 Alright, so I'm looking a little haggard right now I know a little less groomed and cleans than I usually am when I get on camera, but This isn't a super planned out video. This is one I was just have been thinking about since last night because last night I finished the first season of The Witcher the Netflix TV show and I finally came to the conclusion that I Didn't like it very much This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long Now is it's not to say it's a terrible show because it's not there's a lot of stuff in there. In fact as a technical project, I guess you'd say like As a TV show all the technical bits come together pretty well Like I thought the acting for the most part was pretty good. I especially really liked Henry Cavill as Geralt I liked the Bard character. I liked the Yennefer In fact, there's no characters in here that were really annoying. I liked I liked the visual effects You know, they weren't always the most realistic looking the most impressive But you know the designs on all the monsters and stuff were cool. I thought the way magic was done looked really cool I thought I really started to get a sense of what this world was like and What the the culture was like what the people were like? I liked how it was a dark fantasy kind of like Game of Thrones but magic and all these mythical creatures still played a Bigger role in it than they did in Game of Thrones So it's not it doesn't really come across as a rip-off and I'm not saying that the original books or anything are a rip-off I loved all of the action scenes Like the only one that I didn't like was the one at the beginning of the season finale where Geralt is fighting the Ghouls or zombies or whatever those are like I didn't think that was very well choreographed But all the others were really cool looking they just have this frenetic energy to them and you can really feel like yeah, Geralt is this crazy badass who can do all this crazy stuff in it It's really cool. I liked it. Um in fact most aspects of the show I thought were really good individually the problem is just the storyline now It's basically the same way I felt about Shadow of the Conqueror Which I still have back here and I have a review on it. So if you want to see that you can But basically with that book and with this show there were a lot of good Individual aspects, but the story didn't do a good job of tying them together And so the whole thing wound up being less than the sum of its parts weirdly enough now Keep in mind I'm coming at this from the perspective of a person that has never read the books or played the games Okay, so don't come at me saying like well in the books. It's like I don't care Okay, I'm judging the show just on its own and even if I had read the books I would have to judge it as an adaptation and I'd have to judge it on its own but basically the plot here is There's this guy named Geralt who is what's known as a witcher, which is basically just a monster hunter You know, they're a human who's been mutated a little bit Which it is kind of weird that the people in this world appear to have a semi-modern Idea of like genetics and germ theory and stuff, but I actually kind of liked that You know, it's a little anachronistic, but it does set it aside apart from other fantasy settings But anyways, yeah, he's been kind of mutated and stuff so he can better fight these creatures and so he just you know, he goes around he hunts monsters and stuff and As this is going on this giant empire called Nilfgaard is coming in and invading kingdoms in the north and There's this little Girl who's a princess of one kingdom that's being taken over in the first episode Who has some sort of connection to Geralt and so she runs off and tries to find him and Meanwhile Geralt is hearing about this and he's like okay. I should go and try and find her and That sounds fine. You know, it's the cliche of like this big badass trying to protect an important child but you know, that's fine as far as stories go the problem is that The show jumps around a lot and I don't mean it jumps between different groups of characters I mean it jumps between different groups of characters and it jumps between present day and flashbacks and there's really no indication of When something is present day when it's a flashback and how long ago the flashback was Like for example, it shows a Yennefer as a kid And then it shows her in the modern day when she's an adult and apparently this is more than 30 years later And we can't really tell from looking at her because she's a sorceress. She doesn't really age the way normal humans do but There's and there's no indication given that this was a long time in the past So it's just kind of like oh, okay all that stuff that it was showing with her was a flashback It wasn't happening contemporaneously like say what you will about Game of Thrones that does have some timeline issues, but At least when they show stuff, it's almost always stuff. That's happening at more or less the same time So it's not confusing in that regard, but in this we have to watch for a while And it takes some time to pick up on the fact that like oh, okay, this happened years in the past That's okay. This is trying to show something that Geralt did a while ago. That's important to the modern to okay That's fine but like give us some indication of it or make it take up less time or Something because it really got confusing like I found myself forgetting at a couple of points that oh, yeah the main storyline is with Nilfgaard because it The show kind of forgets about Nilfgaard at a couple of points and because there's such a big emphasis on just showing some of Geralt's like smaller adventures that he's gone on as a witcher It makes me kind of it kind of gives the show a feel of like an episodic adventure series And don't get me wrong if that's what it was going for that would have been fine I would have been disappointed, but that's just because personally. I'm not that into episodic stuff. I prefer more bigger overarching stories But this show kind of forgets to have a bigger overarching story So it doesn't really have that but it also doesn't put enough time and effort into the episodic stuff For that to work either so it really fails on both levels So in the end I was never really able to get into it And I was never really able to get into some of the action scenes especially in the last episode There's this big battle and I just Didn't care for most of it. In fact to Geralt doesn't even really do anything in the last episode It's kind of obnoxious, but the the point is I just The story didn't really give you a reason to care, you know the story doesn't come out and tell you okay Here's why we should care about these people being taken over by Nilfgaard now. Don't get don't get me wrong I'm not trying to Go out and say like oh Nilfgaard or secretly the good guys or anything because they don't really seem to be you know They're conquering and killing and all enslaving and all that so that's obviously bad But this show also just kind of takes it for granted that like yeah You're gonna be on these other guys side just because we don't really show the Nilfgaard side And I'm like give us a reason to care about these characters, you know and again It's not like any of them were annoying or unlikeable or anything. It's just other than Geralt and Yennefer and the Bard None of them stood out I didn't really feel a connection to any of them and the reason for that is because they don't have all that much to do other than occasionally go on episodic adventures and have like fun quips and conversations and stuff and I should mention that When you get down to the smaller scale like the dialogue and individual scenes and stuff most of the writing in this is pretty good You know all the characters are not all of them But you know they have distinct ways of talking and all that which I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail on but You know they do it's fine. It's good on a small scale. It's just once you get to the macro level it's very poorly structured very poorly put together kind of confusing and It just kept me from getting into the show and so yeah I'm just gonna say it again like the story is supposed to be what ties all the other aspects together It's supposed to be what ties the characters and the setting and the action scenes and all that it's supposed to be what ties them together and Makes them greater than the sum of its parts and in that regard this show really failed And so I know I don't normally really talk about TV or anything on this channel, but this seems tangentially related to what I do talk about and it just kind of bothered me and I guess I Don't know that's my witcher hot takes. Oh, um, if you watch this far Thanks, be sure to like and subscribe and all that and thanks to my patrons Especially thanks to oppa Sabalainen Christopher Hawkins Joseph Pender graft and Melanie Austin you guys are you guys are great And if you want to like get your name in the credits here or get early access to my videos or other things then just You know send me money if you can't do that again like subscribe and Again the witcher is not terrible. Just I didn't like it that much. Bye