The Witcher’s third season has received mixed reviews, and one of the show’s creators blames it on young people and Americans.
The Netflix fantasy series starring Henry Cavill premiered in 2019 and was a huge hit with the streaming platform’s audience at the time.
Fans have gotten frustrated as the series has moved away from the riches of source material authored by Polish novelist Andrzej Sapkowski.
This was exacerbated when series star Henry Cavill announced his departure at the end of the recently released third season.
According to statistics from TV analytics websites in the United States, the third season premiere had a 15% reduction in viewership compared to season two.
In reaction, executive producer Tomek Baginski stated that, while losing viewers is ‘sad,’ moving away from the books was important.
‘It’s painful for us, and for me too, but the higher level of nuance and complexity will have a smaller range, it won’t reach people,’ he told Wyborcza.
‘Sometimes [the complexity] may go too far,’ he said to the Polish news website, ‘but we have to make these judgements and accept them.’
Baginski then mentioned Hardkor 44, an unfinished sci-fi war film set during World War II that he worked on in the early 2010s.
‘For Americans, [Hardkor 44] was completely incomprehensible, too complicated, because they grew up in a different historical context,’ he argued.
‘When a series is made for a huge mass of viewers – and a large part of them are Americans – these simplifications not only make sense, they are necessary.’
‘When it comes to shows, the younger the public is, the logic of the plot is less significant. They grew up on TikTok and YouTube, they jump from video to video.’
Despite the present challenges, The Witcher is likely to return for a fourth season, with Liam Hemsworth taking over for Cavill.
‘Liam’s been down to the studio, we’ve walked him through preliminary concept ideas for things. He’s very excited,’ a production designer said.
The Witcher is available to stream on Netflix.
