The Witcher

Season 4, Episode 04...my least favorite so far- it was just "OK".

I didn't know Kim Bodnia was replaced as Vesemir as well...Peter Mullan looks more like Santa Clause then a hardened, experienced, Witcher...


Triss said "They protected Kaer Morhen for thousands of years?" What?
The School of the Wolf was ony there for ~200years and also the Conjunction of Spheres was "only" 1500 years ago....completely wrong there.

Dijkstra's torture...compared to other shows I think this was the weakest form of torture I have ever seen and I can't believe Geralt cried out when stabbed with a Quill?? Toughen up dude (talking to a Witcher here).

I don't mind the Witches learning how to fight, if you are desperate you need every advantage. Especially that exchange of swords with Yennefer and Francesca was cool :)

Jaskier getting injured was a big moment for me in the books. Here it basically happened in the background...didn't like that.

s04e07
I haven't read the books and they did a shit job of explaining this in the episode.
Can someone explain this to me?

They've just exited the swamp and Yennafer shows up through a portal as natural as crossing the street on her way to get a coffee. Geralt is happy to see her but not "oh my fuqing gods I've been hunting for you for so long". More like, "You were late for dinner and I was starting to worry".
What? It was that easy for her to find him all this time? Huh?

Oh... And now there's suddenly a tent. And apparently the tent is a T.A.R.D.I.S because its 10x bigger on the inside than the outside; complete with furniture, a bath tub, candles...

I mean really... Whisky Tango Foxtrot?! These writers have done a shyte job of explaining anything to the audience or even following their own continuity. For months on end its this massive mission to find each other... then its like meeting at the motel for a night when nobody is looking... Huh?

And just when I was willing to call it a psychic shared experience even though they didn't show it in a dreamlike state... Its the next morning, at the campfire and everyone else sees her too. So they all saw her, and presumably the TARDIS-Tent, while they were sleeping in the dirt, and everyone is enjoying a morning cuppa and a chat like it was Monday morning before heading off to school.
What the f....

Absolutely. It can be done, but its hard like you said. Requires some real effort and talent. Writing is like sculpting, not everyone with the same job title has the same talent.


Agreed. Listening to the YouTubers I was expecting far worse. I think he really did put in an effort to respect the character and his predecessor while still giving his own performance. I look at it this way: If he was the first Geralt would I bit pissy over his performance? No.

I will agree with someone one YouTuber said though:

I've seen far better Gerralt at conventions than Hemsworth in a motorcycle jacket. So much of the look of this production is generic a.f. - looks like every other fantasy or medieval show. Gerralt's armor is the one bit of unique flair and they took that away.

I will say that while I don't care about anyone's sexuality the level of LGBTQ+ checkboxes getting ticked in this is starting to get on my nerves. Not because I don't want gay character: I don't care. But because it seems so bloody forced. And maybe more than a little disproportionate.

s04e05
Kinda disappointed - mostly because it goes back to what I was saying about having budget saving episodes when you only have 10 episodes to start with. It was just a slow slog of listening through everyone's campfire stories. I know I fell asleep in the middle for somewhere between 3 and 25 minutes and when I woke up realized that I didn't feel the least bit lost. That's how little any of that seemed to add/affect the story.

Just finished s04e06
Here's the episode they spent that saved budget on. Enjoyed it and all the battles and magic but...

All of a sudden Yennafer is apparently every bit as strong as the biggest badest badguy that entire covens combined couldn't previously vanquish? When did that happen?
A bunch of students held a shield against repeated attacks to the point the enemy was dieing. So when the kids started to weaken, why didn't the strong established adults take over the shield? Seems like they could have held that for 5x as long letting the enemy coven further die and weaken, and buy time for their spy on the inside to do more.
They knew they were going to be attacked: And didn't really seam to do any prep. No traps. No weapons at tactical points. Seems like if one-eye can leave a lingering spell o a guy triggered by the utterance of his name, then this coven should be able to do similar with traps etc. At the very least the senior witchers that joined them would have set traps and weapon caches.
They can use magic to do all these amazing things and lift tons of rock etc., but couldn't use magic to turn the water wheel? And 10 more points where something was done at one time, but not done another time when it would have been helpful. Its that lack of consistency that kept screaming out at me

4x6

What a great episode! Best of the season so far. :)

I haven't watched the season yet, so your post was really helpful to me. Thank you for review! :)

Three episodes in so far.

