The show drops you right in and remains a watchable mess from start to finish. The astonishing production values make it. Trashy source material (this remixes 3 whole books!) it mostly adheres to but is randomly adapted via time jumps and mediocre acting and somewhat weird direction undo it. I may return for S02E01 to see if there will be a marked improvement but the longer the books go on the worse they get so I am not holding my breath. Those drown in casual rape as character development for the women and this version already got a head start on that in the pilot. Be warned in advance this is Trigger Warning - The Show. About our anti-hero Henry Cavill. He is sadly miscast and delivers a meh performance that is neither book (he is a bummer who is a side character in his own story) nor game (he is a revelation). Quality actor, wrong show. The whole cast is kind of a mess and misses the point of the source material I would argue. The critic got it right this time. I was considering giving this a very weak 6/10 due to my knowledge of the game/book canon which was the only reason I could follow along but I plainly stopped having any fun by the time the storylines somewhat converged at the end and such a dramatic show shouldn´t leave anyone with apathy. Play the games instead. They start a bit rough but end in greatness and stay away from the books. 5/10

PS: This is obviously better made than the 2001/2 adaptation but that one is at least easy to follow and bothers to explain what a Witcher and Geralt are early through an origin story. Keep Wikia open at all times for this one!