What the first season lacked in depth it made up for in world-building and character charm. The second season lacks all three, unfortunately.

Somehow "The Witcher" manages to be cliche and baffling at the same time, with a strange combination of fantasy jargon to impart how Big and Important and Terrifying the stakes are, without actually articulating why we should care. This is a problem throughout: narrative shorthand. I feel like the writers assume the audience will do their job for them, like we will accept the threat without delivery of stakes, will we swallow the increasingly-wobbly political plotline without getting any actual details or fallout of it, and we will accept that some characters are in love despite not actually ever appearing to be.

I wanted to like the second season: the first was fun if a little lacklustre in the story department, but the ramping up of tension with no solid end point and too many plot lines to sustain itself left me exhausted and frustrated. It needn't be clever, it just needs to stop trying to be if it can't follow through. I don't care about the war, I don't believe that the world is on the brink of collapse, and I don't feel any emotion at character deaths because the show has too many of them with not enough development for it to feel weighty.

I would also add that there is nowhere near enough Jaskier in Season 2, which was admittedly a lot of my reasoning for liking Season 1. It really suffers without the lighter tone he brings, and instead you get scene after scene of The Perfect Special Princess Who Was Promised attempting to bond with her Witcher Dad who has gone from being cold, complicated and filled with self-loathing to a doting father figure who pines after a woman he knew for about three days without any explanation. I think more of the Bard might have balanced out the fact that Yennifer, Ciri and Geralt are rather wooden stock characters struggling against the cliche dialogue to have meaningful interactions with each other.

The fantasy elements are generally alright. It is visually beautiful, as always with Netflix, and the performers do the best they can with what they've got, but even the spectacle feels a little hollow. I was very disappointed with Season 2. I think they need a reshuffle in the writers' room.