- Starring
- Henry Cavill, Freya Allan, Anya Chalotra
- Creator
- Lauren Schmidt Hissrich
- Rating
- R
- Genre
- Action, Drama, Fantasy
- Where to watch
- Netflix
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
In what is the last season before Henry Cavill’s Geralt is recast with the baby-faced Liam Hemsworth, season 3 of The Witcher is shuffling Cavill’s White Wolf off with a whimper.
The Witcher (Season 3 Vol. 1)
Season 3 of The Witcher picks up not long after the events of season 2. Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri now find themselves on the run as Yennifer tries to teach Ciri how to fully realize and control her burgeoning magical abilities. As the trio moves from hideout to hideout, just barely ahead of the hunting parties, Yennifer does her best to instruct the Elder Blooded teen while also taking steps to repair her relationship with Geralt.
Season 3 focuses primarily on Ciri and Yennifer as Geralt recesses ever deeper into the background. Even though it was only a short while ago that Yennifer nearly sacrificed the would-be savior for her own selfish ends, the two quickly fall into the roles of mother-like mentor and doting surrogate daughter.
Gone is the show about a bad@$$ supernatural loner who slices and dices his way through fun monsters for coin. Instead, season 3 treats us to a redux of the Star Wars prequels, and just like the prequels, the third season of The Witcher subjects us to scene after scene of people sitting and talking, followed by them standing and talking, usually about the same subject, and only occasionally interrupted by an obligatory action sequence possessing all of the vim and vigor of a nursing home cage match.
What’s worse is that much of the relentless dialogue is rendered virtually unintelligible by using so many fantasy names and locations that Game of Thrones had to go to the Wiki page. Combine this with the fact that travel time and geography are so mismanaged that there is no sense of how much time passes from scene to scene, and what you end up with is a completely uninteresting mess. The audience doesn’t know what’s happening or when it’s happening and doesn’t care.
Perhaps, if the characters were compelling or remotely fun to watch, it could make up for the show’s membrane-thin plot, but they are not. The White Wolf, Geralt, has been neutered and is now a secondary character, while Yennifer has become a towel-ringing mother hen. However, Ciri… is also there.
With a constant look of worry, the diminutive princess never ceases to remind us how unhappy she is to be hiding, learning, or doing anything other than unbelievably keeping pace with Geralt in a monster battle (of which there are few).
All of this is to say nothing of how obnoxious Jaskier has become. Barely in season two, the bard was mildly enjoyable in small doses in season 1. However, now, he has gone full Jar-Jar. Everything from his haircut to his STDs (that’s a thing) is an over-the-top and grating portent of the overall direction of the series.
With too little plot spread over too many episodes, Volume 1 of Season 3 of The Witcher is as boring as Henry Cavill looks in every scene.
See our review of The Witcher Season 3 Vol 2.
WOKE ELEMENTS
- Once again, a strong male leading character has been downgraded to that of a secondary character in his own series.
- The Elves are communists and the only group treated as noble.
- Random lesbians are random.
- There’s a Dwarven weaponsmith and a bartender who wants to bang Yennifer.
- Both toss out just enough nonsequiturs and misplaced dialogue to let the audience know their completely irrelevant sexual orientation and get the writers invited to parties.
- There’s a Dwarven weaponsmith and a bartender who wants to bang Yennifer.
- One of the main subplots of the first season was that witches make a major sacrifice to become and remain exceptionally beautiful.
- In this season, there are two or three rather rotund witches who would only be of average beauty even if they were svelt. XXL Quota box checked.
- “What makes you so sure that it’s a he? Women can be assholes too.” Equality, yay?
- There’s so much diversity for diversity’s sake that this population must have come from the same island as the new Little Mermaid‘s Prince Eric.
- Ciri can’t weigh much more than 90 lbs. but can stand toe to toe with Geralt in a monster fight.
- Jaskier was solidly established as a slut, and now he’s been retconned as homosexual.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
12 comments
Ed Arnold
July 8, 2023 at 11:47 pm
Brilliant review!
Pauly
July 9, 2023 at 3:07 am
I saw Geralt and Yennifer kissing in a scene!
Imagine that, a heterosexual couple kissing in a Netflix show!!
Scandalous!
gmk2311
July 14, 2023 at 12:38 pm
I don’t know what happened between season 2 & 3. It’s like they changed writers and camera work. On some level I don’t even recognize it.
I can’t disagree with any of the review, some very good points about continuity busters.
