Just binged the latest season. My off the cuff thoughts:
The Liam verdict: Pass or Fail?
PASS.
Ultimately Liam does a good job in the role. The action scenes still feel powerful and visceral. His voice carries a good deep weight to it. I think if Liam had been initially cast as Gerult no one would have had an issue with his performance.
In terms of compared to Cavell, the biggest difference is...the grunts. Cavell was able to do more with a small mutter, a sideways grunt to convey Gerult's emotions. In contrast, Hemsworth uses more words or silence, and likes to throw in the smirk a fair amount.
Ultimately, I think Cavell is better in the role but the difference isn't so great that it really detracted me from the season. Gerult is still Gerult, still getting the job I need the character to do done.
The plot
This season has a pretty straight forward 3 way plot. Ciri is living life as a rogue, Gerult is trying to find her, Yennifer is taking on Vilgafortz and trying to save magic.
Yennifer's plot is by far the best this season. Its a combination of awesome action, great acting, bringing back old enemies as uncertain friends, etc etc.
Gerult's is decent, but ultimately his struggles don't actually move things forward very much in the grand scheme of things. His quest for Ciri mostly goes no-where (classic Mage problem, the second portals are back Yennifer does more to find Ciri in 2 minutes than Gerult does over like two months of traveling). But the focus is on Gerult's growth of relationships with these various companions that you could almost call....friends?
Ciri's is the weakest plot. Its literally just building up relations to destroy them to fire her up for the next installment. It really felt like a holding pattern for Ciri while the other two main plots caught up.
Overall, it was a much more focused plot than Season 3, better overall, still not the top quality we saw earlier in the series.
The Ending
Pretty weak ending, to the point where I was like "no way that's the season finale!" Apparrantely season 5 is coming much sooner to finish things off, but there is still a lot to do....feels like too much tbh. But yeah a bit of House of the Dragon Season 2....a lot of buildup that ultimately leads to "season 3 is going to be awesome, see you then!" rather than making the season stand out all on its own.
MVP
MVP goes to Laurence Fishburn's character. Just awesome character, a spin off of that guy could be pretty awesome.
Overall
The Witcher lost its magic spark along the way, you can argue when. Its still entertaining, I still enjoyed myself, but the world wide phenomena it is no longer. I thought this was a servicable season for a servicable show, worth the time to watch it but I wouldn't prioritize it high on the list.
The Liam verdict: Pass or Fail?
PASS.
Ultimately Liam does a good job in the role. The action scenes still feel powerful and visceral. His voice carries a good deep weight to it. I think if Liam had been initially cast as Gerult no one would have had an issue with his performance.
In terms of compared to Cavell, the biggest difference is...the grunts. Cavell was able to do more with a small mutter, a sideways grunt to convey Gerult's emotions. In contrast, Hemsworth uses more words or silence, and likes to throw in the smirk a fair amount.
Ultimately, I think Cavell is better in the role but the difference isn't so great that it really detracted me from the season. Gerult is still Gerult, still getting the job I need the character to do done.
The plot
This season has a pretty straight forward 3 way plot. Ciri is living life as a rogue, Gerult is trying to find her, Yennifer is taking on Vilgafortz and trying to save magic.
Yennifer's plot is by far the best this season. Its a combination of awesome action, great acting, bringing back old enemies as uncertain friends, etc etc.
Gerult's is decent, but ultimately his struggles don't actually move things forward very much in the grand scheme of things. His quest for Ciri mostly goes no-where (classic Mage problem, the second portals are back Yennifer does more to find Ciri in 2 minutes than Gerult does over like two months of traveling). But the focus is on Gerult's growth of relationships with these various companions that you could almost call....friends?
Ciri's is the weakest plot. Its literally just building up relations to destroy them to fire her up for the next installment. It really felt like a holding pattern for Ciri while the other two main plots caught up.
Overall, it was a much more focused plot than Season 3, better overall, still not the top quality we saw earlier in the series.
The Ending
Pretty weak ending, to the point where I was like "no way that's the season finale!" Apparrantely season 5 is coming much sooner to finish things off, but there is still a lot to do....feels like too much tbh. But yeah a bit of House of the Dragon Season 2....a lot of buildup that ultimately leads to "season 3 is going to be awesome, see you then!" rather than making the season stand out all on its own.
MVP
MVP goes to Laurence Fishburn's character. Just awesome character, a spin off of that guy could be pretty awesome.
Overall
The Witcher lost its magic spark along the way, you can argue when. Its still entertaining, I still enjoyed myself, but the world wide phenomena it is no longer. I thought this was a servicable season for a servicable show, worth the time to watch it but I wouldn't prioritize it high on the list.
