The Witcher could have been an epic fantasy and I had high hopes as it seemed like Netflix put a lot of work in to make the series good. What I ended up witnessing was some cheesy show that reminded me of a bad fantasy you'd see in the 90s.

The Witcher is based off a series of books, the first being The Last Wish. I've only read the first book but am by no means a purist. Changes can be made to the source material and still work, as seen with LOTR. It's just that everything else has to be good and that's where the Witcher fails.

The overall production of the show is garbage despite the fact that it had a large budget of $70-$80 million. Where did all that money go? Many of the costumes are akin to something you'd find in a bargain Halloween store (looking at you, elves). CGI is also noticeably poor. The world doesn't feel real and it's hard to get immersed when so many things look fake. It's rather impressive that the show looks this awful with such a big budget.

The script could definitely use some work. The dialogue at times is hilariously bad, often making a scene that should be exciting turn into something more like a parody. And even the non-dialogue actions ruin battles, like someone taking their helmet off during war to make a cringe scream while being immune to enemies for 30 seconds, or kissing mid battle to unleash a powerful spell.

The show is structured in an odd way with different timelines. For me it wasn't too hard to follow but I have seen many others wondering what the hell is going on. The problem with the timelines is that they throw the pacing off. I think the show would've been better if it focused mostly on Geralt and his adventures as those were by far the best parts. For example, Geralt has a battle but then they show Yennefer's story in a strange attempt to parallel the two, despite the events not even being in the same timeline or connected in any way.

It looks like the show runners are listening to criticism and they said that season 2 will have a tighter story. I hope the show can utilize the budget to improve effects and that the writers can fix some of the bad dialogue. There's potential here, but unfortunately this first season falls short.

Edit 12/22: Well, looks like things aren't going well with the show...