The last few months have not been kind to The Witcher franchise.
First, it was announced Henry Cavill would leave the series after the third season, which is set to be released this year. Then, it was then announced that The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth would be taking his place as the series lead, Geralt of Rivia. The reaction to that news wasn’t exactly…positive. Finally, the long-awaited prequel to the series The Witcher: Blood Origin, starring surefire Oscar-nominee Michelle Yeoh, was released during the Christmas holiday. Sadly, this was the final insult to injury for one of the most popular original franchises from the streaming king.
The Witcher: Blood Origin is supposed to be a four-part mini-series about the creation of the first-ever Witcher. Sadly, this storyline is not even remotely close to a focal plot point as it’s half-heartedly launched at the backend of the final episode. Instead, we’re once again given a high fantasy saga about a group of warriors – misfits, outcasts, and rogues – begrudgingly questing together in order to stop the forces of evil from destroying the world.
Sound familiar? Well, you saw similar tales in Prime Video’s Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Disney+’s Willow, and just about every fantasy series or film that’s come out since the year 2000. In fact, the series has the unmitigated gall to tell its audience that this story is way different than all these other tales. Yes, there’s literally a scene where the mysterious elf Seanchai (Minnie Driver, Good Will Hunting) tells The Witcher regular Jaskier, played by Joey Batey, about the premise of the series. Jaskier immediately responds that we’ve all heard this story before (and he’s right!), but Seanchai tells him it’s totally different.
Seanchai, you’re a straight-up liar.
Outside of the Witcher origin story being tacked on in the final episode, this is literally everything you’ve seen in other series and films but – somehow…worse?
This is no fault of the cast. Sophia Brown (The Capture), Laurence O’Fuarain (Rebellion), Mirren Mack (Sex Education), Lenny Henry (Rings of Power), and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) all do their best with what’s given to them. All are very capable in the big action and fantasy sequences, and all give sincere, full-hearted performances. The sword fights and battle scenes are the highlights of the series. These two elements of the series make the series palatable, however, neither can elevate the series to “memorable” status.
The series also feels wildly disjointed from a narrative perspective. This could be due to the series being cut from its original six-episode slate to four. Storylines are brought up and dropped left and right. Characters enter the series with little background, yet the audience is supposed to have a strong emotional bond with them. This, along with the tired storyline, makes the mini-series feel extremely hollow, unimportant, and completely unnecessary for any Witcher fan to watch.
The production value of the series also waves throughout. At times things feel like a prestige high fantasy production, while at other times it feels like a straight-to-video or a low-end TV production. Sadly, the latter is the most prevalent, thus bolstering that feeling of The Witcher: Blood Origin being unimportant and completely skippable.
If Netflix had hoped to expand upon the Witcher universe, sadly, they have failed this franchise miserably. The Witcher: Blood Origin feels like a bad knock-off instead of a companion piece, and that only damages a franchise that has had nothing but bad news come its way over the past few months. One has to hope, for the sake of the series, that Henry Cavill’s last ride as Geralt will erase the bad taste left by Blood Origin and the rest of the bad news.
