A little context before I start, I've never read the books that "The Witcher" is based on. I've got some exposure to the games, but I've never played them properly.
As a Kingdom falls to invaders, the Queen desperately forces her granddaughter Ciri (Freya Allen) to leave the city, telling her that "Geralt of Rivia is her destiny". Geralt (Henry Cavill) is a Witcher, a skilled fighter who makes his living hunting and killing monsters at the request of local towns, cities and Kingdoms. Elsewhere, a lowly stable girl is sold by her parents into the mages guild. Wildly powerful, but lacking control, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) enhances her magical skills, but consistently rebels against the traditions and rules of the guild.
Once I got into it, I really liked this first season of "The Witcher". The first couple of episodes jump around a little more than I was comfortable with and introduce a number of characters and locations when I wanted to stay with Geralt more, and learn about him. There was then a "eureka" moment, for me, when it became apparent that these stories were not concurrent and from there, working out where the stories linked became another fun aspect of the show.
Cavill is a good cypher for Geralt and with his perfectly timed grunts, looks and muttered swear words is a deceptively funny character to spend time with. This is only heightened when he's forced into reluctant straight man opposite Joey Batey's Bard Jaskier. His fight scenes were very nicely done with strong sword play, in fact, action across the whole series was good, ending in an epic battle at the conclusion of the season. I've focused on Geralt quite a lot there, but I'd suspect that Yennefer actually appears in the series more than Geralt (I'm sure she's got more lines) and it's her development and growth (and one particularly bad decision) that dominates the narrative. Fortunately then, I really liked Anya Chalotra's nuanced performance.
Really really good stuff that doesn't outstay it's welcome and leaves me craving season two.
