Full disclosure. I have played, and love all of the games. I have also read, and love all eight of the books. With such a rich trove of storylines to pull from, I really cannot understand how this turned out to be such a misfire. All the nuance, and depth of the books is gone. The episodes play like cookie cutter cliffnotes. Even worse however are the storylines/details that the show runners themselves made up on their own (Yennefer's agonizingly hokey backstory) or remixed from the books to serve their narrative (the dryads of brokilon).

The biggest two issues with the show however can be found in the lead, and the production values. I'm not sure if it was the showrunners, or Henry Cavill who decided to do an impression of the way Geralt is voice acted in the video game. It was a disastrous decision. He could've chosen to put his own stamp on the character, but no. Cavill's attempt to mimic the video game's monotone gravel is so dull and poorly done that it almost seems like it's joke. This isn't even accounting for the fact that his costume looks like bad cosplay. Every time he came on screen, I wanted to turn the show off. While I do think it's impossible to get past his performance, it might've been made better if the whole thing didn't look like a SYFY channel show. Everything looks cheap, and the effects are shockingly awful.

Incredibly disappointing, but Netflix will keep churning it out.