That was probably nothing with his own “Game Of Thrones”: The “The Witcher” franchise seemed to have the potential to be as big a hit as the Westeros saga, but things have been going downhill lately with Geralt and Co. The second season “The Witcher” and especially the spin-off “Blood Origin” were not well received by many fans, after which protagonist and figurehead Henry Cavill announced his retirement – and now the first part of “The Witcher” season 3 is also in danger of being a failure.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the significantly weaker user ratings for Season 3, even if they cannot simply be rejected. Because this is probably where the frustration and disappointment of many fans comes into play, while the reviews in the trade press of season 3 are even better than those of season 1.
Weak views on Netflix
More important to Netflix – and the future of the show – is how well the show performs in terms of viewership. And here too, the trend is moving in a worrying direction, at least for those looking forward to a fourth season starring Henry Cavill replacement Liam Hemsworth:
On Wednesday Netflix has released the ratings for “The Witcher” Season 3, Part 1 so far: 73 million hours the five episodes were streamed in the first four days of release. Sounds pretty good at first, but you just need to compare it to other recent Netflix series to see: That’s pretty much okay, but for such an expensive, prestigious series as “The Witcher” it’s almost a flop.
Geralt has no chance against students and Queen Charlotte
That’s how it was the fourth season”Never in my life…76.2 million hours watched in the first four days after release. With ten half-hour episodes, the final season of the high school series has about the same runtime as the first half of the much more expensive third season “The Witcher”. So it’s pretty bitter that “Never in my life…” was clearly much more watched.
It’s similar to the young-adult series”XO, Kitty“, which also contains 10 half-hour episodes and was watched for 72 million hours in its first four days, only slightly less than “The Witcher” season 3.1. The Arnold Schwarzenegger series “Fubar” was streamed significantly more in the first four days (almost 89 million hours), but also has three more episodes of about an hour. So the comparison is a bit flawed here.
But the differences really become apparent when compared to “Queen Charlotte”. The Bridgerton spin-off ran a whopping 148.3 million hours in its first four days of release, more than double the number of The Witcher Season 3 Issue 1. The total playing time is a bit longer, but Queen Charlotte clearly puts the witcher in the back.
Expelled by a comedy special
In addition, there is little evidence that the third season of “The Witcher” is now entering its second week of major success. In the US, season 3.1 has already moved to number 2 in the top 10 Netflix series – through a comedy special (for those interested: “Tom Segura: Sledgehammer”)!
This indicates that interest in season 3 of “The Witcher” is quickly waning – and of all places in the US, still the largest and most important streaming market and home to Netflix. Given these developments, the already announced fourth and fifth seasons of “The Witcher” don’t seem to be a good star…