You don't like them I assume? =D I haven't seen them but would love to, just bit difficult to see them here in Finland. From what I've gathered the series is better?
Edit: Welp. Someone has actually uploaded it to Youtube with subtitles, all the episodes. Would still prefer official release, the video quality is bad too.
Apparently its pretty common for the dislike of that show. Personally I'm glad they tried you know? In Poland, this series is basically Lord of the Rings-like famous and popular. The person they cast as Geralt has the look one would expect and from skimming through it, they followed the book plots close enough including even the famous parts where Geralt first meets Ciri's parents when Emhyr (AKA, Duny) is cursed into a shapeshifted form. The costume work looks decent and music seems right for the setting.
Pavetta
Duny
Basically your typical Medieval Europe Fantasy casting for the mixture of mythos Witcher combines (Slavic, German, Norwegian, Celtic, etc.), most of which was completely new to me having really never read any Slavic Mythology, at least, before The Witcher. "Vedmak" - proto-slavic for "to know" and old Russian for "knowledge" and "witchcraft" , hence how English readers were given "The Witcher" in translation.
Anyways, as far as this thread goes, regardless the production for the new show are going to cast who they see as the best fit for each character. If the writing and production values are top notch and they give the actors good material to work with, it should be good. I'm crossing my fingers they follow the story beats of the books as close as they can; for example the 'contracts of the week' in The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny interspersed story parts that hint at things to come in the Saga part. I kind of was hoping they would cast someone like Mikkelson though for Geralt with an awesome Danish accent.
If anyone has seen the TV show Merlin, the casting for Gwen (played by Angel Couby) was pretty good. Typically Gwen has been a lot whiter actresses in the many different movies and other tv shows about King Arthur.