Sky Max fantasy drama/romance A Discovery of Witches is coming to an end this month with its third and final season – but how will longstanding fans feel when they watch that final episode, after years of following the series and the original novels it’s based on?
To find out, we asked series regular Steven Cree (aka vampire Gallowglass) for his take – and according to him, fans will be in for a bit of a bittersweet experience as they rejoin Matthew and Diana (Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer) for their final adventure.
“I think they’ll want a Gallowglass spinoff, for a start,” he joked. “No, there’s bound to be a sadness. The book fans especially hold it so close to their heart, and hold those characters so close to their heart. You can never get enough of something, sometimes.
“But you know, sometimes TV series can be spun out for too long, so maybe it’s nice to keep a story condensed, and finish on a high.
“And inevitably, there’s bound to be disappointment from some of the people that some stuff in the book couldn’t make it onto the TV show. But it’s just the way it is. For seven episodes of TV, you can’t fit in all 400 pages.”
He added: “I hope people are satisfied and happy about it. If you leave them wanting more, that’s always a good thing, isn’t it?”
On set, Cree notes that the final days of shooting weren’t quite as emotional as you might think, with the entire cast and crew focused on completing the series amidst challenging COVID protocols. Still, he said there was a “sadness” in finishing the final product, even though everyone felt like they’d done a good job on the series.
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“There was a definite sadness about finishing it,” he said. “As an actor, you kind of get used to it, and you get used to things being fairly transient. It’s always sad when a job finishes, because you never know when the next one’s going to be.
“I’d made some great friends on this. The crew were fantastic. It was a Herculean effort from the crew in season three. It was not necessarily easy for the actors either, but the crew were incredible, and they were there every single day.
“Hopefully the fans kind of love what the final product is. I’m happy with how it all went down.”
In any case, with all seven episodes available to watch on NOW from Friday, fans won’t have long to see what they think. The end is near…
A Discovery of Witches comes to Sky Max and NOW on Friday 7th January. For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide.