Spoilers The Witchfinders grade and discussion thread

[Allyn Gibson]

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.

Capaldi also had the frost fair episode, "Thin Ice."

Ryan should have stayed and moved LGBTQ rights forward by 5 hundred years.

It wouldn't have. It wasn't a secret in court that James VI/I liked the boys, and it was common knowledge which boys he liked. Adding Ryan into the mix wouldn't have changed a thing.

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...

I'm not sure that James living longer would have made a great deal of difference. The most signifcant difference would have been whether or not the Happy Parliament of 1625 voted to fund a war against Spain. Charles interpreted Parliament as having done so after his father's death, but Parliament saw it as much more ambiguous. The reality is that by the mid-1620s there were issues in England that James was unable, and in some cases unwilling, to solve -- the conflict between Puritan and High Church clerics over what the Church of England was, the growing power and influence of Parliament and how that related to James' philosophy of the Divine Right of Kings. Charles really wasn't prepared to solve these issues, either, because he was never supposed to be king. His elder brother, Henry Frederick, had been groomed for the throne from his birth, and his death from typhus in 1612 broke his father's spirit, and some historians believe that James's reign lost a lot of its vigor at that point.

My point is, if James lived, say, another five years, Charles is still going to inherit three kingdoms beset by myriad problems that he's ill-equipped to deal with. The Civil War was inevitable.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was more thinking about missing a few conception dates, so that down the line a hundred years, the wrong heirs are being born, so there's no Victoria to found Torchwood, and her grandson Wilhelm won't "start" WWI.

On your track of thought, Cromwell may have seen an elderly James as a more crushable target, so a (barely) younger Cromwell might have won his war earlier, ruling longer, or lost the war entirely, or Charles was marked less decadent than James... So Cromwell didn't even bother to take arms against his king, that didn't piss him off so much.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Man, this was sailing towards a 10 until the alien reveal. Yet another primordial alien force imprisoned in the Earth. Great performances all around, Graham has great quips, Ryan's fish out of water moments and Yas getting to do some solo stuff. (All three could have used like one scene more.) Cumming was delightful in all the best and worst ways. I can't help feel like I've seen thac tress playing Becka Savage before (what a name!) but can't place her. She was great.

Well done episode. I feel like this could have been a "true" historical with a common infection on Becka and a bunch of botched "burials." Kinda annoying how the alien plot played out and it feels so divorced that I have to assume it was added by the show runner.

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.

YES. It felt so untethered and random and just there. Would have been great to learn this earlier.

 

[1001001]

I thought this was pretty good.

Alan Cumming is always a delight to watch.

“8”

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Two additional thoughts:

Cumming's turn as James I/VI is "sumptuous."

I wonder if the TARDIS is smaller and less filmed in as a cost saving measure to do more location shooting and get "higher level" guest actors. Traditionally the cost of a "standing set" is amortized across the season, but I'm wondering if they took it from the budget of a single episode (Maybe "Arachnids?") and then saved that cost.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Man, this was sailing towards a 10 until the alien reveal.

Well done episode. I feel like this could have been a "true" historical with a common infection on Becka and a bunch of botched "burials." Kinda annoying how the alien plot played out [...]

I'm glad someone else agrees with me on this point. They were doing so fantastic and then wham!

I can't help feel like I've seen the actress playing Becka Savage before (what a name!) but can't place her. She was great.

Siobhan Finneran, who played Mrs. O'Brien on Downton Abbey.

 

[Mr Soak]

I can't help feel like I've seen thac tress playing Becka Savage before (what a name!) but can't place her. She was great.

Siobhan Finneran was in the first three series of Downton Abbey. Looking at her filmography page on Wikipedia, it looks like she's one of those supporting actors who pops up in everything, rather than starring.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

...there's an echo in here...

 

[BritishSeaPower]

I'm glad someone else agrees with me on this point. They were doing so fantastic and then wham!

It's weirdly akin to something like the Gelth? I don't know, I feel like even if they weren't going to make it a "pure historical" the alien plot could have been punched up a bit. This just felt tucked on. But it's so good otherwise!

Siobhan Finneran, who played Mrs. O'Brien on Downton Abbey.

OHHH! Yes. As soon as you said it, I saw it. But I don't know if I ever would have gotten there without looking her up. But man, as soon as I had context I can't help but see it.

 

[auntiehill]

I liked how the episode started but felt the aliens were just kinda lame. Alan Cummings was fun-- he always is-- but plot, which started out really interesting, was rather short-changed by the lame final conflict scene. To me, it was a 6.5 , so I gave it a 6 in the poll.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

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)

The Doctor has almost always said you can't change personal history, so the Indian man being shot had to occur, none of them even heard of the place so it wasn't something they really needed to be careful on.

As for the 'don't shoot the mud monster' that was more about his own safety, wasn't it? Given their witchy powers shooting them was a bad thing to do as evidenced by his death.

