Geralt of Rivia makes it to Netflix

The White Wolf finally makes it to whatever screen you do most of your streaming on, and the results are…opinion-dividing, at best.

While Netflix’s The Witcher stays true to Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy novels, minor details might be at odds with fans of the far more popular game series from Polish game developer CD Projekt Red. Our first instinct would be to ignore the horde of gamers baying for blood ever since the casting details were revealed (at least until they bother putting in a first viewing of the show), but in this particular case, they do make a point. The Witcher features accurate set design, fantastic action sequences and the typically drawn-out dialogue that you expect from a post-Game-of-Thrones world, but falls short in a few crucial places—the score is excruciatingly subpar (especially next to the award-winning soundtrack of the third and last game), the flashback scenes are disorienting (characters look the same across timelines) and some character arcs are annoyingly drawn out.

The casting is the least of the worries, ironically. Henry Cavil as Geralt the monster-slaying witcher is as apt as Hugh Jackman was for Wolverine, while Anya Chalotra as the incredibly fierce sorceress Yennefer is spot-on. The other lead character of Ciri, played by Freya Allan, is perhaps the weakest link—hard to fault her for it since she’s a young princess on the run because of the Elder Blood that flows in her veins.

Overall, The Witcher is a mess for half of its seven-episode first season, but shows a ton of promise as the quality improves gradually with every subsequent episode. Season 2 is coming, and we think it’ll only get better from here. For now, it’s promising enough to not die at the guillotine.