Netflix’s TV adaptation of The Witcher was generally well-received when it premiered on the streaming platform last December, with the main complaint being the series’ confusing split timeline. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has confirmed that the Season 2 timeline will stay linear now that the stories of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri have all linked up, in an interview with The Wrap.
Of course that doesn’t mean the timelines are going to be limited to the single time period. “What we’ll see in Season 2 is that all of our characters are existing on the same timeline. What that allows us to do storywise though is to play with time in slightly different ways,” Hissrich told The Wrap. “We get to do flashbacks, we get to do flash-forwards, we get to actually integrate time in a completely different way that we weren’t able to do in Season 1. Because, if you can imagine, if we were in three different timelines (in Season 1) and then flashed forward or flashed back, we would have been in four or five or six timelines — even I know that’s too much.”
With the second season introducing Geralt’s fellow Witchers, including his mentor and father figure Vesemir, it’s likely that these flashbacks may include a look into Geralt’s childhood and Witcher training.
Hissrich has expressed excitement about meeting the other Witchers, as some of the many new characters that will be introduced in Season 2. “Probably my favorite additions for Season 2 are the new Witchers,” she said. “In Season 1, we got to know Geralt and he’s our prime example of a Witcher. And then there is one other Witcher, Remus, who we meet in Episode 103, who quickly dies. So it was, for us really, about getting Geralt back to his roots and sort of learning where he came from and what his story is and what his sense of family is.”
The showrunner also talked about the future of Geralt and Ciri’s bond, which was one of the main themes of the first season despite the two only meeting for the first time in the very last episode. “Coming out of Season 1, you have a pretty good sense of who Ciri is, you have a pretty good sense of who Geralt is. And now we get to throw that all in a blender and see what happens when two people who are completely different have to be forced together in circumstances,” Hissrich said. “And I think it’s really fun. It’s not always pretty. They will argue. They will fight.”
The interview also discussed the effects the coronavirus pandemic had had on the production, with Hissrich mentioning that the team was in the middle of shooting a big sequence when production was halted. The production also experienced a scare when cast member Kristofer Hivju tested positive to COVID-19 on his return to Norway, though he appeared to be asymptomatic and no other positive tests resulted from the cast or crew.
While the UK has officially allowed film and TV production to resume, The Witcher team hasn’t confirmed when it will continue filming. “Right now, it’s a lot of production meetings, a lot of talking about how to keep people safe,” Hissrich explained. “A lot of it is just about flexibility, not just in the planning phases but when we get back on sets. It’s about personal comfort and personal safety.”