Hello everyone and welcome to the latest Doctor Who discussion post with 11×8, The Witch Finders. Taking us back to a historical setting for a third time, I felt that this episode did very well in finding a balance (basically by actually having an alien threat) between the historical and alien dangers. There some issues I had with it and I’ll get into them in due course, but I want to say that I did enjoy this episode and it really did feel like a proper episode of Doctor Who!

If I’m being honest, Alan Cumming gave this episode a glorious shot in the arm, bringing charisma and gravitas and hamming it up just the right amount, he was a joy to watch. His performance was thoroughly enjoyable and should be considered up there with William Shakespeare and Van Goth as one of the more enjoyable portrayals of historical figures. I don’t even care if it was inaccurate I enjoyed it that much. His random love for Ryan and his old assistant Alonso (Where was the allonsey joke?) was enjoyable and his refusal to dismiss his belief in riches was both logical and amusing rather than irritating. If there is ever a reason to bring him back then I would be all for it.

Surely everyone must have called the Doctor being branded a witch as soon as they saw the teaser for this last week but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t do it in a good way. Of course they would be suspicious of her behaviour and use of a “magic wand” and I was glad that they didn’t blindly ignore it. Her being female worked well here to tell a story that Doctor hasn’t been able to do before and the fact that it put the Doctor in genuine peril made for a more interesting story. She couldn’t techno-babble her way out of this one. The line about how she would have been able to go about her business if she were still a bloke was amusing too as it was matter of fact rather than preachy.

Siobhan Fineran portrayed a great villain, calling out “witches” left, right and centre, but this then led to one of my problems: she was a much better villain than the mud monsters. Now I appreciated that there were actual aliens doing evil stuff but the pacing was a bit off with the reveal. By the time the monster revealed that it had took over her, we only had about ten minutes left. They gave a rushed, half-hearted explanation about the hill being a prison with them being a war race who now wanted to kill and fill everything…and then they got burnt in about five minutes. It is hard not to feel hypocritical as I have begged for more alien monster baddies but don’t put them in an episode with a superior human villain that is at the forefront of most of the episode. They swooped in at the end with a much more generic “let’s kill everything” attitude which slightly fell flat.

Apart from that I thought it was a strong outing. There were bits and bobs I could pick at but nothing that greatly detracted from my overall enjoyment.

DD Rating: 8/10