To sum this up, it's not a straight up bad show, but a painfully mediocre one. Though if not for Cavill's brilliant portrayal of Geralt and the very obvious high production value of the show, maybe I would give this a 3. What they needed to do was to take it slow and do what they did in the first episode(which was the best of the season imo) i.e. start with Geralt's adventures and stories and build up the main narrative(a shorter, more focused one than what this show had) towards a longer season of 13 or 24 episodes. That gives us more time with the characters, and gives the writers more room for exposition and world building, which would have eventually resulted in a more coherent experience. For season 2, I'm hoping they would honor the Slavic foundations and the identity of the witcher series, improve writing and pacing, and deliver quality over quantity without a rush for completing the saga. They might need to change up the writing staff and rethink their decisions for this to happen; but looking at the fan reception of this season, I highly doubt that will happen.

Summing up...

Terrible writing, bad pacing, confusing timeline, no character development, lack of identity, but with a decent protagonist 🙄