The executive producer of Netflix’s The Witcher has been under attack for a string of poor decisions, and he’s gone on the offensive, by being offensive. Called Tomek Baginski, he’s spoken to Wyborcza and blamed his changes from the book on Americans being, in his view, effectively stupid.

“There are a lot of understandable reasons why controversial decisions are made, but the viewer does not have this context, so sometimes it hurts because something was better in the book,” he began. However, changes are made chiefly to sell in the US: “a series is made for a huge mass of viewers, with different experiences, from different parts of the world, and a large part of them are Americans”.

He has a long history of issues with US audiences, blaming them with issues relating to a World War Two drama he wanted to make: “For Americans, it was completely incomprehensible, too complicated, because they grew up in a different historical context, where everything was arranged: America is always good, the rest are the bad guys. And there are no complications.”

Saying he has to simplify plots for the US audience, he calls it “painful” but “The higher level of nuance and complexity will have a smaller range, it won’t reach people…”