SPLINTER CELL: DEATHWATCH

A Brutal Spy Thriller, for Better and Worse

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Studio: Netflix Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi TV Rating: TV-MA

Premiere Date: 14/10/2025 Number of Episodes: 9 Reviewed By: Brendan Frye

It has been a while since we last saw a dedicated Sam Fisher adventure, with Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix offering a brief taste of the character in a Netflix series. But the time has finally come for the legendary operative to come out of retirement in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch. Netflix and John Wick creator Derek Kolstad have brought the character back, and even in animated form, Fisher still packs a punch. The eight-episode series launched today, October 14th, presenting a darker, older version of the iconic spy voiced by Liev Schreiber, and it delivers on that grizzled spy ich...mostly.

I have to say, I like how Splinter Cell: Deathwatch begins: skipping the setup and dropping the viewer right into the action, wasting no time getting things started. The series opens with Fisher living in something close to retirement. When wounded Fourth Echelon agent Zinnia McKenna shows up at his door after a mission goes wrong, he is pulled back into the world of covert operations. What begins as a rescue quickly evolves into a global conspiracy tied to Fisher's past, specifically events from the beloved game Chaos Theory. The villains are Diana and Charlie Shetland, siblings connected to Douglas Shetland, an antagonist from that earlier title, so the concept is a strong start that rewards fans of the series with known entities.