I did not read the books, and I did not play any of the games (although I heard at least one of the games is of great quality in storytelling) so I went into this show more or less a blank slate.
And boy it is bad.... The writing is just dreadful. I think the writers assumed prior knowledge to the world and characters, and lean on that assumption too heavily.
From the very beginning it is poorly written. Timelines are messy and unclear, exposition is done terribly, worldbuilding looked like an afterthought and taken from a first draft, the pacing is all over the place and inconsistent over time as well inconsistent for each subplot. Episode structure is even irratic. They presented us a continuous story, but several episodes focused more on little episodic adventures that did not impact the main storyline all that much. And for a show with only 8 episodes, that is deadly and lead to other stories being rushed or simply put on hold for the next season (I assume.)
Toward the middle of the show, it started to get a bit better and I thought it could be promising after a bit rocky start, but in the end they could not deliver and it turned into an utter and complete trainwreck (oh that last episode, I almost fell out of my chair several times from disbelieve.) Rushed plot resolutions, while other characters stories crawled to a complete standstill with close to no progression or character development, in somecases even for the whole season.
What the show does have going for it: Photography, sets and costume design are beautiful!
I really did not want to dislike this, but it looked like they actively tried to make me stop watching.
Note: This review is about season 1.
