As we're in quarantine it might encourage me to get this done a little faster.
The Witchfinders- The winning streak ends. The writing is sadly back to the average for this series. Jodie returns to being annoying, and the companions are wasted once more.
The most unfortunate thing about this one is that it has clear potential. It could have been something great. The writing absolutely ruins that though. There's nothing to the leads, and the supporting characters are bland. The only stand out is Alan Cumming as King James, who I thought was very good.
The villain element doesn't work at all here. We've seen witches in modern Who before, back in series 3, but they were so much more interesting there. We got to see them battle William Shakespeare through the power of words. That's an interesting concept which makes use of a historical figure effectively. King James feels like he's just here for comedies sake, and the "witches" (I say it like that as they're just like any other alien threat) aren't approached at an interesting angle, thus making them wholly forgettable.
Another unforgivable sin committed by this episode is that it's just so boring. I'd much rather watch something bad than something boring, but this episode provides both. I wasn't interested in any of the characters or the plot itself, so I was bored for most of it because I simply didn't care what was happening.
The main positives I have for this episode are in regard to the technical aspects. The episode looks very pretty, the costume design was nice and the editing was fine (the pacing suffers because of the poor script).
Overall- 4/10.
This episode at least had the courtesy to try to tell a story over forcing a political ideology in my face, and would you believe me if I said it wasn't written by Chibnall? Shocking isn't it, how some writers actually try to put story first. There are still some moments and quotes which stick out as overtly political, but no where near as badly as in other episodes. Although the vast majority of the comedy didn't work, I already said I liked King James, and I'll admit that Graham's Tarantino joke still got a laugh out of me.