"The Witcher: "Blood Origin" and the Too-Few-Episodes Problem

The new series from Netflix joins the ranks of other fantasy TV series that are being starved of episodes by their home networks.

Welcome back, everyone! I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus for this month, but I’m back, and I have a lot of things in store for Omnivorous. To begin with, I have this little essay about The Witcher: Blood Origin, as well as the problems with giving such a high-profile series such a paltry number of episodes.

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I went into The Witcher: Blood Origins with high expectations. I’ve been a fan of the parent series since it premiered in 2019, and while I thought the second season had its fair share of bumps and bruises, it still managed to stay at least somewhat true to the spirit of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original novels (which I read somewhat later and also loved). When I heard that we were going to get a prequel series that would not only focus on the cataclysmic event known as the Conjunction of the Spheres but also the creation of the first witcher, I was over the moon. After all, the prequel film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, which was also a prequel (though nearer in time to the original series), had been truly enjoyable, so surely a full miniseries would be even better.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I am one of those people who, quite simply, did not like this series. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s essentially a misfire on every conceivable level and, as such, should serve as a warning to Netflix of the dangers of sabotaging their own projects (among other things, the original run of six episodes was reduced to four, with predictable results). 

Don’t get me wrong. I really wanted to like The Witcher: Blood Origin. I’m a sucker for a good prequel, and the story this series tells is a fascinating one. However, things are so rushed–and the script is so sloppy and badly written–that the entire thing is over almost before you know it.  What makes this all the more frustrating is that there is a good show in Blood Origin. Unfortunately for all of us, only the barest outlines of this series are still visible and, rather than a truly immersive and sprawling story that adds to the existing lore, it’s a largely undercooked and utterly forgettable piece of fantasy television. 

For me, what it all comes down to is this: four episodes quite simply aren’t enough to tell the story that Blood Origin is trying to tell, and this plays out at both the macro and the micro level. In terms of the big picture, it’s very hard to really grasp the full significance or power of the Golden Empire, the sprawling political organization which seems to abruptly spring into being in the first episode and quickly becomes the dominant force on the Continent. Its leaders–particularly Merwyn, the young princess who becomes the Empress and the sinister sorcerer Balor–have the potential to be fascinating and engaging characters, but they’re so thinly sketched that it’s hard to feel anything about them at all. Moreover, many characters talk about how evil the Golden Empire is but, because we’re never shown that, and because there are too few episodes to flesh this out, it isn’t particularly convincing. Instead, both the organization and its leaders become bland fantasy stereotypes, utterly devoid of individuality or interest.

Even all of that could be forgiven, if we at least got characters with whom we can genuinely connect and whose fates–both romantic and otherwise–have any weight. Unfortunately, we don’t really get to spend enough time with any of them to really form an attachment. Michelle Yeoh is, of course, fantastic as the elf Scían, determined to reclaim the sword of her clan, and Francesca Mills is similarly excellent as the vengeful dwarf Meldof, but they are standouts in a cast who is regrettably bland. 

Arguably the heart of the series, if there is such a thing, is the bond between Éile and Fjall, the latter of whom goes into exile once his amorous affair with the princess is discovered and ultimately becomes the very first witcher. However, as with so many other characters in The Witcher: Blood Origin, they don’t get a real chance to develop, and their romance—as well as its tragic conclusion, when Éile is forced to kill her beloved so that he won’t descend into utter insanity and murderous rage—don’t really have much depth.  It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when the death of one of your main characters at the hands of his beloved fails to have any emotional resonance whatsoever, particularly when said character is the very first witcher. And, of course, there’s also the unanswered question of how the witchers became an institution when their first member was such an unmitigated disaster.  

And the villains aren’t any more developed than the heroes. There are faint glimpses that Balor is motivated by anger at a group of elites who have routinely looked down on him and spurned him, but none–including the sacrifice of his apprentice–really seem to  matter. The same is true of Merwyn, who willingly participates in the slaughter of her brother and many others of her own kind, supposedly so she can forge her own destiny but really, it seems, because she just wants to be powerful. Her later desire to send elven warriors into other worlds to conquer them doesn’t make a great deal of narrative sense, not least because she only sends about a dozen of them to do the job (including one notable queer character, who is as undercooked as the rest, more’s the pity).

It’s almost as if The Witcher: Blood Origin had an idea of what a good fantasy series should look like but, confronted with a lack of support, decided to just phone it in. There’s nothing wrong with generic fantasy, of course, but when it’s a huge property like The Witcher, it seems like a huge wasted opportunity. When there’s this much money on the line, one expects more than just slapped together archetypes and dreary exposition (to say nothing of the very sloppy and sometimes downright silly CGI).

It boggles my mind why a major industry player like Netflix would do so much to sabotage what is indisputably one of the jewels in its crown. The announcement that Henry Cavill would no longer playing Geralt was bad enough (and I’m sorry, but I have serious doubts as to whether Liam Hemsworth will ever be able to truly inhabit the character). Now, the franchise has to contend with the execrable reviews of Blood Origin, which has been reviled by fans and critics alike.

However, I’m not saying that all of the series’ problems could have been fixed had it been given the 6 episodes it was originally supposed to have, or even with the 8 that is the usual run for its parent series. However, it does seem to me that Netflix continues to sabotage its own efforts by starving one of its flagship series of the time it needs to really flourish. Even the 8 episodes that typically comprise a season of The Witcher don’t seem nearly enough to really allow its narrative to breathe.

Nor is Netflix alone when it comes to not giving fantasy the number of episodes it really requires. For some reason that I struggle to understand, Prime Video has given both The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time only eight episodes per season. Once again, given the vastness of the story that each series is trying to tell,  the crimping of episodes leads to some narrative problems, and both series have earned some justified criticism for these shortcomings. Of all of the major streamers currently airing fantasy series, only HBO seems to have gotten the memo that an epic story needs enough breathing room in order for its drama to land. House of the Dragon is a superb show in part because it has a full 10 episodes in which audiences can get to know both the characters and the larger world of which they are a part. Whatever criticism one might have of HBO’s major fantasy offering, at the very least it isn’t abbreviated.

Streamers have got to realize that they can’t have it both ways. They can’t have sprawling epic stories and then shortchange them by giving them short seasons. While this might be acceptable for the first season, it’s quite simply not viable in the long run. Time will tell if they will learn their lesson.