By no means this is a bad show but given the potential of this universe and the characters, it was an opportunity to create one of the best shows ever. And this opportunity was wasted by pretty average writing and direction.

Apart from below par casting and sloppy CGI, there are too many issues with this season. The dialogs are cheesy and unintelligent. General conversations were not used to build the characters but cheesy lines were given to them to cement the type of characters they are. I couldn't help but think about the outstanding dialogs in GOT in initial seasons where people like little finger, Tyrion or Varys having a normal conversation felt like a masterpiece.

The universe is not explored at all. If you don't know about it from the books or the game, you'd basically have no clue what's going on. The show was way too focused on 3 characters and forgets to build up any other character. Ciri's storyline wasn't too bad. Henry Cavil as the Witcher was outstanding. He carried the show for me. Yennefer's storyline was super-boring and uninteresting (the way they showed it). Other than these 3, no other character was given a chance to develop. They showed the deaths of some characters in a dramatic and emotional way but I couldn't care less because I didn't know these characters. Jaskier was good though.

In a nutshell, it's a HUGE potential wasted as they can't start over now.