Doctor Who: The Witchfinders

[andraste]

I enjoyed this one a lot! The aliens were a bit disappointing when they were finally revealed and their defeat was a bit rushed, but they weren't really what mattered here.

Once the Doctor regenerated into a woman, it was inevitable that she'd run into a situation where people just wouldn't listen to her when they would have listened to one of her previous male incarnations - and James I is a perfect historical candidate for 'dude that just will not listen to a woman.' But of course the great thing is that she does get him to listen to some extent, by sheer force of personality. I think that was all handled extremely well - as was the Doctor deciding to interfere in history for the better. (And thank the Maker for that. Interfering is what she's best at, after all.)

All the guest performances were great this week, but Alan Cumming as King James was the easy stand-out for me. I've seen a bunch of people complaining that he's a campy ham, but, surely, that was the point of that performance? And the test of a great actor isn't whether they play their character as a campy ham if that's what they are, but if they can wind it back when campy hamminess is not called for in a particular moment. Which he does, in that great scene with the Doctor. I thought they did a good job of giving a quick family-friendly precise of all the reasons he turned out a paranoid misogynist, too. (Which is not to excuse his misogyny, but I feel like most people would have ended up a paranoid and unpleasant person of some kind under those circumstances.) And they managed to treat his fondness for attractive young men as a separate thing! Which Ryan did not have gay panic about! So that was nice.

All in all, I would very much like Joy Wilkinson to come back and write more.