The Witcher 3 is my favorite game on this generation of systems. The books are incredible. I LOVE this property. I'll try and be fair in my review because I love it, but I definitely will not begrudge anyone their complaints or issues with this season, because there are a few well founded complaints. Since I'm a huge nerd my review will be explaining certain things. I'll start with what I think can be improved. First and foremost is the confusion combination of timelines (which, if they follow the books, should be over). Ciris storyline happens in the "present", Geralts about 30 years prior, and Yennefers about 60 years prior, all moving through time and meeting up and converging in episode 8. They try to show this naturally in dialogue and by referencing events so it feels natural but it just wasn't made clear. I am very familiar with the series and wasn't sure exactly how they were handling g things at time.

Next, I feel the camera work and script could use some reworking. The camera work makes the show feel a little cheaper than I'm sure it is. And the script and character actions feel random or unmotivated. That's from the fact that season 1 covers 12 short stories crammed into 8 episodes. This should be a lot better going forward because everything is one story.

This is also a HUGE cast and it will be Game of Thrones-ish with tons of characters, political affiliations and inevitable betrayals. Get used to that part, that part won't change.

Now, the stuff they get VERY right. Henry Cavil is great. Gruff, slightly funny, interesting way of explaining what Witcher's are and how they arent quite human. Yennefer is fantastic, and by episode 3 I feel she is a well formed, strong intriguing character. Ciri is similarly interesting and her transformation from naive royalty to nihilistic refugee is interesting. The action is pretty great and the scope is pretty good, with Nilfgaard feeling like truly terrifying invaders.

Overall, I completely understand this season being crapped on, the show runners had a huge uphill battle to set the world up. But great characters and action, and the setting up of a complex well realized world make it well worth the watch and the problems in this season should be fixed going forward.