The Witcher Season 1 was... a mixed bag.
On the one hand, Cavill truly embodies Geralt in his physicality and mannerisms, he carries much of the show on his back, when they decide to use him that is. On the other hand, the showrunners decided to use the first season as a sort of prequel to the main novels, picking various stories from the first two short story collections and weaving them in with significant events that lead into the first novel. This is communicated very poorly, the time shifts in particular not being signaled at all, even someone familiar with the lore might take a few moments to find their footing after a scene transition. The stories they choose vary in significance to the overarching plot which can prove confusing to the viewer already struggling to figure out the place and time from scene to scene. At only eight episodes, the show hardly has time for filler.
Episodes 1, 2, & 3 are by far the best the show has to offer, doing a good job of setting up the characters and the grimdark world of the Northern Kingdoms. After this promising setup the show starts to trip over itself quite a bit clumsily trying to connect its main characters with insufferable proclamations about destiny and an overreliance on pregnant pauses while characters stare weepily at one another. It comes dangerously close to the melodrama they do at the CW, even tarnishing Cavill's solid Witcher performance by making him break character to participate. There's a surprising lack of monster hunting in the show as it focuses more on the forces of destiny pushing the three main characters together. This isn't handled very well and can drag a bit in the later episodes, especially when there are long periods of inaction. There is one truly fantastic fight scene at the end of episode one that demonstrates Geralt's physical prowess to a tee and really utilizes Cavill's athleticism in a well-choreographed sword fight that utilizes lots of long takes to really sell you on what's taking place. Sadly, this is the only one of these in the entire show that feels like a great deal of care was taken with it, there are other fights but they're nowhere near as good.
Also, the writing is incredibly uneven. Some of it is taken directly from the novels which is fitting and if you don't like that writing then I don't think this series is for you. But a lot of it is only passable, seemingly early draft stuff that could've been improved before shooting, many of the lines are some variation of stuff you've heard in television before, the laziest kind of filler lines. It never totally nose dives the show but when they spend so much time talking, it's impossible to ignore. Weak writing inherently stunts the potential of the performances in the show, if you give them dumb things to say they're going to sound dumb saying them. Episode 6 is a low point, it introduces fantasy elements that don't really jive with what's previously established, and overall feels like a bloated mess trying to cram too many meanings into a single story. It's the Witcher show's Tom Bombadil moment with little of the charm. Yennefer's storyline begins compelling and powerful and sort of fumbles in the middle with her boring self-obsession. It's slightly redeemed by the end of the show but not entirely. Ciri is worryingly unlikeable, sure she's a helpless girl but she displays little of the grit or charm that make her a character you root for in the novels.
The production overall looks kind of shoddy, there are little details that stick out like Geralt's medallion being a cheap coin instead of a straight-up wolf head. The contacts they used aren’t subtle and look like contacts rather than a natural phenomenon, Geralt’s eyes are meant to look like a cat’s but in the show, they just give him yellow contacts that don’t change the shape at all. The budget clearly went into covering the large-scale battles and the CGI which is halfway decent but other aspects of the sets and costumes fall behind as a result. They're certainly not working with a GOT level budget. Other minor complaints from a fan of the books and the games. Yennefer and Triss look neither how I imagined them nor how they're portrayed in the games. It's a bit off-putting and I wasn't quite used to it by the end of the season. The dwarves are literally just midgets with beards, it's the weirdest thing, they look like gnomes which are also a thing in this universe. Yarpen Zigrin has only a bit part to play in the show and isn’t really given much depth or anything to do. Jaskier as Dandelion is significantly more fleshed out and interesting, but his arc in relation to Geralt kind of fizzles out and he disappears from the show entirely in the final episodes.
Overall, I think the first season has some promise, it's not the total disaster I feared it would be and it does eventually come together and set up the events of the novels. I am optimistic that if the show does well enough and they boost the budget and hire new writers the second season could be a marked improvement over the first. 7/10