In this polarizing and divisive age, fans of The Witcher by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski generally agree: Sapkowski’s story of the legendary monster slayer Geralt of Rivia is almost always better as a short story than as a novel.
From that first episode, witcherThe Netflix adaptation of Sapkowski’s novel interweaves a short story in which Geralt (Henry Cavill) battles monsters and an ongoing conspiracy involving a fantasy nation on the brink of war, seeking justice on both sides. I am trying to fulfill Since the heart of witcher stories has always been about outcasts finding each other and forming reluctant families, the results are always troubling, but compelling.
not yet witcher always felt that the writers didn’t have enough episodes to tell these stories. Because of this, the previous season juggled timelines, nations, and prophecies to do justice to both fantasy epics, complicating plots. and A collection of famous short stories in one TV series. These war impulses are painfully apparent onscreen in Season 3, with big character beats quickly revised to advance the plot. witcher has become a program that requires careful reading, but threatens to insult the intelligence of patients who are smart enough to do so.
this is immediately obvious witcherThe season 3 premiere of . (Ania Marson), in exchange for retrieving lost magic, Baba Yaga.
![Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer on the rocks in The Witcher Season 3](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tV7L75a9iYH0qzUk26yZqtTSClw=/0x0:5603x3735/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5603x3735):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24759078/EE_306_Unit_00491_RT2.jpg)
Photo: Susie Allnut/Netflix
Sure, the circle was being played, but she didn’t know it was being played. Siri She would make a sacrifice to Voleth Meir.but she still agreed to agree to children fucking baba yaga, and was about to hand over Ciri! It’s a huge hurdle for the characters to overcome, and Season 3 begins with Geralt, Ciri, and Yen on the run, forced to hide together, and a family they didn’t even know they wanted at that moment. It’s narratively wonderful to start from where it became bitter. I realized they wanted it.
Unfortunately, witcher You don’t really get that much hay from this rich setting. Or maybe other things as well. Of course, this is provisional. Only the first five episodes of the long-awaited third season premiere this week, with the second three-episode set to premiere in just over a month. That’s not a lot of assets to turn things around, and I can’t allow more than half the season to feel like it was nothing more than a setup.
All you have to do here is setup. Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri travel from place to place, navigating difficult grudges in the space of the montage to get caught up in the business of politics, hoping the continent will become more stable and consequently less populated. increase. They seek their devices for the power to destroy Ciri and her world.
There’s the fun dark fantasy series Flash. witcher The best moment of this work is especially the second episode. This episode features a terrifying meat monster. again This season will have a terrifying effect on our trio going forward, but in the end, the third season feels like it has the opposite problem of the previous seasons. So the plot is clearer, but the characters don’t make much sense.
![After the battle, Geralt, bloodied and with a monster heart, walks next to Jaskia, a very bewildered bard with a coin purse.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5W4A9MEKHuxCWyUkD9tM9lNGjp4=/0x0:3364x2243/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3364x2243):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24759092/EE_302_Unit_01367_20_1__RT.jpg)
Photo: Susie Allnut/Netflix
A large part of the blame lies in the fact that the politics of the continent are the protagonists of the story. The bulk of the third season is spent as the Brotherhood of Mages struggle to unify the northern realms in the face of an increasingly daring Nilfgaard, while the looming continental elves from all sides once again find themselves on the back foot. It has to do with a grand attempt to avoid war. More than a chess piece between a magician and a judge.
That requires viewers to spend a lot of time with characters they’re particularly unfamiliar with, and the writers aren’t going to offer much insight into them either. season 3 witcher is headed for monumental developments, but the final revelations are so blunt, and the conspiracies that lead to them so obscure, that we don’t really understand the northern powers. , feel like checking them.
For example, Dykstra (Graham McTavish) and Phillipa (Kathy Clare) seem to have little sense of rhyme or reason in the way their stories unfold. They’re practically absent as they conspire in isolated corners of the plot. . To make matters worse, the on-screen characters discuss the motivations and dispositions of even more off-screen characters. Fire magician assassin Lianth (Chris Fulton) and his mysterious employer Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen), a disgusting sorcerer who no one likes but is around, and Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni). ) is imprisoned after a bloody powerplay in Season 2, and we can only guess why, but it’s still there.
![Zixtra and Philippa, two conspirators sitting at a dinner table with a glass of wine and a spread in the center of the table in Netflix's The Witcher Season 3](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mxqdnuBzgDmR2SVye-sBLLW2ncE=/0x0:3811x2541/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3811x2541):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24759094/EE_302_Unit_01867_RT.jpg)
Photo: Susie Allnut/Netflix
witcher Season 3 continues to feature various power players and their selfish ends, but in the least weighty way, it brings us to: just It is enough to know that our heroes’ efforts do not go according to plan. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time to give the heroes a distracting and compelling arc, and Geralt, Yen, and their friends all end up looking like junk.
It’s not a problem per se. Season 2, though a mess, was all about Geralt and Yennefer (and so many others!) being played and devastating. In contrast, the first half of Season 3 is just happening right in front of them, To what we have with them bottom Witnessing what they went through in previous seasons always seems to be irrelevant.
If anything is fresh in your memory, all of this makes the third season feel empty and disconnected from the previous seasons. On its own, this first batch of episodes would probably be fine if the story started here, and probably deserve a little patience until the rest of the season drops. But after two seasons, it’s a stunner, a carefully plotted map that gets you nowhere, with characters you thought you liked, but you can’t quite remember why. Also, not enough monsters.
There is tension again. A satisfying ongoing story and a satisfying short story are two different things, and in adapting both versions of Sapkowski’s work, witcher Ultimately it does no justice.
witcher Season 3, Volume 1 will premiere on Netflix on June 29th. Volume 2 will be delivered on July 27th.