After meeting Meldof and her beloved Gwen, the warriors put a perilous end game in motion.

Episode 3 lost me a little. So far I’ve been enjoying what is a messy and extremely corny show with some Witcher lore and lots of rubbish dialogue.

This entry into the limited series was a step down and it’s worth examining why that was.

There are two other shows worth comparing this to. The first is the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time is a straight adaptation of a fantasy series with a huge cast of characters, a young adult/shonky approach to narrative and quite a challenge in convincing people who loved the source material to buy in.

What it did right was to recruit some very talented directors and writers who could frame a shot to allow emotion and write drama to impact the viewer. There are scenes in Wheel of Time that are brilliantly put together which I can still recall now.

Blood Origin has none of this quality. The writing is poor. Beyond the trope-heavy approach to each and every character we also have huge developments happening off screen. For instance we get not one but two sex scenes with the same characters this episode with both being portrayed as the first time they’re having sex. Or how about the lengthy backstories for each character in episodes 1 and 2 only for all the others to be thrown into the party with no more than a ‘hey, nice to have you’. One particularly bad introduction is effectively two new party members saying ‘oh, yes, we escaped from a specially built prison while no one was looking’.

Structural issues like this are not just the writing’s fault. I’m betting that at some stage the escape from prison was written but it was cut, as was most of the character development, to allow for a four-episode season. It’s resulted in a show whose characters only really exist to further the plot.

Which would be fine if the plot was interesting but it’s as beige as pasta and features a retcon of the story of how the first Witchers were created – reducing it to a meaningless matter of plot necessity carried out while on the run. Again – there was no need for it to be this shoddy.

The second show worth comparing to is Willow. Willow started out with a very similar premise – get a team together to go save the world. Where the two depart is that the characters have each been given time to grow, to make decisions that are consistent with who we’re shown they are and for the story to go in unexpected directions. Willow is the ultimate in generic fantasy but rather than leave it there the writers have spent time building a unique world with strong (apocalyptic) vibes and some very distinct elements. Blood Origin starts out distinct and has steadily become more generic.

Furthermore, Willow has adopted a clear YA approach, leaned into the contemporary feel and stuck pretty close to the formula that made the eponymous movie such schlocky fun. Like The Witcher it isn’t groundbreaking, gritty or deep but it’s not trying to be and understands that well enough to deliver something really fun and engaging.

I know I’m punching hard here. I was enjoying the show but I was never under the impression it was good. Where we are now is that I’m not really enjoying Blood Origin and it remains bad. The bad has spread from the dialogue and plot to the structure and so there’s almost no part of it that’s good. Except for Francesca Mills who is great.

I’d also love to see more of Lenny Henry. He was great in Rings of Power and there are flashes of a really compelling villain here but none of it’s quite enough to change my mind about the show.

Rating? 5 inexplicable escapes out of 10.

Stewart Hotston