Witchfinders

It's an episode, I doesn't compare to last episode. Kerblam! Is just that good. Still it's a pretty good episode.

There's witches but actually no, the main with Hunter is possessed by the Morrax queen (which looks very gross) because she chopped a singular tree stood on a hill down. King James is also in this story, telling many lies.

Like most episodes of this era, it's a mixed bag.

I wish it delivered on the themes it establishes in the first act. Here we have the first female Doctor running headfirst into what is perhaps the ultimate sexism. She is actively discriminated against and is facing a (female) villain who is specifically weaponizing misogyny to hurt other women. There's a lot of meat in that premise and I just don't see what we get out of it other than Jodie remarking that she'd be taken more seriously if she was "still a bloke."

I'm not saying the episode has to be a YouTube essay on historical sexism, but this really could have been an all-time classic if it WENT THERE. We get tantalizingly close, too. Comments like "oh, you won't get pockets for a few hundred years" are genuinely funny, but they'd be excellent little asides keeping our focus on the episode's central theme without hitting us over the head if the episode was going to GO THERE.

Instead the resolution is like any other. They figure out the sci-fi bullshit and save the day by touching a tree or something.

I can't help but feel there's a more powerful resolution we're missing, a more powerful resolution that dares to explore what it means for the Doctor to have this face. Basically Jodie never got her Dot and Bubble and it's a bummer. (I'm leaving this review in February 2025 so here's hoping the audios starting this summer GO THERE.)

Cinematography and music are excellent, as they often are in this era.

Compare Ryan's reaction here towards discrimination with that in Rosa, quite ironical.