The Witcher (Season 3)
The final three episodes have dropped from the third season of Netflix' The Witcher adaptation - also marking the final appearance of series lead Henry Cavill. So I reckon it may be ripe for some discussion (assuming sufficient interest exists amongst the community here).
So, despite previous misgivings after a baffling second season and disappointingly bland third seasons thus far, I jumped straight into this finale out of respect for the very fine turn by Mr Cavill throughout. For context, earlier in the day I finished off the third book, Baptism of Fire, during my current re-read so I'm well ahead on plot and had text fresh in head. In S3's favour, indeed, the show runner's claims of hewing closer to the books is actually quite fair. In broad strokes, they have captured every major plot point, and generally in the correct order. But that's also the problem in some respects - the writers are evidently only focused on doing a pure plot adaptation. The book chapters, for reference, are quite long - roughly 50 pages apiece - with only 7-10 of them per novel, and often feature a juxtaposition of several perspectives throughout (a feat Sapkowski becomes ever more skillful at over time). But the key thing that's lost in translation is that each chapter generally has a clear idea or thematic element that ties everything together, i.e., Sapkowski always has something he wants to say, an idea he wants to get across, some comment on war, family, human nature, etc., and this gives an extra richness that underpins the plot elements driving everything forward. Not only that, Sapkowski quite enjoys playing off traditional Fantasy / mythological tropes and conventions and this humour has been completely shed by the show writers - likely an intentional move given what has emerged about their purported disdain for the source material.
In short, I feel the writers are adapting the plot without an understanding of what makes the Witcher stand apart from the sea of other fantasy fiction, and, as a consequence, all of their original additions only wind up a detriment to the storytelling. Nevertheless, it was genuinely nice to see a few certain scenes on screen.
We, too, were disappointed that this season marks the departure of Cavill, as we felt that the show was finally getting good. (And basically every bright spot in the series has been a Cavill scene.)
And I agree regarding the lack of humor. Tastefully including humor in a dark subject is really hard, and I don't blame the showrunners from backing off on that a bit.
I had this issue to some degree with the previous seasons, but I felt almost completely lost as to who's who, what they're motivated by, what their backstory was again, who their allies and enemies were, why they were after Ciri, etc. Perhaps some characters are indeed new, but they're often treated with a familiarity that makes me second guess myself. My partner is endowed with far better memory than I but felt similarly. We're on the fourth episode, and I'm just about ready to clock out. It's not very engaging because it often feels like a mishmash of events. Perhaps it's the time scale at which these seasons came out, but even S1 felt disjointed in its own way.
Also felt like they were overly gratuitous with the shits and fucks at times. Not adult so much as a child who just discovered the naughty words.
Hopefully that Warhammer project comes together for Cavill. I quite like him as a presence and personality.
There is no Witcher without Cavill IMO...but ultimately there's no show anyway because the writers didn't show up.
I kind of wish Cavill had full creative control of this project.
I feel like I can’t be unbiased after learning about the distain some of the people working on the show had for the source material and games. I expected shit going in and came away with a sign of relief that it was over and Cavill came out on top. Now I never have to care about what they do with that show again it’s just background noise. The scene that stood out and made me laugh out loud was around the last 10 minutes of episode five. Geralt says exactly how he felt about all the events that night and that he’s laughing and leaving, it felt like a little bit a Cavill was giving his goodbyes in that moment too. A small part of me hopes for the Netflix Witcher to be what I wanted it to be but I guess I’ll just have to wait for the inevitable reboot in ten to twenty years.
While most episodes this season were pretty meh, I couldn't believe my eyes how bad episode 6 was! Like I genuinely laughed out loud at how ridiculous some scenes were, and I was baffled at some of the editing. It felt like I was watching a B movie.
I really can't see myself watching season 4 (or 5 which I heard they announced).
Even over episode 5?
My wife even turned to me during that ballroom episode and went "Wow, this show is bad isn't it?" and she happily watches shlock so bad your stomach turns. Like they had the idea to split story lines and obfuscate information to the viewer but it just felt like I was watching the same, slow episode twice without any meaningful progression.
Honestly, for me, it's that the whole Witcher Netflix series just felt so contrived. Geralt would appear in various locations as if he was constantly portaling. Yennefer's S2 character journey was more or less overlooked. They butchered Jasker's haircut and relationships. Ciri is probably the greatest improvement.