I've never played the Witcher PC games, but I'm a big fan of the books. In the beginning of the first episode I was a bit... meh.. it was slightly dark and confusing and I wasn't sure what was going on. But by the end I was thoroughly enraptured.

The scenes are beautifully haunting, dark and gritty which makes the juxtaposition of certain illusion scenes all the more fantastic. The CGI monsters are quite literally, spectacular and not overused.

I'm not 100% sold on every actor choice as representative of the characters I have imagined in my mind for the last decade... but lets face it thats nigh on impossible to fulfill and more than likely after a few more episodes theirs are the faces I'll see when I close my eyes, as they are seriously pretty darn close.

In the current state of amazing TV actors we are exposed to, for something with this large a budget, my expectations are HIGH. and the acting for the most part is seriously on par and in some cases exceeding my expectations.

The story... well this is where for me it is very interesting. I can't speak for fans of the PC games who have never read the books.. but if you are a fan of the books (and you read them in the correct order ie. by date of publication) you will definitely appreciate the way they have gone about telling this version. They have taken aspects of the short stories themselves and the vast time spans between the stories and woven it all into a cohesive tale, just like the books did. Sometimes presenting stories from the distant past for you to now connect the dots to the events in the "current". AND I can't emphasize how much I am enjoying this style of story telling as it really does make me feel like I'm experiencing the books all over again. With additional parts of the story which were only ever hinted at, in the books (eg. Yennifer's back story)

As for the fight choreography. For some context, I'm a lifelong martial artist somewhere in the range of 35 years, with a fair bit of iaido\kendo experience in there. So I feel like I'm in a good position to call BS when necessary. But I'm also of the mind that a certain suspension of disbelief is sometimes necessary to enjoy stuff... *cough* *cough* GoT... Starwars lightsabers. With that out of the way.. let me just say.. the what can only be described as the sword fighting clinic on display at the end of the first episode not only surpassed EPIC, it was so smooth and well done, that I didn't even need my suspension of disbelief glasses on. That plus I felt the need to watch that scene 3 times in a row it was so beautifully choreographed.

Long story short.. is it perfect??? I think thats an impossible task given that it is competing with an image thats been in my head for a decade and they are playing around with some very beloved characters. But WOW, they got it amazingly close and absolutely nailed the cinematography and story telling aspects. And to be honest.. given enough time, whats in my head will most likely morph to match anyway.

SO big thank you to Henry Cavill and the rest of the cast for bringing Geralt and all their respective characters to life, and another big thank you to Netflix for taking a chance and giving this beloved story the love and attention to detail it deserves.