In late 2019, it was by some measures the most popular television show in the world, and it was Netflix’s second most-viewed TV debut to that point.
That’s impressive, and a little surprising, for a “Game of Thrones”-on-a-budget sword-and-sorcery adventure whose visual and dramatic quality ranged from “hey, not bad” to “.” Maybe it was a testament to the popularity of the source material, a cycle of stories and novels by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski that has also inspired a successful video-game franchise.
Or maybe people were just drawn in by the show’s charms, of which it had several: a playful sense of humor ; a refreshingly straightforward episodic structure; and an amusing, minimalist performance by Henry Cavill as the witcher, Geralt, a mutant mercenary charged with hunting down all manner of C.G.I.
Now the show’s pandemic-delayed second season is here, premiering Friday on Netflix, and based on six of the eight episodes, a lot of what made the series charming has been set aside.
Now there are more and longer conversations filling in the history of the story’s setting, called the Continent, and of the various species who inhabit it, including elves, dwarves and humans.
Cavill, who’s as lethal with a disappointed sigh or a sidelong glance as Geralt is with a dagger, is still a steady, engaging presence at the center of the action.
And if you like your costumed fantasies mythology-forward and you find the mechanics of world building to be an end in themselves, then this new, more mysterious and portentous season of “The Witcher” may be for you.