The Witcher

If you can circumnavigate or weather the quick and unforgiving narrative beginnings—like if you have a background with fantasy, a knack for rolling with crazy shit, or a general love for Witchery things—and buy into the tone, The Witcher has lots to love.

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.

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.

Frankly, it should be a catastrophe, and yet the batshit energy driving a slew of increasingly odd choices makes for a pretty entertaining spectacle.

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.

As a mindless fantasy rollercoaster, Geralt’s journey is five stars all the way to tea-time. Sadly, for those who like brains with their brawn, it may be more of a slog.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Will you like The Witcher if you're a curious neophyte? Maybe, but you have to be patient with it, and if that's not your job, the outsized amusements may not be worth the convoluted build-up.

Henry Cavill plays the title role in The Witcher, but giving a pulse to this dreary medieval fantasy series is too much of a job even for Superman.

The Witcher is a messy tangle of plotlines in a world underdeveloped to the point of obscurity.

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!”).

It’s as if D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, clearly out of steam after showrunning that final season of Game of Thrones, found a way to sell off their unused, undercooked ideas under the table to the powers that produce The Witcher.