The showrunner for Netflix’s Witcher series defends it against critics amid ratings slump
Dexerto recently spoke with showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich about the once-popular Netflix series The Witcher. She shared her opinions about the recently released fourth season and the soon-to-follow fifth and final season.
Schmidt-Hissrich talked about being relieved of the pressure to wrap up because the source material already exists. “I think that we lucked out because I said very early on, ‘We’re not going to go past the books,” she said. “There’s always pressure of something ending, but for us it just felt like an enormous celebration, which is we got to do it, we made it this far,” she continued. The showrunner spoke about it being a privilege to work on the show and go 5 seasons, and how many shows aren’t lucky enough to run that long.
Schmidt-Hissrich talked about being relieved of the pressure to wrap up because the source material already exists. “I think that we lucked out because I said very early on, ‘We’re not going to go past the books,” she said. “There’s always pressure of something ending, but for us it just felt like an enormous celebration, which is we got to do it, we made it this far,” she continued. The showrunner spoke about it being a privilege to work on the show and go 5 seasons, and how many shows aren’t lucky enough to run that long.
She also shared her feelings about fans' opinions on the show and its divergence from the source material. When speaking about the current views of fans regarding the show and how its story has unfolded, the showrunner said, “You have book fans, you have video game fans, and then you have fans that knew nothing about this world until the show existed.”
She added, “And the truth is we can’t choose one audience. We have to remember what we are doing, which is a television show.”. This can be seen as somewhat contradictory, since 2 of the 3 fan types she mentions, which also make up a sizeable chunk of its audience, aren’t happy with the show's direction. That and the exit of Henry Cavill, as the titular main character, Geralt, is one of the many hits the show has taken.
Season 4 of The Witcher was released on the 30th of October on Netflix and stars Liam Hemsworth as the new Geralt of Rivia, loosely adapting the story from the final 3 books of the original author. Seasons 4 and 5 were both filmed back-to-back, and at present, the final season has no release date.
Season 4 has garnered a relatively low Metacritic score of 59 across 15 critics, but a significantly lower user score of just 1.8 across 174 user reviews at the time of writing, indicating that many feel strongly about changes to its primary cast member and deviations from the books.
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