Doctor Who: The Witchfinders (11x08)

Woah. This was pretty darn chilling. I really liked this episode.

Cons:

Not much to speak of, although I did think the climax was a little rushed. I was really enjoying all of the buildup, and then suddenly, after the Doctor survives her dunking, we're jumping from revelation to revelation and then it was all over before I really had a chance to digest a lot of this material. So maybe the final few minutes could have been paced a little better.

Pros:

King James I was hilarious and great and awesome. I loved his totally obvious and uncomfortable crush on Ryan, minus the unfortunate racism in calling him "Nubian." It was hilarious when James asked him to come be his protector, and Ryan had to awkwardly refuse. Poor kid does not realize what just went down. I imagine meeting King James would be a bit startling and overwhelming!

One of the main through-lines of this episode is about gender, of course, given that this is a story about witch trials. The Doctor has one line, late in the episode, where she remarks that if she were still a man, she could have just gotten on with it and saved the day, but as a woman she has more obstacles. This line was a nice button on a theme we'd already seen develop over the course of the episode. There's the sort of comedic stuff earlier on in the episode, when King James is being derisive of the idea of a woman in power. But as the episode progresses, the Doctor is finding it harder to do her work because she has to keep wasting time justifying her authority. It all comes to a head as she is literally being tried for witchcraft, basically just because she's a woman who is speaking her mind and making things happen.

I really liked the way that King James was acting as a villain throughout most of the episode, but in the end his fanaticism and obsession with the devil is supplanted by good sense, and a genuine appreciation for the Doctor and her friends. That makes sense to me, and feels like a realistic situation of someone being blinded by prejudice, but only up to a point. The scene between the Doctor and King James about James' fears and his past was really well done - of course Alan Cumming and Jodie Whittaker hit it out of the park.

I liked the other guest characters, too. The villain, Becka Savage, was a real piece of work from the beginning, but you could also sense her genuine fear from early on, which helped to sell the reveal towards the end. Poor little Willa was also a great character. Her grief for her grandmother was genuinely touching, and I like that she had a moment of weakness and essentially betrayed the Doctor, but in the end made the right call and found her courage.

While I'm still lacking some of the good feels between Doctor and companion that we've gotten in previous seasons, I think the group dynamic between the four of them is coming together really well. I like how they all rushed to the Doctor's rescue when they realized she was in trouble, and then somewhat ceremonially re-instated her as their leader. Ordinarily the Doctor wouldn't need that kind of reassurance, but after all of the put-downs over the day, she needed to come back into her own, and her friends helped her in doing that.

A few other notes: I really felt the weight and fear of the drowning in this episode. Water has always been a scary way to confront mortality, and it was used to great effect here. I also thought the mud monster alien things were pretty cool. They reminded me a bit of the waters of Mars monsters, although of course those were way scarier and still haunt my nightmares.

I think I'll end there! I've seen a lot of people noting that this season of Doctor Who is feeling very... conventional, and I don't disagree. This was the first episode where I felt like this specific Doctor was meant to be there for this adventure. You couldn't replace her with any of her prior incarnations and get the same result. We need more of that going forward, so we can really start to get to know this Doctor. I'm definitely enjoying the ride so far!

9/10