This was an episode which made me feel wistful for what could've been. If they'd aired 'The Witchfinders' after 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth,' instead of eight episodes into a lacklustre season, then I daresay I'd have felt mildly optimistic. The Doctor felt stronger, the setting was genuinely eerie, they drip-fed us a tasty dribble of Yaz's backstory, and the monster of the week was both freaky and fun. So why does it feel like a case of too little, too late?
I currently judge Doctor Who on a different scale than previous seasons—so a three from the Moffat era probably ranks around a seven on the Chibbometer. It's sad, but that's how it is. And although there was a lot to like about tonight's offering, there's still no excusing its appearance so late in the season. Why relegate what could've been the perfect establishing story so far down the episode chain? It's not as if we needed seven episodes of Chibnall's character-establishing blandness to understand what was going on. The Doctor took control, spoke forcibly without self-awareness or apology, seemed better equipped to solve problems, and more importantly took care of business. Yes, there was the occasional 'I love apple bobbing!' bollocks, but there was some good stuff too.
Despite being in an environment of limited opportunity for women, the Doctor still managed to behave in a historically appropriate fashion, handle a misogynistic king, science the shit out of some not-mud, and actually punish the villains. You heard me: we both had villains and saw them punished—all in the same episode! It's crazy, I know. I'd loved to have seen the Doctor make some final decisive point about 'wee lassies' being more than just gossips instead of just walking off in a sulk, but their earlier exchange over James' familial woes and the pursuit of truth, was excellent. This is where Jodie's Doctor looked at her most convincing, and I'd like to see more of it.
As most of this season's scripts were written with a male Doctor in mind, this was our first real taste of the Doctor battling opposition due to gender, and I think they did a decent job of showing her functioning within those constraints. We've seen companions struggle due to outdated historical mores before, but this was the first time we've really seen the show's head honcho fall victim. The Doctor's 'If I was still a bloke I could get on with the job and not have to waste time defending myself' was obviously a knowingly meta line, what with her saying it in front of an audience and nobody raising an eyebrow, but it made me chuckle and I think the fourth wall mostly remained intact.
I still find her incessant questioning a cheap substitute for inductive/deductive solutions, but at least it produced results tonight: albeit of the rather obvious kind. Six times the Doctor asked Becka what she was hiding, only for Becka to eventually admit to being a witch. And after the Morax telling the Doctor that they'd been trapped in the hill for war crimes, she then went on to deduce that the Morax had been trapped in the hill for war crimes: which was essentially repeating what she'd just been told. Sadly, this is what passes for dialogue these days. I get that asking questions is considered a valid method of learning, but this feels roughly akin to a three year old bombarding you with 'Why is the sky blue?' calibre queries. It's as if the writers are terrified we've missed something and feel the need to repeat everything ad nauseum.
I suspect the mileage you got out of tonight's episode will also depend upon how you saw Alan Cumming's King James. If you saw his portrayal as over the top, his supposedly incognito appearance in the story as wholly unrealistic, and his accent inexplicably English (James spoke with a Scottish accent), then your credulity will have been tested. In all honesty there were a number of glossed-over contrivances, and Cumming's James was hilariously out of kilter with the rest of the episode's tone, but I rather liked it. It gave a bleak tale some wit and warmth, as well as giving us a ridiculous accent that exists nowhere in the known universe to laugh at.
I've always believed that when an episode does some stuff right, we should be more forgiving of its failures, and although tonight's offering wasn't perfect, it did have some redeeming features. The Doctor felt more recognisable to me, the story had legs, the villain was effective, and this was undeniably the most Doctor Who-ish the show's felt all season. But there's still a long way to go, and with just two episodes left, and next season currently in production, I'm starting to worry about whether the show will ever right itself. Ratings are also on the decline. Is the Chibnall gamble starting to fail?
Other Thoughts:
—Another dig at the Doctor's clothes. It's like everyone knows they're shit apart from her.
—Graham's witchfinder hat was on point. And by 'on point', I mean ridiculous.
—When the Doctor tried to rescue Old Mother Twiston, I was initially annoyed that she'd managed to free her from chains without explanation. Then the Houdini reference arrived. I love this sort of detail.
—Yaz's bullying speech was both competently delivered and nicely explained her later career in law enforcement.
—I'm not sure I entirely bought Willa's ten minute I want to fight/you're weird/I want to be like you redemption arc, but I thought Tilly Steele did a magnificent job as a shat upon peasant.
Quotes:
King James: 'And what is your field of expertise, my Nubian prince?'
King James: 'This is Alfonso, my personal guardian. He guards my witchfinding tools with his life.'
Yaz: 'Is that why it went after Willa?
Doctor: 'Of course. Not to kill her, but to fill her. Oooh, check out my rhymes. Poetry under pressure.'
9 comments:
'What are you hiding?'
'What do you know?'
'What are you hiding?'
'What are you hiding?'
'What do you know?'
'What are you hiding?'
'What are you....'
'I'm a fucking witch! There! are you happy now? Jesus, just leave me alone. This is bullshit.'
Although I agree in principle with what you said, them bumping this episode up to two in the running order would've just meant that the episodes which followed would've been disappointing. Nothing much would have changed.
@Anon I'm not saying that promoting the episode would've made the season a triumph, I'm saying that if we'd had 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth,' 'The Witchfinders,' and then 'Rosa,' from a viewing perspective the trajectory of the season would have looked a lot healthier. Obviously it would still have shat the bed eventually.
A decent episode pitted by the same flaws as the rest of the series. Did Chibnall co-write this one as well?
UK ratings fine. Will defo come back next year. Don't worry.
They're already filming the next season, Tey, yet we're all still worried.
As for the episode, a black man, an Asian girl and a woman dressed like Pippi Longstocking turn up in the past, dressed in modern clothes and at no point does anyone question whether they're the witches?
You could have stuck Tennant in this episode and it would have immediately been fifty times better and still been complete shit. No shade on Whittaker, but the dialogue she's being forced to utter sounds like it's dropped unbidden out of Mark Gatiss's arse and managed to escape the big flush.
Didn't Capaldi's Doctor say something about Time Lords having no concept of something as antiquated as gender? So much for that.
@Karl The episode's credited to Joy Wilkinson, but that doesn't rule out Chibnall doing some overwriting I don't suppose. It seems a bit much to think that he'd lend his pen just to add some of his trademark fuck-ups though.
This episode didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. At first it was this dour and serious tale about witch trials then King James showed up it became a rather silly and camp tale about witch trials before finally turning into your average stop the evil aliens story with ranting bad guys who talked about filling the king so much I could not take them seriously at all.
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