Oops, I almost forgot to post the review thread. Time for Alan Cumming to ham it up as King James I!
Enjoyable episode. Sometimes it felt like Alan Cumming was going a bit too broad with his performance and should be in a different show, but that is only a minor criticism. I enjoyed it overall.
Ah, Thanksgiving ham! Well, the Doctor got a villain to rail against - three in fact! Although James is painted as ambiguous, and not just his fancying Ryan whilst still referring to the Doctor as alluring. I was worried we were going to get another "no real enemy" plot here and the mud beings would just turn out to be wanting to escape Earth - well, they were, but shouldn't be allowed to. Saw the Doctor's escape from the ducking stool coming a mile off, but great anyway.
I loved this episode right until the last five minutes when it became an atypical alien of the week episode. The atmospheric setting, the creepy mud monsters, the eerie music, the terrific performances of Alan Cumming and Siobhan Finneran, the madness of witch hunts, the inevitable 17th century sexism (but apparently not racism?) were all wonderful facets of the episode. Much like "Demons of the Punjab" (and to a lesser degree, "Rosa"), I really wish this episode had been a pure historical and focused solely on the nastiness of witch hunts and what drove people to accuse their neighbors, friends, even their own kin of witchcraft. The episode was the most potent when it focused on that aspect, but when the Morlocks (did I really hear that right?) were introduced as escaped war criminals, the tension and excitement of the story almost entirely deflated. I was so close to giving this episode a perfect score until that moment. As mentioned before, I loved Alan Cumming's terrific performance as he hammed it up in every scene, but I especially loved how he flirted at Ryan every chance he could. I still think it's strange no one commented on Ryan's and Yaz's non-whiteness and try to use that as excuse to call them witches, but I guess the episode could deal with only so much prejudice and the writers decided to focus on "witchcraft" and sexism primarily. This is the second episode in a row where The Doctor has donned on a hat, this time not one from a previous regeneration. More hats the merrier!
Whilst not entirely accurate of me, it would be safe to say that heavy racism is mainly a modernish thing. It’s, as I say, not entirely factual, but beyond ‘looking unusual’ seventeenth century people are more likely to make odd assumptions...Assumptions of moorish family, travellers from afar etc...than engage in ethnicity based hate. That kind of happened after you get stuff in the nineteenth century, and early twentieth based on large populations moving about, and unpleasant stuff doing the rounds on pseudoscientific grounds. Even the witch trial stuff isn’t purely to be couched in sexism....many men were tried as witches, and it very much depends on which witches you are looking at and in which country. Portugal for example, though I could be mistaken, tried predominantly men for witchcraft. It was also not exactly state persecution of a specific group (that would be ridiculous anyway) more a sort of nasty terrorism being used on the people for the gains of a few nasty individuals. It’s also something that depends on the...ideology. Puritans are different from Protestants are different from Roman Catholics, and then there are the Eastern Orthodoxies, or Greek Orthodoxies....all with differing views. For instance, as examples in Chaucer, Astrology...at points considered witchcraft...is seen as perfectly within the bounds of Christian behaviour. It’s all too broad a tapestry to paint modern concepts on....Othello for instance held great station in his titular play, and it is not anything to do with a perception of his ethnicity per se that causes his fall. That’s about this time, a little before. P.s caught the end this week. Still not sure of fully returning to the viewer fold, even though I like Alan Cumming when he’s acting.
Witchcraft does have some racist connotations with Satan being "the Black Man", but whether that's more a product of the US-based Salem trials than the European ones (or the Inquisition) I'm not sure.
That's true, although none of that was referred to here. My instinct is to assume that it was strictly the Salem trials and the like and not so much the European witch hunts, but I don't know enough of that history to really say for certain.
If anything, at least this series is making me want to Google stuff. Smith's last near-historical I got intrigued by the history of was The Crimson Horror, but it's hard to take in stuff about workhouses when there's a human/lizard lesbian couple with katanas. And Capaldi only got the Robin Hood ep. And the bit with the Xmas Armistice in his finale, but we knew the history of both well enough. Graham slipping in a hint to parents "Hey, go on the Witch Walks! Educate the nippers!" was a good touch.