 

[Orac Zen]

Ugh. This had some good / creepy moments but the usually watchable Cumming flung enough ham around the screen to wipe out every pig on the planet and the alien reveal at the end was just blah - nothing we haven't seen before, and usually done better. The other performances were good, there were some good points made about the stupidity of prejudice, the companions got a bit to do and (as has been the case all series) the episode looked fabulous. But on the whole I was underwhelmed by this one.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Two additional thoughts:

Cumming's turn as James I/VI is "sumptuous."

I wonder if the TARDIS is smaller and less filmed in as a cost saving measure to do more location shooting and get "higher level" guest actors. Traditionally the cost of a "standing set" is amortized across the season, but I'm wondering if they took it from the budget of a single episode (Maybe "Arachnids?") and then saved that cost.

I think it's really more of a desire to show off the location instead of using a standing set. They need the TARDIS for certain scenes, but nothing in this episode really required it. Using the location was far more effective at setting the mood than a scene of expository dialogue in TARDIS for the sake of showing the TARDIS.

 

[Refuge]

4... I suppose.

Meh.

 

[cultcross]

Man, this was sailing towards a 10 until the alien reveal. Yet another primordial alien force imprisoned in the Earth. Great performances all around, Graham has great quips, Ryan's fish out of water moments and Yas getting to do some solo stuff. (All three could have used like one scene more.) Cumming was delightful in all the best and worst ways. I can't help feel like I've seen thac tress playing Becka Savage before (what a name!) but can't place her. She was great.

Well done episode. I feel like this could have been a "true" historical with a common infection on Becka and a bunch of botched "burials." Kinda annoying how the alien plot played out and it feels so divorced that I have to assume it was added by the show runner.

Very much this. Looking like a fantastic episode, for about two thirds of its run. Funny, entertaining, and Alan Cumming being a delight as ever. One of Whittaker's strongest too. Perhaps a bit too much "it's Satan!" "No it isn't!" but I was enjoying the ride. Then it got really bizarre with the reveal of what the mud women were, and turned into a very generic aliens-trapped-on-earth story. A shame - plenty of other places that could have gone and Doctor Who has done 'real witches' better before (The Shakespeare Code). 10 for the first two thirds, 6 for the ending. Overall 8.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Very much this. Looking like a fantastic episode, for about two thirds of its run. Funny, entertaining, and Alan Cumming being a delight as ever. One of Whittaker's strongest too. Perhaps a bit too much "it's Satan!" "No it isn't!" but I was enjoying the ride. Then it got really bizarre with the reveal of what the mud women were, and turned into a very generic aliens-trapped-on-earth story. A shame - plenty of other places that could have gone and Doctor Who has done 'real witches' better before (The Shakespeare Code). 10 for the first two thirds, 6 for the ending. Overall 8.

I know the idea the tree cut down was introduced early on and then later on the reveal that the tree was technology I really felt it would have played out better had the alien mud monster have been a security system on some crashed alien piece of technology that they'd violated by chopping the tree down rather than then invading alien horde. Would have needed a slightly less convoluted info dump too.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Only the Royals could talk?

Then why lock up the foot soldiers who might only a little smarter than dogs for "billions" of Years, if they are individuals capable of feeling bad about being tortured?

Earth is 4 billion years old, and trees only showed up 385 million years ago, 15 million years after Scaroth seeded Earth with a biological potential, a tree might seem out of place when the Timelords were stuffing Deep Thought with trillions of Racnos.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

I think it's really more of a desire to show off the location instead of using a standing set. They need the TARDIS for certain scenes, but nothing in this episode really required it. Using the location was far more effective at setting the mood than a scene of expository dialogue in TARDIS for the sake of showing the TARDIS.

I don't disagree. Indeed I think it's great that we started in media res this episode. But I do find it curious how little the console room set is used across the series. I think "Kerblam!" is the longest we've been in there in eight episodes. As others have noted the set does seem smaller and the shooting feels cramped when in it. It seems like they decided to downplay it and make the conscious choice to get out of it as often as possible. It's not bad, just different. But I'm also curious how much of it might be budgetary. (IIRC, everything but "Tsuranaga" and "Kerblam!" have had pretty extensive location shooting, a pretty big change from the past.)

 

[Starkers]

Lowest overnights of the season so far, 5.66 million (still better than any combined figure for Capaldi's last series mind-and several episodes of S9)

 

[matthunter]

Lowest overnights of the season so far, 5.66 million (still better than any combined figure for Capaldi's last series mind-and several episodes of S9)

Do they still report audience share? Be interesting to see if these fluctuations over the last couple of eps are just down to more or less people watching that night. I suspected Demons was a bit low due to Bonfire Night, which seemed borne out by the increase for Kerblam! but maybe it's just that fewer people are watching the historicals? There was a bump in overnights after Rosa, although it just beat out Arachnids on consolidated....