You know a show is important when Netflix gives it its own variation on that pa-poww logo animation that introduces every programme: The Witcher, a fantasy saga set in a faux-medieval, perpetually unstable land called the Continent, puts its big N on the screen with a special backdrop of gnarled branches and eldritch screams.
But season three arrives under a cloud, and it’s not an exciting electric cloud caused by wizards fighting on a mountaintop. This is the last time Henry Cavill will play wandering swordsman Geralt of Rivia: from season four onwards, the lead role is to be taken over by Chris Hemsworth’s less successful brother Liam, from the Hunger Games movies and, before that, Neighbours. This week, a Witcher producer boldly compared the move to the recasting of James Bond or the Doctor: “We’re trusting that … the IP itself is what is drawing a lot of fans.”
