Ok, finished with all of Season 3.
Some good fights, but outside of that it felt like a lot of fluff. Apparently this season hews a lot closer to the books than S2.
Ultimately it was a reasonable diversion but the show has declined pretty far in quality (not that it started at a particularly high point).
The hate watchers are all over the place here, so programed to repeat the "they've ruined the books" diatribe that the people defending the show for actually being closer to the books are getting drowned out.
The season break is weird, I guess that's all Netflix could really do since the season peaked in episode 6 then sort of puttered along for two more episodes of nothing, so they put the break where they could reasonably get away with it.
- I've actually really enjoyed Vilgefortz, both the casting/actor as well as his slow burn reveal as the big bad. I know from the game and some lore that he beat the shit out of Geralt at some point but it was remarkably well done on screen. The show was definitely getting a bit "It's Geralt, he can kill anything" so it was intense to see him lose a fight as badly as he did. If the rest of the show wasn't such a damp squib it would have been the kind of moment that had people talking.
-Also, what the actual eff is going on with Cahir? The actor did a great job with the material but the dude is waffling back and forth so hard, like he literally storms the castle and kills a ton of mages looking for Ciri, then finds her and immediately gives up and pledges loyalty, then turns on the same scoiatel he showed up to fight along side all John Snow stand in front of a cavalry charge like?