The Witcher: Blood Origin

Stellar characters, great performances, killer action, and — once again — some of the best costuming work on television can go a long way in covering up structural flaws. This year, I was promised a badass fantasy show, and I got one. It just wasn’t the one I expecting.

The Witcher: Blood Origin certainly does suffer without the muscular anchor of a Henry Cavill-type, as its writing simply isn’t strong enough for the splintered tale it’s telling. That said, punchy, memorable performers like Mirren Mack and Sophia Brown elevate this origin story to something still worth unwrapping on Christmas Day.

Ardent fans of “The Witcher” might welcome any related content to pass the time between seasons, and there’s certainly been no shortage of big fantasy prequels this year, including “House of the Dragon” and “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” Nevertheless, “The Witcher: Blood Origin” basically feels like a mildly diverting snack between meals, and at four episodes essentially a longish movie.

Creakily-assembled and fuelled largely by silliness, Blood Origin is for devoted Witcher watchers alone.

Despite its undeniable production values, everything about “Blood Origin” feels minor. There’s a romance that’s bland despite the charisma of its stars, and Driver and Yeoh aren’t given nearly enough to do. ... It’s for hardcore fans only, and even they will be bored.

The dazzling depiction of the event ["conjunction of the spheres"] conveys its unfathomable scale and implications, its profound reorientation of space and time. But both the upheaval and Blood Origin itself end shortly after they begin. Having, at last, built up a head of steam, the series ends in a fizzle.

The show’s derivativeness falls somewhere between depressing and embarrassing.

Completely new take on the Witcher Universe's backstory. Very woke and very modern - in the first 7 minutes of the show a female maims and kills a whole tavern of men. If you enjoy this sort of thing, coupled with subpar acting and poor writing, perhaps this show is for you. For me it has no relevance to the universe of Geralt, and in no way hearkens back to the source material. Not worth my time..

Festiwal zmarnowanego potencjału oraz dziwnych decyzji fabularnych. Bohaterowie z kartonu do zapomnienia, CGI boli, na szczęście muzyka pozytywnie zaskakuje

First, I want to clear off, I'm a huge Witcher Fan. (I've played every Game and read every book) Right now, there are a lot of things about the Witcher Netflix adaption (mostly season 2) that I can't understand. The show is based on a book, but they don't follow the book. The Witcher Blood Origin isn't based on a book. The Conjunction of the Spheres is not even described in the book. The show is a fan fiction with lazy writing, mostly bad characters and sometimes ugly CGI. But there are also some gorgeous nature shots, and the whole world collapsing story line makes sense. The show is not that bad, but it's also not good. It's a forgettable the Witcher and a mediocre fantasy show. I've enjoyed a few episodes, and I'm glad that I've seen it. The landscape was beautiful and the costumes well done. But please don't watch the show for the plot, like I said before, don't expect anything, it's more like a fan fiction.

Its like they doubled-down on the bad parts of the original Witcher. Poorly written script, bad dialogue, bad CGI. A few of the minor actors are okay though.

This is a great disappointment of a series. The visuals and especially the CGI look cheap, and I missed an epic fantasy feeling throughout the series. The fighting is okay, but nothing special. Acting is not bad, but also not memorable since the characters are often poorly written. However, the story is awful in every way, regardless of if you compare it to the books, the games, or any over fantasy series. The decisions of the characters and their motivation are often shallow and outright dumb. The core of The Witcher, it’s philosophy of every choice has consequences and your only option in this world is to choose between two evils (in the games this is more true than in the books, but the books focus on the horror of war and how people suffer living in it, which is also not shown once in this prequel), is annihilated since big changes are made by characters which consequences are only mentioned briefly without showing it to the audience. Also, most characters do and get away with stupid choices, where probable and anticipated consequences do not happen just because the script says so. Plottwists are expectable and dumb in a similar way. Outer creatures are introduced without any explanation or motivation. The show mocks itself early that the story of seven knights who fight for a common goal and alter the destiny of a world is unoriginal and boring, but than claim theirs is not. To my regret, it is. It is very much. And every teaser they showed which probably also affects the main series points to the same shallow, uncreative, and mostly dumb direction this series took, ignoring the basic lore and laws of the books and even their main spirit. This series has as much to do with the books as Disney films with reality. One thing especially bothers me: It is not unheard of the writers of the witcher series to include sassy comments about critics in their script. They have done so in episode 4 of season 2 to answer critics not liking the intertwining of timelines in the first season. I found their comment funny because I liked how it was done in season 1. However, at the start of Blood origin Jaskier says “You are telling me that the first version of a witcher was a badass elf? This is really gonna piss Geralt off”. It took long for me to understand what he meant by that, because Geralt does not hate elves, neither in the games, book nor the series itself. He really more identified with them, since they share their shunned existence in the modern human dominated society. Also, as Vesemir pointed out in season 2, the first witchers were born of elder blood, making an elf as first witcher likely. But then I realized they either mean Henry Cavill, because they know he would be against this idea/this series, or the fans who they know would also probably don’t like it. And in the witcher cosmos this really doesn’t make much sense. Witchers were created to oppose a monster infested world (after the conjunction) to protect humans since they were slaughtered the most of the species because of their initial/inherent weakness compared to long-lived and often magical skilled elves and dwarves with their fighting and smithing abilities. Also, elves do not rely on this messy witcher creating since their method of alternating genes and creating weapons spans hundreds of years. Because of this behavior they underestimated humans and suffered the consequences. All in all, this comment is just another sassy way to praise themselves and condemn valid critics of their show. Avoid at all costs and save your time. Also, don’t expect much from the following witcher season if this is the direction they are aiming at. Edit: And please stop assuming everybody who is not your opinion is review bombing. There are many people out their giving this show a 0 or a 10 because they really think it is earned. Try to judge the review quality for its reasoning and not for its score. But for the record: This series is not dumb because of black or LGBT characters (and everyone who really think it is are the problem), but because their writing is awful. Subtle difference, I know.