The Witcher Season 4 Review – Liam Hemsworth is as charismatic as a wig | TV and radio

TThe Witcher is a maverick, a lone wolf, and a loose cannon who doesn’t play by the rules. “He is fearless,” gasps one of the henchmen as the witcher looks at the horse and frowns fearlessly. But the witcher is busy. The winds of change howl around his thigh boots and disturb the weave of his wig. “Your silence is particularly loud today, Witcher,” observes owner Melva (Ming’er Zhang), as the Witcher — also known as Geralt of Rivia for drama/HMRC purposes — frowns at another horse. But the witcher/Geralt doesn’t want to talk about why he doesn’t want to talk. Not that the latest installment of the beloved Netflix series with which he shares the name saw his family disintegrated by dark forces (although, to be fair, that probably didn’t help). But because the wandering monster hunter awakens in Season 4 of The Witcher to find that he is no longer played by Henry Cavill, on whose mountainous shoulders rest the first three seasons of this preposterously preposterous fantasy drama. Instead, Geralt is now Liam “Chris’s younger brother” Hemsworth, who was in Neighbours. In a very real sense: power.

This transformation clearly weighs heavily on Geralt, who spends the first episode of the new series turning his nose open and looking anxiously into the middle distance, as if Harold Bishop might suddenly appear from behind a bush and strike him with a mace. The malaise felt by this maverick actor is understandable: the Cavs are big shoes to fill, and the actor’s granite-jawed charisma provides an often too-confusing exposition with a near-monosyllabic anchor. But now, with Cavill back to pastures new, the final two series of The Witcher (the giant rubber ax is about to fall at the end of Season 5) will have to look up Hemsworth’s flaring nostrils for their hero. How does an unusually violent fantasy drama fare in the wake of this seismic renewal, my lord? Let’s climb aboard a medieval horse and head into the rugged wilderness of Season 4 to search for clues.

The last time we saw Geralt, he was heading out in search of his adopted daughter and apprentice witch, Ciri (Freya Allan), who had been rescued from her Bedouin captors by rat bandits. Meanwhile, Geralt’s sorceress, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), has launched her own search for Ciri, largely via a portal system called, with devastating insight, the Portal System.

And now? The plot continues in much the same vein, with screen time roughly evenly divided between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer as they grimace and slog their way through stories filled with impenetrable geopolitics, assorted “northern quail ahead” dialogue and mud-splattered extras eager to strip themselves of their intestines.

While Ciri finds companionship with a sympathetic “rat”, Mistle (Christel Elwyn), Joining Geralt, Milva, and the insufferable bard Jaskier (Joey Batty) on their journey east is Zoltan (Danny Woodburne), a kindly dwarf with an explosive beard and a wise parrot (a sample of sarcasm: “the fool”). Elsewhere, there are sounds of war more and worse, as treacherous Nilfgaardians point to maps and wizards plot in candlelit halls.

The tone remains wildly uneven, oscillating between the finger-licking bleakness of Game of Thrones and those early-’90s Saturday afternoon soap operas in which a helpless hunk wanders between small communities, saving vulnerable innocents from villains while learning about the true meaning of friendship. Likewise, Geralt II’s tone is uneven. Poor Geralt II’s tone. “He hasn’t been the same since he was injured,” Jaskier warns without the slightest bit of understatement as his companion’s vowels once again escape their restraints and head for Erinsborough. Our hero does his best to compensate by mumbling unintelligibly while making his nose flap like the socks of an angry wind. “Grrrnnnngh,” he says. “Grrrnnngh rrmmph fate.” Unfortunately, no amount of hurt snoring can detract from the fact that Hemsworth, bless him, is no Henry Cavill.

While his predecessor gave Geralt I a brusquely likable character, Geralt II was less “a spunky mountain man grappling with responsibilities beyond our abilities” and more “a septet in a wig.” Will fans embrace this lazy pout? It’s still early days, of course, but whether The Witcher will survive the replacement of its brooding bearer remains to be seen. [unintelligible grunting].