The Witcher returned in 2025 with its highly anticipated fourth season, but, unfortunately, it confirmed a sad reality about the show. Netflix is home to some of the best TV shows of all time across different genres, and when it comes to fantasy shows, it has a wide variety to choose from.

One of Netflix’s most popular fantasy shows is The Witcher, based on the book series of the same name by Andrzej Sapkowski. Although The Witcher had a strong first season, its decline began with its second season, and the show has since struggled to fix its mistakes and regain the attention of its audience.

Although season 4 was an improvement, The Witcher kept repeating the mistakes of the past seasons, and, unfortunately, this only confirmed a sad reality about the show.

It’s Too Late For Netflix To Fix The Witcher

Despite its initial success, Netflix’s The Witcher has been making various mistakes from the beginning. The Netflix show hasn’t really understood its characters, making unnecessary changes to them (most notably those made to Yennefer in season 2), and changing the stories in ways that end up impacting subsequent plots.

Although Henry Cavill’s Geralt received a lot of praise, he was also criticized for his lack of dialogue in the first season, and in all seasons, he has been criticized for lacking the deeper and more philosophical parts of the character. While Liam Hemsworth’s Geralt felt more like the books in season 4, he still lacks key parts of the character.

The Witcher has mostly suffered from the changes made to the second season, which derailed the rest of the show. Season 4 did as much damage control as possible and set into motion the most important storylines for Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri – the problem is that the show only has one more season left.

The Witcher season 5 has two books to cover, many loose ends to address, and a lot left to fix, and it won’t be enough in just eight episodes (which is the number of episodes of every season). Had Netflix understood The Witcher from the beginning and been loyal to the source material, the show would have nothing to fix in its final season.

How Will Netflix’s The Witcher End?

The Witcher season 5 would have to cover The Tower of the Swallow and The Lady of the Lake to give complete and satisfying closure to the stories of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri – however, as mentioned above, with just eight episodes, it’s too much to cover and too little time to do so.

The way The Witcher should end, if it wants to be loyal to the books while still fitting with what it has been building, is with the White Flame letting Ciri, Geralt, and Yennefer go, and the battle that injures Geralt. In the books, Yennefer and Geralt’s fate is left ambiguous as they sail away, with Ciri telling their story.

It’s to be seen if Netflix will give The Witcher the ending from the books or a different one, and, most importantly, if it will give proper closure to the stories of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri.

Release Date

December 20, 2019

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich

Directors

Stephen Surjik, Charlotte Brändström, Edward Bazalgette, Loni Peristere, Louise Hooper, Bola Ogun, Alex Garcia Lopez, Gandja Monteiro, Sarah O’Gorman

Writers

Haily Hall, Clare Higgins, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jenny Klein, Tania Lotia

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  Anya Chalotra

  Yennefer of Vengerberg