One of the biggest TV shows of the 2019 TV season was undeniably The Witcher based on both popular video game series and a large anthology of books produced by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. While the audience warmly welcomed the show and enjoyed it despite some of its flaws, these flaws were seen problematic by some. Showrunners acknowledged that the narrative felt too overwhelming due to its confusing use of timelines.
Fans of the franchise were pleased with the show that managed to appease both gamers and book readers evidenced by a massive spike in hours played on Steam for the game The Witcher III and increased sales of books on Amazon.
…tell stories better, improve some things, look at what didn’t work, get rid of it
The showerunner of The Witcher Lauren Schmidt Hissrich mentioned in her recent talk with The Writer Experience podcast that the show will receive some changes. She said that working on season 2 is “exciting” and that she wants to improve on many aspects of storytelling and production. She specifically said that they will do better: “…tell stories better, improve some things, look at what didn’t work, get rid of it”. A very specific detail that the showrunner revealed is that the Nilfgaard armor will receive an overhaul to look a little bit more authentic.
It is fair to say that The Witcher is more or less an empty slate at this point meaning that the creative crew is ready to make some drastic changes and right some mistakes that they made in season 1. While many experts and fans noted that the series is quite good as it is and only small changes to the storytelling method are required, improvements and changes are never a bad thing if handled correctly. The change in production design is an especially exciting development that will address one of the issues that fans had with the series.
On the other hand, the franchise is not stopping. Henry Cavill recently said that the second season will go into the production phase in January. Netflix realized that they have a new money cow to milk and decided to please the fans by creating an anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf that will cover a side story not covered in the first season. The TV show managed to attract a lot of attention and definitely reignited the passion for more Witcher-related content.
If you also need some more monster-hunting mutant with silver hair in your life, you can either start binging the first season again or go play some The Witcher III.