Summary: Geralt is a Witcher that arrives in Blaviken. He meets the wizard Stregobor who wants him to kill a woman, Renfri, who he believes is able to destroy the world and is evil. Geralt speaks with Renfri and learns her story. She tells him to kill Stregobor. He tells her he would rather not get involved and suggests that she leave Blaviken. Renfri doesn't do it, and upon Geralt's return she gives him an ultimatum: choose between her or Stregobor. Geralt ultimately murders Renfri and her men and is banished from Blaviken. He gets a prophecy that tells him his destiny will be intertwined with a girl in the woods. Elsewhere, Ciri is the princess of Cintra. Nilfgaard declares war on Cintra and attacks, killing the king and queen. Ciri, who has a magical power of some kind, manages to escape into the woods.
The Good: I appreciate the lack of a prologue in this episode. Fantasy tropes were generally avoided in this episode, and I thought that throwing us into the world was the way to go. I naturally learned a good deal about this world and its rules by just watching the story unfold, and I think that the flow of information was pretty solid. Geralt is immediately likeable. Henry Cavill puts in a good performance and there is enough that is interesting about this character to make an impression. I appreciated the examination into his morals and ideology with the Stregobor/Renfri conflict. It leads to a nice moment towards the end of the episode as Geralt makes his choice and learns about the uncertainty of the world, how it is not in fact split into good and bad. The action was the other big highlight of this episode, specifically the climactic action scene with Geralt. The choreography was outstanding and the directing was superbly done to make Geralt look superhuman without making everyone else look weak and without compromising the intensity of the action. The sequence had a lot of heart put into it, and it was everything that it needed to be. The Bad: The dialogue has been really poor so far. It feels like modern day dialogue being thrown into a medieval setting and it does not fit at all. The clash between modern times and a fantasy medieval world does not work well, and it was jarring to me to hear people talking like they do in the 21st century. Furthermore, the dialogue is lacking in depth and subtlety. The messages of the show are forced too hard through dialogue, and I often felt like the dialogue wasn't natural, it was constructed specifically for the plot. Additionally, I was confused by a lot of the dialogue that focused on far too many terms that are unique to this world. For this dialogue to mean anything, we need to know what these terms mean, and the show doesn't tell us a lot of the time. That makes for an unsatisfying experience. The deadly combo of poor dialogue and poor acting has unfortunately hit the show. The only thing that made this dialogue worse was the disappointing line delivery that made things feel even more stiff and unnatural. Characters like Ciri and Calanthe were mostly unconvincing in their portrayals and it made their scenes difficult to enjoy. I'm also much less invested in the Ciri storyline than Geralt's. The characters haven't been defined yet, and the story so far seems like a generic, uninspired fantasy flick where the evil kingdom attacks the good kingdom because a girl has magic powers. I'll need much more of substance than that to get invested in this story. Geralt interests me far more. I expect pilot episodes to hook me and make me excited to watch the next episode. This episode didn't really make me do that. It felt like a generic fantasy piece with very little original or unique about it. I presume that the show will get better as it starts to explore the characters and world in more depth, but this is a rather flat way to hook the audience. The Unknown: To clarify, I have never seen anything in the universe of "The Witcher" so I am coming into this show completely blind. So I will have many questions. Where are these locations? Where is Blaviken? Rivia? Cintra? Nilfgaard? What is this world like? Who is ruling? How many kingdoms are there? What are these monsters? How do they live in this universe? Where did they come from? How many are there? Are they a serious threat? What is a Witcher? Why aren't they well liked? Are they some kind of mutants? How did that happen? Were they killed off in the past? Is the curse of the black sun a major event in the history of this world? Who is Lilit? What was Falka's Rebellion? Why is Nilfgaard attacking Cintra? Why did they choose to attack now? Who rules in Nilfgaard? Are they after Ciri? Why? What power does she have? Why is it so important? What's with the dream that Renfri gave Geralt? Was it prophetic? How was she able to give him this dream? Are these two storylines happening at the same time or is there a difference? Calanthe mentions that she won her first battle at 13, yet in Geralt's story, there is mention of Calanthe winning this battle in the present tense. Is Geralt's story happening at an earlier time? Is Ciri the girl in the woods? I imagine she is because she was told that Geralt is her destiny. Best Moment: Geralt talking with his horse, a remarkably human moment for him that helped me connect with him and his ideals. Character of the Episode: Geralt. Conclusion: Coming off of the success of "Game of Thrones", it was important for this show to establish itself as a fresh story that is worth being told instead of a pale imitation. It hasn't done that yet, but it did enough right in this episode for me to continue. The acting and dialogue is a problem that I really want to see improved though. Score: 58
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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