Netflix cancels The Witcher series with first glimpse of season 4

Netflix the magician is coming to an end, the streaming giant announced. Netflix has announced the renewal of the series' fifth season, indicating that it will also be its last.

Fans of the show have been waiting to learn more about the upcoming fourth season which has just begun production in the UK. The big change between Season 3 and Season 4 is the lead: Henry Cavill has exited the role of the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, with Liam Hemsworth taking over what has to be one of the most challenging recasts in modern television. You can see Hemsworth in the photo above, which stars Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, Freya Allan as Ciri, and Joey Batey as Jaskier.

“It gives us great pride to begin filming the penultimate season of our series the magician With an excellent cast, including some exciting new additions, led by Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia. Creator and director Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Netflix. “We're thrilled to be able to bring Andrzej Sapkowski's books to an epic and satisfying conclusion. This wouldn't be our show if we didn't push our cast of characters to the limit — stay tuned to see how the story ends.”

(I will say, everyone seems to be having a good time during the table read. And I hope the series itself is entertaining for us, the audience.)

Seasons 4 and 5 will conclude the remaining three books by author Andrzej Sapkowski: baptism of fire, swallow tower, And Lady of the Lake. Although I've pretty much lost faith in this production — mainly because of its shoddy writing and production values, something not even a strong cast can salvage — I'm curious to see how they'll transition from Cavill to Hemsworth and the show's creators will take any of the criticisms of past seasons To the heart.

In my review of Season Three, Part Two the magician She wrote in a scathing tone:

We all deserve better. Henry Cavill deserved a better series to lead the magician. Fans of the games and books deserve a show that tried harder to succeed as an adaptation, rather than pushing the political agendas of its creators.

Cavill's co-stars deserved another season with Cavill as the star, given how glowing they all were about his dedication to the role and story.

And Netflix (and its shareholders) deserved a show that could actually compete with it game of thrones, rather than a mediocre general fantasy that – unfortunately – could be completely forgettable by the end of its largely disappointing third season. It didn't have to be this way.

This was the opening. At the end of the review I write: “I'll be watching Season 4, just to see how much worse things can get, but… the magician Also finished. He is dead. Honestly, he died at the end of the first season. What we've been watching since then is just the reanimated corpse of a show that once had a lot of potential, and is now just a withered husk; Some fallen monsters Geralt will slay once and for all, not by fighting them, but by walking away.

I had such high hopes for the magician And while the first season wasn't perfect, it felt like the start of something that had a lot of potential. If only the show had been developed by people who cared more about being faithful to the source material. Even if it wasn't an adaptation of the books – similar to how video games tell new stories rather than adapting novels – a better understanding of what makes the world of The Witcher special would have gone a long way. Hopes were dashed again. But I'll try to keep an open mind for season 4.

Here are more photos of the Season 4 table read. You'll notice another big name in Season 4: Laurence Fishburne, who will play Regis — Emile Regis Rohlich Terzev-Godefroy to be exact — Geralt's well-educated friend who has some skeletons in his closet.

Will you be watching season 4 and 5? Let me know on Twitter And Facebook.