I just finished watching the 4-part series The Witcher: Blood Origin (a prequel to the Witcher TV series). It was OK, but kind of corny and full of predictable moments.
Maybe I’m too picky nowadays, but it felt kind of like someone asked an AI program to make a script out of the Witcher stories plus the movies The Fellowship of the Ring and The Magnificent Seven, and then passed the result through a 2020-era diversity filter.
It was fun! Since The Witcher is corny and full of predictable moments in all its incarnations that was what I was expecting.
Diversity doesn’t faze me. There was even an in-universe justification with the division into clans.
I also think diversity is a good thing, I just meant that Fellowship of the Ring and Magnificent Seven didn’t have a lot of female or non-white main characters.
Ah. I get your intention then.
I’m on the third episode and none of the characters really pop off the screen or make much of an impression. It’s just kind of bland and sort of boring.
I didn’t find it boring, but I don’t disagree that the characters lack depth and that the whole thing is a bit bland. It fleshes out a bit of known backstory from the show, which I enjoyed, but doesn’t really spend enough time to establish characters to make it more than mediocre on its own. Still, I enjoyed the moments of “Hey! It’s Ithiline!” and “I know the name Avalla’ch, don’t I?”
The “cousin” sent to bring our one hero back to Dog Clan in episode 1 was decidedly Black. I don’t think the clans map to ethnicities with any rigor. And that’s fine.
I liked that Zacaré’s disability wasn’t really made an issue of.
I’ve just finished episode 3, and I’m enjoying it very much. It hits all my fantasy show buttons - colourful, great costume design, especially for the Empress Merwyn. Love, love, love me some Iris van Herpen. And her hair! Perfection.
Only complaint I have, really, is that the songs that “the Lark” are supposed to be world-famous for are utter shit. The actress has a good voice, but the songs themselves are no “Toss a coin.” Maybe Elves just have a different sense of scansion?
I thought you were talking about Fenrik (Balor’s mute apprentice), but I didn’t realise Zacaré’s actress had cerebral palsy.
The deaf actor was signing, so at least that disability was covered in-show. The actor with cerebral palsy, though, I don’t think they mentioned anything about her character having any issues at all, it just showed in how she walked.
I liked it through the third episode, but found the ending unsatisfying. It does fill in some important back story, though.
I’m struggling to say why i was unhappy with the ending, because it kinda does what it promised to do.
I’m with you. I guess to me it all felt rushed, and everyone’s deaths were kind of … meh? Overall I still liked the show, but could have done with another episode of ending.