10 best fantasy and science fiction shows of 2023

4. The Witcher season 3

Netflix’s monster-hunting fantasy series The Witcher had a big year, debuting its third and final season with actor Henry Cavill in the lead role as Geralt of Rivia. When next the show returns, it will be Liam Hemsworth slicing and dicing monsters and evildoers. How was Cavill’s sendoff?

I suppose it depends on who you ask. There was quite a lot of moaning online about how The Witcher season 3 wasted his final episodes, but from where I’m sitting it was easily the best that the show has ever been. I’ve been pretty outspoken about my issues with prior seasons, so imagine my surprise when season 3 came along and totally blew me away. Not only was it far more faithful to Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels than season 2, it also featured some of Cavill’s best material as Geralt, from quiet tearjerker moments to adrenaline-fueled fight scenes. The rest of the cast also finally stepped into their own as proper co-leads; the show no longer feels like it’s resting primarily on Geralt’s shoulders, which is just right for this point in the saga. It’s all about Ciri from this point on, my friends.

The biggest victory of The Witcher season 3 is how it adapted the Thanedd Coup in Episode 6. Yes, before you come for me in the comments, I’m well aware that the coup goes down differently in the books, where it’s more of a political summit gone wrong than a gathering of mages which is attacked. But the show hit on most of the major beats from the coup in one way or another, and it absolutely nailed the most important bit: Geralt’s duel with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. If we were to sit down and pick the most iconic moments from The Witcher books, there’s no doubt that brutal duel and its aftermath would be one of them. It’s the sort of thing many fans wondered if they’d ever actually get to see on screen. That The Witcher pulled it off as well as it did feels like an important landmark.

The Witcher season 3 still had its blemishes, but overall it was highly entertaining fantasy television. It’s a shame that there’s uncertainty about how the show will handle the transition to Hemsworth, because after three seasons and two spinoffs it feels like The Witcher really has its feet under it for the final stretch to the story’s ending.