The Witcher: Blood Origin review – Save your coin

On its release on Christmas day, prequel miniseries The Witcher: Blood Origin quickly earned notoriety as the worst rated Netflix original according to Rotten Tomatoes users, with a score of 8%. Yes, even lower than the hate-watched Resident Evil. Blood Origin has bounced back a little since then, and currently sits with a 13% audience rating and 33% from critics, but such a strong reaction inevitably leads to the questions, “Is it really that bad?” and “Are there other influencing factors at work?”

In terms of the latter, it could easily be a case of mobilised toxic fandom, the same type that Star Wars and the DC Snyderverse are associated with. Both casual viewers and ardent fans of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s dark fantasy series, on which the Netflix franchise is based, were disappointed by the news last October that Henry Cavill will no longer play monster hunter Geralt of Rivia after Season 3 of ongoing series The Witcher. Combine that information with rumours that some of the show’s writers hate the source material, and it seems credible that audiences are venting their dissatisfaction through user scores, regardless of actual quality.

So, taking a step away from production drama, and focusing only on what’s on the screen, is The Witcher: Blood Origin as terrible as some have said? No. However, it is undeniably one of the most disappointing limited series in recent times, as it repeatedly sets up fresh and intriguing ideas, only to squander their potential as the show loses its nerve, and falls back on a set of safe-but-exhausted tropes.

For the record, The Witcher: Blood Origin is set over a thousand years before The Witcher, and depicts what led up to the franchise’s all-important Conjunction of the Spheres, a cosmic event that slammed together the worlds of men, elves and monsters. The Witcher universe is cyclical at its core, so Blood Origin also makes sure to throw in despotic empires and power plays, ambiguous prophesies, unstoppable beasts, dangerous dabbling with magic, and the first proto-Witcher – all of which are very familiar to The Witcher fans.

In the miniseries, a motley band of outcast warriors and magic casters (played by Sophia Brown, Laurence O’Fuarain, Michelle Yeoh, Zach Wyatt, Lizzie Annis, Huw Novelli, and Francesca Mills) join forces for an impossible mission. They plan to overthrow empress Merwyn (Mirren Mack) of Elven civilization Xin’trea – humans have yet to arrive on the Continent – and her scheming right hand mage Balor (Lenny Henry). The pair are suppressing Xin’trea’s starving population even as they open portals to “civilise” other worlds.

The failures of The Witcher: Blood Origin hinge on two fundamental flaws. The first is that it’s too short. Initially announced as a six-episode miniseries, the end result is just four episodes, which range in length from 48 minutes to one hour. The showrunners claim that this was a deliberate choice during editing to make Blood Origin more “punchy,” but the effect is quite the opposite in reality. Some of the best moments in the series are the quieter scenes where the band of rebels interact, sharing their stories, which in turn earns audience sympathy.

Due to time constraints, though, outside of leads Brown and O’Fuarain, the rest of the cast get maybe one moment of character development of this sort. Some get even less, being forced to deliver an “I escaped somehow” verbal summary of non-depicted actions. Blood Origin would have benefited from showing more of its central band working together, their combined strengths and frictions, but audiences don’t receive an opportunity to delve into that intriguing dynamic.

This is frustrating because the characters are generally interesting. Blood Origin goes so far as to explicitly acknowledge that the “party of seven heroes on a quest” storyline is overdone, and freshens things up with broader representation. The Witcher: Blood Origin features characters of different races, characters on the LGBT+ spectrum, and even characters with physical disabilities.

All are treated as matter of fact parts of this universe, which is a welcome change when looking at the long tradition of male-dominated white cis het high fantasy. A particular standout is Francesca Mills, who appears as a rarely depicted – at least until Amazon’s The Rings of Power – female dwarven warrior. Wielding hammer Gwen, Mills’s Meldof is equal parts bubbly and brutal.

Which brings us to Blood Origin’s second flaw, and that’s how, despite all its self-awareness and efforts to shake up the base formula, ultimately it doesn’t subvert expectation at all. After a strong first episode, the miniseries settles into box ticking mode. Those highly-skilled fighters from rival clans, who you think might, just for once, develop a relationship built on platonic respect? In the last episode, with little to no build-up, those feelings are suddenly sexual.

For everything The Witcher: Blood Origin gets right – a huge plus is Merwyn’s extravagant personal styling, and costumes designed by Iris Van Herpen – it wastes something else it’s been smart enough to include. This includes Michelle Yeoh to a certain extent, who, though spikier and more morally ambiguous than usual, is still ultimately a cliché. And that really is the miniseries in a nutshell.

Watch (or don’t) the four-episode The Witcher: Blood Origin now on Netflix.