But, I would add one positive observation..For fans of the Witcher games, I found it very satisfyng that Geralt is more frequently using his Hex powers in battle! It seems much more believable that he could fend off many foes with the help of some basic spell powers, which seemed largely overlooked in season 1&2.
Overall, I found the show much more interesting when it was focused on Kaer Morhen, the Witchers adventures and interactions. I think that will be seen historically as the best season of the series when all is said and done.
Rafał
July 9, 2023 at 9:02 am
I am from Poland and i hate Witcher original Books.
Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, in terms of their message, were – for those times – remarkably progressive. Under the guise of fantasy, they promoted feminism, multiculturalism, secularism, and even warned against what today is called “toxic masculinity.”
jacovny
July 12, 2023 at 11:29 am
And here’s the thing: feminism isn’t a bad thing on the surface, when it’s not taken to extremes. Freedom, equality, and dignity for all are wonderful values. But modern Hollywood isn’t capable of nuance. The new religion is that we must place women and non-whites on a pedestal, call it “equity”, then at the same time push men and white-skinned people into the background to “punish” them for perceived abuses of the past. That’s not equity. It’s just a twisted revenge fantasy.
Rick K.
July 9, 2023 at 10:21 am
This is not the way to get me to turn Netflix streaming back on. They already chased me away, finally, with just two episodes of October Faction a few years ago and when they stop sending me Blu-rays I’ll be ending my association with them completely. Ok, I did turn streaming back on to watch the final two seasons of The Last Kingdom, just because I enjoyed the books so much. I wish CJ Box had been able to keep as much creative control.
Anyway, I did get to see a few episodes of Witcher. Too bad, somehow I knew it would end up a pathetic shadow of itself.
stan
July 9, 2023 at 8:43 pm
i am a huge fan of the witcher games, specially 3. When the show was announced and Henry Cavill was driving this, i was excited. The 1st season, was decent, confusing yes with all the time jumps, but, it was watchable, and at times, funny. But what i loved was that Gerald was killing monsters, creatures, getting his coin, and bedding any available (real) woman and mmm’ing every few seconds, as if he didn’t give an ‘eff what people thought of him. Shifting to season 3, and he has been neutered, fights no monsters (since Ciri can now kill anything he encounters, he has been rendered as a “useless, pathetic male, and white” Hollywood 101 right there) and is “in love” with a witch who betrayed him for her own selfish reasons but is now “trying to make it right”. It is so disappointing how much this show has regressed since season 1, and lets be frank, season 1 didn’t exactly win any awards. If it were not for Henry Cavill, this show would have gone the way of that other crappy witcher spinoff Netflix produced, Blood Origins. I really am saddened that Henry Cavill has to leave what is a passion project for him, because of a few entitled writers who think their opinion is more important than the actual story of the witcher. Good luck to Liam Hemsworth, he is going to need it.
Ian
July 10, 2023 at 11:55 am
Considering Henry Cavill’s impending departure from the series and supposed clashes with the writers about deviating from the lore, it is no wonder that season three feels like the writers strike started before they wrote one line of it. Fantasy genre is supposed to be an escape from the world we live in. Instead this checkbox mentality for casting and the glorification of deviant behavior shows how Netflix is following suit with the AnBev, Target and Ben & Jerry’s corporate ethos to insult their target consumer. The idea that destroying well established franchises to the wokeness of the entertainment industry is a recipe to win back those kicked to the curb by Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing is laughable.
Sallyann
July 13, 2023 at 11:39 am
For me hot looking girls with swords is just woke. Girls dont play with swords. Id give it 35/100 for wokeness. Just trying the whole girl power thing but lets be honest its BS
gmk2311
July 14, 2023 at 2:53 pm
Sallyann, I understand part of your sentiment about girl power being BS.
The saddest part of this aspect is that they SHOULD and could be casting actors that can carry the role and pull it off! There are some badass women out here.
You have actresses like Gina Carano that are beautiful, capable and can carry a role with physical requirements and sell it.
Then you have malnourished looking actresses like Freya Allan who would be knocked over by a stalk of asparagus, trying to sell prowess as an action hero. That takes a lot of money, which they don’t seem to have.
The viewer can only suspend disbelief to an extent. Maybe it was just poor casting .
Emerson
July 14, 2023 at 6:30 am
I love Witcher and Henry but writers/casting/woke bs ruined entire series – so sad and such a waste of what could have been a masterpiece.
Bob the Bread
November 22, 2023 at 12:24 am
Speaking about wokeness, don’t forget pushing people of color everywhere while ignoring the lore. Yennefer and Vilgefortz are played by Indians; dryads, Mistle and Fringilla are black and Triss looks like a gypsy.