really bothered me more than anything else was the the grimy damp look, especially the witcher and bard: they desperately need a hose-down & vacation somewhere warm & sunny.

There was also too much magenta in the color grade, which makes (white) skin look colder & fleshier.

Subtle interactions between Roach and the cast were cute. We definitely need to see more of Roach, including a scene where the witcher is trying to get her down from the roof. Poor old Roach has seen things...