The Witcher Season 3 Loses The Netflix #1 Spot To An Unexpected Show

It's the end of an era for "The Witcher." Indeed, less than four full years after it premiered on Netflix, the live-action fantasy series has officially said goodbye to its original leading man. As fans have known for several months now, "The Witcher" Season 3 marks Henry Cavill's last outing as Geralt of Rivia. That means the show's Season 3 finale, which premiered on July 27, is the last time viewers will likely ever see Cavill's version of his rugged "Witcher" hero on-screen. For better or worse, it looks like the series' popularity may be going with Cavill, too.

As Forbes recently observed, it took just one week after the release of "The Witcher" Season 3 Volume 2 for the popular series to be knocked out of the #1 spot on Netflix's Top 10 list. In case that wasn't bad enough, the show was dethroned by none other than "Sweet Magnolias," which released its latest season a week before "The Witcher" dropped its final Season 3 episodes. "Sweet Magnolias" is, notably, not just another pre-existing Netflix original. It's also a much smaller and, therefore, cheaper show than "The Witcher," which just makes its ability to so easily dethrone the high-budget fantasy drama all the more surprising.

The fact that "The Witcher" Season 3 boasts the series' lowest fan ratings to date only makes its second-place finish behind "Sweet Magnolias" even more concerning. Currently, the show's future looks a lot less exciting than it once did. There are, frankly, a lot of things working against it right now.

No matter which way you look at it, it's clear that "The Witcher" has an uphill battle ahead of it. Not only has it officially lost its fan-favorite leading man, but the series' third season has also been hit with a wide array of criticisms from viewers. In the days after its first episodes were released, fans revealed that they found "The Witcher" Season 3 lacking in comparison to the show's previous seasons. Given the online ratings that the season's final episodes subsequently received, it seems fair to say that viewers were ultimately left more disappointed than satisfied by the series' latest offerings.

The reason for "The Witcher" Season 3's critical failure may vary depending on who you ask, but there's no denying that Henry Cavill's exit from the show inevitably cast a large shadow over all of the series' newest episodes. It's not hard to see why, either. Ever since "The Witcher" premiered, Cavill's performance as Geralt of Rivia has been one of the most critically lauded elements of the entire show. Now that he's gone, there's justified concern among fans that "The Witcher" won't be able to effectively make up for his absence.

If it fails to do that, at least it won't be for lack of trying. After all, not only has Liam Hemsworth already been hired to take over as Geralt for Cavill, but the series' creative team has already hinted at how it will handle the latter's replacement on-screen. Of course, whether or not "The Witcher" actually manages to offer a satisfying explanation for its lead's new appearance remains to be seen. Either way, it'll have to pull off an impressive trick or two if it wants to recapture the popularity of its initial seasons.