The Witcher Season 4 is just around the corner, with the fifth and final chapter to follow. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has opened up about the pressure of wrapping up the Netflix show for good – especially in the shadow of the divisive Game of Thrones finale.
At its height, Game of Thrones had it all: critically acclaimed, huge ratings, and George R. R. Martin’s rich world to draw from. But then, the show moved past its source material, culminating in Season 8, the most polarizing chapter of television in recent history.
Faith in the franchise has been restored thanks to House of the Dragon, but Game of Thrones’ swansong is still considered a benchmark in what not to do when closing a TV series.
Given The Witcher is another high-fantasy show with an established fanbase, one that will be ending in the near future, Dexerto took the opportunity to ask Schmidt Hissrich about how she’s approaching these final chapters.
The Witcher won’t repeat Game of Thrones’ biggest mistake
There’s one Game of Thrones mistake that The Witcher won’t be making when it comes to wrapping up the series: it will never move past Andrzej Sapkowski’s books upon which it’s based.
When asked if there’s a level of pressure when it comes to ending with Season 5, Schmidt Hissrich replied, “No, I think that we lucked out because I said very early on, ‘We’re not going to go past the books.’
“ We have the ending. And there were certain things – I mean, the books go a little crazy. And I say that with the most deference because I love them.
“We lean so hardcore into fantasy at the end in wonderful ways that Sapkowski introduced us to. So we knew the stories that we needed to end with.”
“There’s always pressure of something ending, but for us it just felt like an enormous celebration, which is we got to do it – we made it this far,” she added.
“A lot of TV shows don’t get the chance to do five seasons, and it’s been such a privilege to be part of it from the beginning and to grow with it.
“I think we all expected to be very sad at the end, and instead we were thrilled because we made it.”
For the uninitiated, The Witcher Seasons 4-5 were filmed back-to-back, and both chapters will cover Sapkowski’s three remaining books: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake.
Season 4, which lands on the streaming service on October 30, sees Liam Hemsworth taking over as Geralt after Henry Cavill exited the series.
His departure is one of many reasons fans of The Witcher books and games have criticized the show, with some debating that the Netflix adaption veers too far from the tone of the source material.
The Witcher showrunner addresses backlash to Netflix show
This was also something Schmidt Hissrich addressed, with the showrunner explaining that there’s room for all three versions of The Witcher to exist.
“You have book fans, you have video game fans, and then you have fans that knew nothing about this world until the show existed. And the truth is we can’t choose one audience. We have to remember what we are doing, which is a television show,” she told us.
“It is different than any other genre in any other form that you could tell this story, and we have to make the choices for that. We have eight hours every season to tell these stories, and we’re never going to be able to tell everything from the books.
“I also think that there have to be changes that you make for adaptation just to make this story keep going forward. Season 1’s the perfect example. Obviously we leaned into the two books of short stories, but you can’t just tell unrelated adventures in a season of television.
“You have to start to weave them together. You have to understand how these adventures lead our characters to be where they are meant to be. And so we had to start crafting… at that point it was connective tissue.
“We also have the privilege of knowing when we’re ending. Netflix picked up Season 4 and Season 5 at the same time, so we also had to write ourselves to that particular ending. So again, you make choices.”
Schmidt Hissrich went on to explain, “One of the things that I’ve talked a lot to the author about and a lot to fans about is that the books still exist.
“No one is taking the books away. No one is taking the video games away. I think everyone can have their version of The Witcher and this is this version.”
“If it even just crosses your mind for one second”: Justin Bieber shared his definition of cheating, and not everyone agrees with it