DOCTOR WHO: THE WITCHFINDERS
Written By: Joy Wilkinson
Directed By: Sallie Aprahamian
The Witchfinders is our third historical story of this series, which sees the Doctor and her companions arrive in 1612 Lancashire. So far this year, the historical episodes have been a deliberately slow-paced and measured look at a pivotal situation, leaving the Doctor and her companions skirting cautiously around the boots of history, eager not to damage the footprints. There’s none of that restraint on display this week, though. For reasons as emotive as they are intellectual, Team TARDIS have cause to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the fray and sort the timeline out afterward.
This gleeful abandon lends itself to a tale that isn’t just pacey, it’s sometimes poorly-paced. The first moments of dialogue happen in voice-over, for instance, and there are a number of conversations and encounters that seem almost brutally rushed, but then there’s also a lot of time spent showing the gang tramping through the forests of Lancashire when there really isn’t that much to talk about. If you’ve enjoyed the greater emphasis on meaning and character that Rosa and Demons Of The Punjab provided, you may be left with a mostly-empty stomach following tonight’s episode. Conversely, if you’re a Whovian who’s been itching for the stakes to be raised and a proper peril to present itself, you might find yourself remembering the old adage: be careful what you wish for.
There is also a tendency to have the regular characters state and restate what’s happening so that the writing team are absolutely sure everyone’s on the same page, has permeated this season, but it seems particularly obnoxious this week. There’s the moment, for example, where the alien convicts lunge forward, shouting “Morax!” only for the Doctor to retaliate with a stern “Who are you?” Later, the Doctor posits that the Morax must have been imprisoned on Earth, presumably for war crimes – an observation that would have seemed a lot more intuitive had they not bellowed that exact confession at her five minutes previously. There’s an awful lot of bellowing in this episode, from pretty much everyone concerned.
Alan Cumming's portrayal of King James The First was very good, he was very fun, camp, debonair, grand, and he was swerve which I really enjoyed. There were a certain amount of mellow and dark themes in this episode which reminded me a lot of "The Visitation"
Jodie was good, although I still feel as if she's still finding her feet with getting to grips with the true essence of what the doctor is. But that will all come with time, and by the time we reach her second season, she would have become her own character which viewers can identify with.
As for character development of the regular cast, there was precious little to be found in The Witchfinders. No confrontations, no attempts at inter-generational fist-bumps, none of that – apart from one moment where the Doctor looks to Yaz to determine Granny Morax’s pulse rather than waving her sonic about. While we’re starting to get ideas of where Yaz, Ryan and Graham’s respective strengths might lie, these are all very formative arcs.
What we’re left with, when all is said and done, is a pell-mell but flawed episode that abandons the history lessons in favour of an old-fashioned, monster-driven romp. If only the aliens had been given the same nuance, care, and screen time that the human villains got to enjoy, this could have been a classic episode. Instead, what we’re left with is a passable story that not only highlights some of the shortcomings every script has suffered from this year but struggles to define who, exactly, the Doctor is, not to mention her place in the universe she’s defended all of her lives. Disappointing.
5/10
