The Witcher, Blood Origins Review

The Witcher, Blood Origins Review

By: Sam Holt

 The Witcher, a fantastic Netflix adaptation of both book series and video game franchise, has recently released a new drama series on Netflix titled Blood Origins. The story follows an old legend of seven heroes who fought against a tyrannical elven empire. As the story unfolds, we meet several wonderfully different characters on a mission to help their people find their voice and true freedom. The first few episodes took some wonderfully planned turns and continued to draw me in, but let’s not only focus on the storytelling of this wonderfully executed new drama. 

Along with enjoying the story of this prequel, I found the cast to be perfect for each role they played. As always, Netflix doesn’t pull punches when choosing people for their roles. I love to see women of color placed as leading characters, and the actresses, Sophia Brown and Michelle Yeoh played both their roles beautifully as strong and intelligent warriors who many people look to in this series. However, my favorite character is Francesca Mills' Meldof, a half-mad, revenge-bent dwarf whom we meet later in the show. We also can't fail to mention Netflix’s inclusivity with characters like Fenrik played by Amy Murray, who is deaf and plays the role of an apprentice and scholar, and Zacaré played by Lizzie Annis, who is a powerful healer and sister to the powerful mage. It’s wonderful to see, albeit slowly, people with lifelong disabilities are given these types of roles and it offers hope that one day we might have even more iconic representation in size, shape, color, and ability. After all, it’s not for us to say who is capable of great things just by the physical ability of their bodies. As a person with experience in special effects and an avid fan of set design, I’m happy to say I saw little to no mistakes. Overall the scenes, the makeup, and CGI were very well executed and kept me captivated. Netflix’s production knows what they’re doing, but the real stars would be the monsters that were made. With only two monsters shown in the series, the special effects team put a lot of effort into making those creepers look so well that I nearly forgot it was CGI.

All around The Witcher Origins was an incredible experience to watch with its diverse characters, inclusive nature, and exceptional storytelling. I greatly look forward to seeing what else Netflix has in store with the continuation of the Witcher story. Congratulations to the entire Netflix team. You all did a fantastic job, and I can’t wait to see what is in store for future releases.