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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
20
Mixed:
17
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
ColliderDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The biggest strength for this fantasy show follow-up, and the one that kept me returning for all six episodes given out, is the found family it offers in Geralt and Ciri as they settle into familiarity and trust with one another — with Cavill and Allan effectively playing the kind of duo worth building a long-running franchise around.
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Dec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher Season 2 is the best kind of adaptation. It takes something known and creates something wholly unique while always respecting its source material. No matter if you’ve read and played everything or if you’re entirely new to this world, you’re going to have a blast.
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Dec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher’s second season is vastly more confident about leaning into the high fantasy and higher stakes of Sapkowski’s lore, opting to let characters such as the wizened witcher Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) speak of forgotten histories instead of taking safer, more randy detours. Encouraging still is its stronger focus on maintaining a sense of narrative momentum (gone is the needlessly confusing time-hopping format of season one), at last bestowing upon The Witcher a sense of direction and purpose.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
When the worst thing you can say about a series is that every episode ends up being better than the one that preceded it, that leaves an exciting amount of room to grow. Especially when you can see it steadily moving out of the shadow of the show Netflix might have wanted, in favor of the far more interesting series it might actually turn out to be.
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Dec 20, 2019
Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
While the characters are still reeling from battle, the show itself feels much more assured in the first six (of eight) episodes sent to critics for review. The narrative arc is cleaner, with everyone on the same timeline. The characters are better explained — including key supporting players like Fringilla (Mimî M. Khayisa), who felt frustratingly opaque in season one.
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iDec 15, 2021
The TelegraphDec 10, 2021
ColliderDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
For all its massive scale, The Witcher is a surprisingly small story centered around three appealing main characters. It’s a classic fantasy tale about war and magic and prophecy, with grotesque monsters, supernatural detective work, and political intrigue thrown into the mix. It’s all a bit silly, but no more so than Game of Thrones ever was.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The barrier for entry with The Witcher is pretty high; between the weird-ass fantasy names, odd story structure, and complicated backstory, it's a lot to take on without a little help. I went in knowing very little, but at some point decided "f--- it, I'm in," and left wanting to know a lot more. If you can add a new project like The Witcher to your life, you should.
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Dec 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Everything’s played a lot straighter, and it’s missing the hot-blooded camp quality the series initially embraced. The show at its core is still pretty enjoyable for a dark fantasy, and the reappearance of rock-star tunesmith Jaskier (Joey Batey), plus new characters like the flame-conjuring rogue mage Rience (Chris Fulton), help in that regard.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher still suffers from the tendency of many fantasy tales to casually mention myriad names of cities, characters, and phenomena to the point of bewilderment, but the proceedings feel far clearer this time around thanks to the season’s tighter focus and the steady drip of context afforded by Yen’s journey.
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The PlaylistDec 13, 2021
Season 2 Review:
“The Witcher” season two marks a distinctly new direction for the bloody and fantastical Polish epic: slowing down, changing its plot structure, and embracing a more down-to-earth attitude towards both narrative and character. Though the predictability and slower pacing means the series lacks the bite it had in season one, season two of “The Witcher” will likely still satisfy fans of the games and TV series alike.
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IndieWireDec 19, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Watching the foundation get laid isn’t always exciting, but it does feel like showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is building toward rousing sequences and cares about each of the characters equally. Whether you feel the same doesn’t really matter. “The Witcher” is in it for the long haul, and even if Season 2 feels longer than it should, you won’t regret the ride.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
In contrast to its halfhearted approach to exposition, The Witcher finds its footing in the graphic depiction of violence. The show’s energetic battle scenes, set to a stirring score by composers Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, create the impression that the burly, snow-caked background actors of Game of Thrones were moving at three-quarters speed.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher is most engaging when exploring the alliances and allegiances between Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri and when using those three to consider Nivellen’s insistence that “Monsters are born of deeds alone. Unforgivable ones.” But in its attempt to build a bigger world, the series falls prey to more fantasy tropes than it masters.
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The IndependentDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
For all that the acting and writing is frequently ropey – “You’d be married off to the nearest Lord of Bad Breath” and “They lick the boots of humans, the same boots that will eventually crush their necks” are two of the main offenders – it has the pleasantly self-effacing air of a show that knows its first season wasn’t a home run.
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Radio TimesDec 10, 2021
Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The Witcher also boasts richly expensive visuals and an expansive-seeming world, at least in its first five hours...What it lacks, though, is tonal consistency. This is a show with moments of drama and of gruesome violence cut through with a glancing humor that too often feels tossed-off and out-of-place in the world the show has created.
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The GuardianDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There are attempts at knowingness: at one point, our Henry tells someone a prophecy has to rhyme. This is not a good idea, as it throws into too sharp relief the limits to what Geralt and his merry band of sorceresses and proto-feminist princesses can be said to know. Play it straight, dear scriptwriters, or don’t play it at all. ... But again, if you like this sort of thing, go nuts.
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Dec 19, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s more of a Saturday-morning adventure than a Sunday-night prestige project. ... If it sounds like that could be fun, you’re right.
Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Two years after its debut The Witcher returns to Netflix, looking every bit as brawny as its maiden flight and less messy structurally. Although the series developed a solid following (unlike some of the streamer's other recent fantasy efforts that met the executioner's ax), the show remains uneven and somewhat impenetrable to anyone not truly invested in it, which isn't helped by the long layoff.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Cavill remains fine as Geralt, with his absurd physique and long white hair. He has mastered the art of the humorous grunt and it’s still fun to watch him handily slaughter dozens of men at a time or take on some comic-book looking creature. But there was an audacity to this show’s first season that now seems buried beneath plot complications.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
A lot of what made the series charming has been set aside. ... Overall, you probably know whether you’re the kind of viewer who’s willing to add another complicated Brothers Grimm-meets-Middle Earth saga to your schedule. And if you like your costumed fantasies mythology-forward and you find the mechanics of world building to be an end in themselves, then this new, more mysterious and portentous season of “The Witcher” may be for you.
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RogerEbert.comDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
If you don’t take any of this more seriously than a holiday diversion, it has undeniable moments, and a fearless performance from its leading lady. But it’s safe to say that the throne of fantasy adulation on which HBO sits, even after the divisive final season, remains unchallenged.
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The Daily BeastDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Drained of its bawdier and more comical ingredients (even Joey Batey’s bard Jaskier is relegated to a brief, and underwhelming, appearance), The Witcher plods along on its wayward course, piling on complications that, by and large, fail to consistently create the type of urgent stakes—or sense of import—that a large-scale endeavor such as this demands.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It takes a while for viewers to learn how these characters are connected, via an exasperating Westworld-esque narrative knot that takes much of the season to unfurl. ... The Witcher heightens our confusion by fumbling details that would have helped it set a cohesive tone. Dialogue vacillates, from line to line, between theatrical fantasy-speak and modern colloquialisms (“Dragons are, in fact, a thing!”).
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