Fridge moment - if Becka knew there weren't any witches (other than her), why did she have all the horses shot? To stop anyone getting out of the town with a story that might put genuine suspicion onto her.
I thought the ep was really solid, however after last weeks ep, I'm kinda hankering for some more strange new worlds, we've only had two this season so far (I consider The Tsuranga Conundrum to be a ship based bottle ep) and I'm kinda over these moody earth based episodes . Saying that... Alan Cummings as a slightly Queer King James I/VI was a joy to watch.
By no means a bad episode. A nice atmospheric episode. King James was fun, the recognition that the Doctor now faces new challenges - 'If I was still a bloke we could just get on with it', the speech about how people are generally the same and want the same things but are turned against each other with fear. All good stuff, then we got to the end and it was solved in 5 minutes with an info dump.
Awful episode and worst of Jodie's era IMO. Everything seemed half baked and the ending was rushed as soon as the Aliens appeared. The Doctor and her team are fun characters but they deserve better writing than this. Also why is the King of England wandering around villages? He's the bloody King.
Took me a while to warm to it but the final act made it. Cumming was superb and his flirting with Ryan was brilliant. He did mention nubian when he met Ryan, but that was the only reference to either Ryan or Yaz's ethnicity, and oddly only James mentioned their strange attire. So the Doctor will turn her back whilst an innocent Indian is shot, but nobody dunks a witch on her watch! And for the 3rd(?) time this season the Doctor rails against a male character taking action against a threat. Killing mud aliens is wrong kids, but imprisoning creatures forever is absolutely fine? (see spiders and crane guy kicking Tim Shaw off the crane) Nice to have some honest to Rassilon monsters for once, and did I mention how wonderful Cumming was? Not a classic, but then little this season had been, but perfectly enjoyable 50 minutes of Who
Well, I think I've found my personal worst episode of the season. I mean, Cummings almost sells it, but King James is written a bit too one-dimensional for my liking. I was just not engaged to the story, at all. Also, a bit of a pickle with me: Why is the Doctor suddenly worried about messing with time? And not necessarily in regards to OldWho, but NuWho mostly. The Doctor has usually been lax when events weren't bound to fixed-points, especially from Eleven onwards. My point is, the Doctor has not been of the "not one line" dogma the First or even the Second Doctor was, at least since the time he was exiled. Its not an actual issue, but its a bit of a pickle for me.
I think all of the modern Doctors have had a "We must take care only to observe history and never interfere, oh, well, never mind" moment in one of their (or, actually, one of their companions') earlier episodes.
Ryan should have stayed and moved LGBTQ rights forward by 5 hundred years. James 1, died of dysentery, but it's not like Ryan would stop washing his hands just because he was living in the past where people didn't know any better? Ryan probably would have died of Dysentery too, if the two were lovers and they sharing a bed and a privy... Although if Ryan taught the King elementary hygiene, then Jim is not going to die when he is supposed to die, and that knocks history off kilter... Which would summon Time Agents?
For me, this episode's real strengths are the two main guest performances, with the ever-delightful Cumming just shading it. The plot was quite good, too, until the aliens showed up; count me as another one not entirely convinced by them. Seemed like every companion got decent stuff to do, and the 'filled' people were appropriately creepy. However... Yet again the Doctor's attempt to save someone fails, and again her attempt to reason with someone failed. Even her grand moment of sealing the aliens back in their prison was undermined, by King James. The compassionate Doctor keeps coming up short. I hope there's some overarching point to this, or it risks coming across a little mean-spirited. Also, and I know I might be sounding like a broken record at this point, once more the music left me wanting. I think the near-omnipresent atmospherics, with only a few richer elements, is a big reason why this show is beginning to feel a shade limited in its tonal range, at least to me. A proper change in mood and atmosphere would go a long way, I think, but from what I know of the remaining two episodes, we're unlikely to get it.
Pretty good, but I think if the revelation of the cutting down of the tree and it being used for the ducking stool were earlier in the episode, the back end wouldn't be so infodump heavy. It'd start coming together for the Doctor when Becka got zapped by the log.