After ‘The Witcher’ Season 3 Absolutely Rejected By Fans, Netflix Runs Ads Assuring Audiences That Henry Cavill “Is Still Geralt”
Spencer Baculi
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In what can only be best described as an act of utter desperation, after its premiere was met with widespread rejection from fans, Netflix has attempted to salvage their investment into The Witcher Season 3 by undertaking an ad campaign which promised general audiences that Henry Cavill “is still Geralt”.
Geralt (Henry Cavill) argues with Jaskier (Joey Batey) in The Witcher Season 3 Episode 2 “Unbound”” (2023), Netflix
Much to Netflix’s chagrin but to no one regular viewer’s surprise, the debut of the first half of The Witcher‘s third season has failed to reverse the series’ downward trend in viewership and review numbers.
Promised by series showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich to be “the closest thing we’ve done as a one-to-one adaptation” of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original novels before unsurprisingly turning out to be anything but, per an analysis of roughly “3 million terrestrial TVs” provided by data aggregator Samba TV and shared publicly by Deadline, the Netflix series’ latest season has seen a 15% decrease in viewership compared to Season 2, falling from 1.3 million households to just 1.1 million.
Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) clean up in The Witcher Season 3 Episode 5 “The Art of Illusion” (2023), Netflix
Further, it appears audiences are actively dropping the first-half of the season before reaching the end of its five-episode debut, as “Samba measured that about 893,000 households watched Episode 2, and that shrank to 750,000 for Episode 3.”
“For Episode 4, 602,000 households tuned in,” explained Deadline’s Katie Campione of the paywalled data, “while Episode 5 drew less than half the premiere audience with 505,000 U.S. households.”
Geralt (Henry Cavill) unleashes his might in The Witcher Season 3 Episode 4 “The Invitation” (2023), Netflix
“Netflix dropped the first installment of season 3 of The Witcher, resulting in 1.1 million households tuning into Henry Cavill’s last season as Geralt within the first six days streaming,” added Samba TV’s VP of Measurement Products Cole Strain.
“Older millennials (A35-44) over-indexed by the highest margin of any age group by nearly 10% compared to the average household,” he told Deadline. “Yet the data indicates viewer interest may be waning for the Netflix series. Last season, every episode drew in over a million households within its first week of streaming. This season, however, fewer viewers have returned in the initial viewing window, with the series experiencing a 15% decline between the most recent season and season two’s premiere.”
Geralt (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) settle on their next destination in The Witcher Season 3 Episode 1 “Shaerrawedd” (2023), Netflix
Meanwhile, further credence is lent to the observation that Netflix has absolutely dropped the ball regarding the once-popular adaptation thanks to the third season’s absolutely abysmal audience reception scores.
As of writing, over a thousand reviews have left The Witcher Season 3 with a current 24% ‘Rotten’ rating on review score aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwwhile, 172 have collectively given it a record low score of 2.3 on fellow aggregator Metacritic.
The Witcher’s Season 3 Rotten Tomatoes scores as of July 13th, 2023
For comparison, the widely panned Season 2 posted a 57% and 3.9, respectively, while Season 1 snagged 89% and 7.5.
The Witcher’s Season 3 Metacritic scores as of July 13th, 2023
In the face of this absolute torrent of disappointing results, just four days after Season 3 premiered, Netflix attempted to entice audiences back to the series by reminding them that, despite his public exit, The Witcher star Henry Cavill was still its lead in Season 3.
“Yes,” read the advertisements, as projected upon a number of landmarks across the world. “He’s [Henry Cavill] still Geralt in Season 3.”
Just in case you need a reminder. pic.twitter.com/bvV0hYjymU
— The Witcher (@witchernetflix) July 3, 2023
Its first part having already released, the final three episodes of both The Witcher‘s third season and Cavill’s time in the titular role are currently set to hit Netflix on July 27th.
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