Henry Cavill’s departure and the fandom’s negative mood are apparently having a real effect on The Witcher season three and its viewing figures.
It’s been a week since the first part of season three, consisting of five episodes, dropped on Netflix and picked up the story of Geralt and Ciri where the previous outing had left it off. Now, with ample opportunity for fans to have caught up with the show, it seems that many of them are simply giving up on watching it altogether.
According to a report by Deadline, close to 1.1 million households in the U.S. got on the streaming platform and watched season three. That’s not a terrible debut by any stretch of the definition, but it’s a 15% decrease compared to season two’s premiere in the same timeframe.
What’s more, it seems that viewership shrank by a significant margin the deeper fans went into season three, with episode two roping in 893,000 and episode three losing 143,000 of those. By episode five, only 505,000 of those viewers stuck around.
The data seems to suggest that all eight episodes of season two managed to keep more than 1 million households tuned in. So, when you put this side by side, the implication is quite clear: The Witcher is losing the fandom’s attention, and rather rapidly, at that.
Will the remaining three episodes redeem season three in terms of audience participation? Or will Netflix be forced to reevaluate its ambitious plans regarding Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy universe?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough, because those final episodes are making their way to the platform on July 27.