What the Series Should Have Been

In my review of season four of The Witcher (which, really, only reiterated a problem I’ve had with the series in season two, and the first part of season three as well as the second part of season three) I noted that the show had moved away from the episodic, “monster of the week” storytelling of the first season towards something far more serialized. I likened it to taking a show like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and trying to make it into “the next Game of Thrones”. It’s notable that since that first season, which was met with rapturous ratings and favorable critical reviews, the series has seen season-over-season declines in viewership as well as far reduced ratings from critics. It’s almost like changing what a show is after you’ve hooked people is a good way to turn your entire audience off.

Let’s be clear: we don’t need another Game of Thrones. That’s not to say that Game of Thrones was bad (especially not in its early seasons), but that show pretty well cornered the market and gave audiences what they were looking for. No show that has come since and tried to capitalize on the success of Game of Thrones has been able to do anything more than feel like a pale copy of HBO’s series. Even HBO’s own follow-up, House of the Dragon, feels like a pale attempt to continue Game of Thrones. Audiences have moved on and that magic has faded.

The Witcher should have stuck to what it was good at: being a show about a Witcher, off on adventures, killing monsters, being gruff, and occasionally saying “fuck”. That was the winning formula for season one and there was no reason why, when with a semi-serialized C-plot running in the background, the show couldn’t have continued being about a dude having monster of the week adventures. “There’s a war brewing! Beware!” and then he goes and kills a hydra. I think the show could have kept what people liked about it, cranking out great seasons of television that people would show up for.

It’s no surprise, then, that the best “episode” of The Witcher that we’ve gotten in some time is an animated movie telling its own, self-contained story that has nothing to do with the serialized stuff happening in the main series. The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep went under the radar when it was released in early 2025, lost among Netflix’s constant stream of releases, buried in the algorithm. It was meant to be a teaser for the fourth season, a way to keep audiences interested in The Witcher before the debut of that season at the end of the year. Instead it went almost entirely ignored, with even fans of the series either ignoring it or simply not realizing it was even there. A pity, really, because the animated film is quite good.

Developed by Studio Mir, the same studio behind Voltron: Legendary Defender, My Adventures with Superman, and the previous animated The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep finds our friendly neighborhood Witcher, Geralt of Rivia (voiced by Doug Cockle, who has voiced Geralt in the various The Witcher video games from CD Projekt Red), traveling the countryside with his constant companion, Jaskier (Joey Batey). Having arrived back in Jaskier’s home town, a small fishing kingdom on the coast of the continent, they’re desperate for coin and looking for work. This is especially true after Geralt “fails” to kill a sea monster he was sent here to deal with, realizing it wasn’t the monster attacking the fishermen of the kingdom. This doesn’t exactly put him in the good graces of the townsfolk, but all is well as soon as Jaskier gets an invitation to perform at the upcoming royal festivities.

At the ball, Jaskier and Geralt encounter Jaskier’s old friend, Essi (Christina Wren), another bard who used to have his back when they were both younger. But while the two of them perform, a wounded fisherman makes his way into the party. He tells the assembled crowd that the seafolk attacked the boat, killing everyone else on board. Angered, King Usveldt (Simon Templeman) calls it an act of war and declares that the seafolk are the enemies of the land dwellers. This despite his son, Prince Agloval (Camrus Johnson), proclaiming that the sea folk wouldn’t commit this heinous act, in part because he’s in love with the seafolk’s princess, Sh'eenaz (Emily Carey), and she knew nothing about the attack. Geralt has his doubts, too, thinking there’s something fishy (pun not intended) about this whole affair. But can he get to the bottom of it before the two kingdoms inevitably go to war?

Credit where it’s due, this full-length animated film provides just about everything a fan of The Witcher would want in an adventure starring the hero. There’s battles, monsters, drama, and action. It has a plot that weaves and feints, with more than a couple of unexpected twists along the way. It even acts like it’s going to tell an expected version of a fairy tale (The Little Mermaid) only to zag away at the last second. All of this combines into a story that feels narratively satisfying while also never once trying to act like it’s anything more than a solid monster of the week adventure.

Naturally, much praise has to be heaped on the voice cast, who are all great. Batey is the only main character in this adventure voiced by someone from the television series, and he gives his usual delightful performance. Cockle steps into the voice role of Geralt, but it’s hard to think of a better person that could do this. Presumably Liam Hemsworth wasn’t available (or was too expensive) and Henry Cavill didn’t want to come back one last time, but getting the voice actor from the video games feels just as good as he can easily handle all that this voice performance requires, and then some. The series feels perfectly grounded in the lore and style of the series, with its cast continuing to give us the characters we know.

With that said, this film doesn’t blend perfectly with the series. When it comes to action, the animated film takes some strong liberties. Naturally, doing sea creatures for an entire episode of a live action show would be cost prohibitive, so handling all this in animation makes sense. Much of the film sticks to the (mostly) grounded reality of the live action series, and it all fits together decently well. But when it comes to action, the anime style of the series comes out, and it’s absolutely jarring.

Unlike in the show, where Geralt is stuck on the ground, Geralt of the animated film jumps and leaps and whirls all around, running along vines and trees and tentacles with reckless abandon. You can tell that the animators knew they didn’t have to worry about physics or real performances and could let their creative selves fly, and that’s fine, but when the Geralt we know from the series suddenly becomes a whirling acrobating marvel, something feels very off. He doesn’t feel like Geralt we know, which pulls the audience out of the action.

Additionally, because it’s so energetic, so acrobatic, it actually makes the action harder to follow. The action doesn’t pull out far enough to let us see context and locations for all the players, meaning that it’s hard to understand where danger is coming from, let alone know if anything really has an impact. It’s visually stunning, to be sure, but it lacks the kind of raw intensity that we get with the action in the live action series, which also feels like a bit of a let down. In creating something so dynamic, Studio Mir actually made something less interesting than we’re used to.

So it’s hard to call this a rousing success. The action isn’t the whole of the show, but key, climactic moments need the action to feel right, and it’s not quite there. But when it comes to the story and its many twists and turns, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep feels spot on. It’s not a perfect adventure by any stretch, but this still makes it one of the best episodes of the series we’ve gotten since that first season originally dropped. I can’t fault the film for having a little too much visual flair since at least it’s having fun. And fun is in short supply in the parent series now. Perhaps we just need more of these kinds of adventures and less of everything else The Witcher is doing. Wouldn’t that be nice?