Netflix’s No. 1 TV Show for Christmas Weekend Revealed

Fantasy fans were in for an epic present Christmas morning when The Witcher: Blood Origin was released on Netflix Christmas Day. The highly-anticipated The Witcher prequel joined the content catalog just as Santa ended his trip across the globe, and it seems that after opening presents, Netflix subscribers settled down to binge the new series, which was crowned the No. 1 TV show on the streamer Christmas weekend.

Marking the first live-action spinoff to the growing The Witcher franchise, which also includes The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf animated feature film, Blood Origin is set approximately 1,200 years before the events of the main series. Written by Witcher screenwriter Declan de Barra, the series follows seven outcasts in an Elven world who must join forces in a quest against an all-powerful empire. Blood Origin stars Sophia Brown, Laurence O’Fuarain, and Michelle Yeoh.

Given The Witcher‘s success back in 2019, it came as little surprise that Blood Origin debuted on Netflix’s streaming charts. The series immediately jumped to the No. 1 spot, surpassing the likes of Wednesday and Emily in Paris, to become the most-watched TV series on Netflix Christmas weekend. In the U.S., the Top 5 is rounded out by The Recruit and Alice in Borderland. The show apparently drew plenty of watchers from across the globe, with FlixPatol data for Dec. 27 showing Blood Origin ranking as the No. 4 TV show worldwide. It has maintained its No. 1 spot in the U.S.

However, it isn’t all good news for the prequel. While Blood Origin has been attracting lots of eyes, those viewing the show haven’t necessarily been impressed with what they’ve seen. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes have only given the show a 38% rating, and while that figure isn’t great, the audience score is even more abysmal. The Witcher: Blood Origin has only managed to grab an 8% audience score, aggregated from 1,934 ratings, marking Netflix’s worst audience score ever, per Forbes.

After watching the series, one viewer dubbed Blood Origin “one of the wrost thing i ever see in all netflix history,” asking the streamer to “Please remove it forever.” Somebody else urged The Witcher fans to “skip it,” with another person dubbing the miniseries a “dreadful interpretation of the excellent source material.” Meanwhile, a critic’s consensus reads, “A shallow excavation of ancient lore from Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy series, Blood Origin shares ancestral DNA with The Witcher but little of what makes the mothership series memorable.” The Witcher: Blood Origin is streaming on Netflix.