I've gotten used to Hemsworth - yes, he is clearly not as good as Cavill but I'd rather watch this than no Witcher show at all. In addition, this Season is probably better than Season 3 (again, apart from Cavill).

The story is a lot closer to the books than Season 3 was and everything about the characters development is mostly accurate. There are also certain things you only know from the games which are also some nice easter eggs.

I agree that world building is one of the biggest flaws of the show. Characters aren't properly introduced. Locations aren't discernable from each other or couldn't be pointed out on a map.
But again, that was always a problem with the Witcher.


Just think of the girls on the Wagon, for the first two episodes they didn't have any dialogue..you didn't even know their names...



I think it wasn't as notable in Season 1 since it wasn't a continuous story yet.

Other than that what is really annoying in this season is the directing and editing. It's like they had a cut-off point for every scene "every 5 minutes we have to switch between characters"...starting to get on my nerves. Just let a situation establish itself and give it more time to develop.

Hmm, IIRC, they did a fine job with that in season 1 (with only 8 episodes). Yes, it's hard, but it can be done, https://next-episode.net/raised-by-wolves is another good example IMHO (with 10 episodes).

So would I. And... If you look at the history of robust TV shows that stand the test of time, so do most people.


Original Star Trek that spawned decades of IP - Was episodic (procedural), with some serial elements. But mostly you can watch them in any order and they are self-contained.
The X-Files was basically 'the mystery being of the week' for 11 seasons - again with a B-thread woven through it but mostly episodic/procedural.
And we could go on and on with shows like that that just work.


But the other part of that formula isn't just about procedural v. serial; its about episode count. The *landscape* of the show so to speak. You can run that proven formula of procedural with a serial B-thread when you have 22 episodes a year. You can't do it when you have 10 as we have in streaming platforms.

When you have only 10 episodes you can't afford even 1 bad episode because that means 10% of the season is bad. Audience won't accept a 'budget saving' episode in order to have a flashy finale. And you can't run a B and C thread woven through the story when you only have 10 episodes.

10 episodes works for things like "Countdown"... where you have almost zero world building required. Show premise: Task force assembles to take down terrorist. Ok, done. Audience knows all they need to know because we know what agents and cops and task forces and terrorists and current day LA is. Virtually no time required to set up this 10 episode show. And they limited the scope to the primary story. Cool. That works for 10 episodes.

But 10 episodes doesn't work when you actually need to WORLD BUILD. The Witcher has too much building required for short seasons. Sci-fi or fantasy in general are a problem in 10 episodes. Current Star Trek is kinda-sorta getting away with short seasons because the world building was done over decades and people are walking in to nuTrek well aware of the landscape. You don't have to explain what a starship is, or what Starfleet is, or what a Klingon is. But even in Trek its starting to wear off with people getting fatiqued by the new format of the shows. 24 episode seasons of TNG and DS9 work. 10 episodes of Strange New Worlds does not.

And personally, I think we're seeing the same here. Another fantasy show requiring world building but not having the air time to do it. So the producers are trying to shoe horn in the parts they think can't be skipped and leaving everything they can on the editing room floor. In this specific case, its not helping that the costumes don't live up to good cosplayer quality, and the special effects are of a quality that lots of YouTubers can do it home these days. (Like those guys that do videos of "We rebuilt Tron in a weekend" and "We rebuilt the Deathstar trench flight in a day" kind of content.)

To a small degree, this is what we got with Geralt in Season 1 which was based of the short stories.

I would watch the hell out of this.

What Netflix is actually streaming, I will not watch.