Alan Cumming. There shouldn’t need to be another word in this review, there shouldn’t need to be an explanation, and none of it better sums up a Doctor Who episode than saying Alan Cumming. Anyone who is honestly going to turn down Alan Cumming playing the campest, most sexual King James VI you’ve ever seen is joyless and needs to understand the world can’t be grey and beige all the time. Worse, it can’t all be “The Power of the Doctor.”

Sadly, I can’t lie, as much as Cumming brightens up my day with a little bit of the rainbow sunshine from his parade of over-the-top bisexual come-ons, “The Witchfinders” dumps a lot of rain on that excitement. Joy Wilkinson’s dark and twisted tale playing on the Witch trials of Lancashire has its moments, but looking past the flirting with Ryan and Cumming’s acting, the story isn’t as exciting as it sounds. In fact, it feels like the idea of King James and witches came first and the rest of the episode was built around that cartoon Cumming would play.

I find the line, “[I’m] not a big believer in Satan,” a bit laughable to still be in the script when only 9 series and 11 years before this we have Satan giving Rose a ring on the blower. It would be laughable now to say we know this Doctor once had new teeth to comment on, but we can’t ignore one of the best moments of Tennant’s era: “Hello, Satan, this is the Doctor calling. May we have your 12 points?” Eurovision joke aside (because we know who Satan’s voting for) this Doctor has met Satan. If she doesn’t believe in the monster at the center of a planet circling a black hole, I don’t know what this Doctor is up to.

I will admit, I did have quite a few titters at the phrasing, “We will fill your King!” Yes, fill Alan Cumming all day long, and endlessly talk about filling Cumming too. I’m sure there is more than just a star-struck and later possessed woman who would like to fill Cumming. I may even know a few of those people. He made the episode with his little nods, winks, and mannerisms to make King James a complete cartoon of the actual monarch. He made him an enjoyable character while also being a bit of a villain. Or at the very least the idiot that sides with the villain before being smacked back into common sense.

As much as “The Witchfinders” has a reasonable setup for a base level of a Nu-Who episode, there is something about it that just doesn’t excite me. Summarizing the episode for my editor I said that Cumming could stand in front of a rainbow flag and he would still distract. Admittedly I think that is exactly the problem. While this era has had a lot of issues with too many characters and not enough personalities, there are only three (maybe four) available for a cast of seven. Jodie is a bright light pushing through some more exposition, Siobhan Finneran’s Becka plays a wonderfully over-the-top villain, and I’ve made it clear who the third is.

The shots set up by Sallie Aprahamian in the direction department are pretty, but as I’ve said already here and many times before, the desaturated tone in the color correction makes the episode less appealing to me. I can’t quite explain it, something about the darker episodes always fail to grab me as much as, say, “New Earth,” “Vincent and the Doctor,” and “Let’s Kill Hitler.” The writing might support the episode well enough, and there is indeed enough there for a middle-of-the-series episode to entice, but I can’t look past the lack of eye-popping reds and greens (until the end) in this parade of grey.

Ultimately, yes Joy Wilkinson’s strange but well-made tale in “The Witchfinders” certainly entertains, but it is filled with Cumming who stands out like a Pride flag at a Toby Keith concert. The proficiency of the writing stands in stark contrast to the over-the-top fun that is Cumming’s little mannerisms, making an episode that would be fine before now extremely delightful. Though as has been evident throughout not only this series but the entire run of Jodie and Chris’ era, the TARDIS crew plus the supplemental cast make the stories bloated, and “The Witchfinders” is no exception. It is an episode to watch for Cumming, however, returning for a rewatch depends on a few factors. Enjoyment of the silly and desaturation are two of them.

Next week, it is finally time for the most Douglas Adams episode since the intended final serial in Tom Baker’s 1980 series, finally released in 2017, “Shada.” Or if we’re going with stories that were actually produced, since “The Pirate Planet” and “City of Death.” Yes, of course, I’m talking about Ed Hime’s brilliant “It Takes You Away,” and it even features the fantastically creepy Kevin Eldon as Ribbons. Who really should have been Lucy Cartwright, but this is an argument I’ll have to have with myself later on.

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Doctor Who "The Witchfinders"

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Cumming, a lot of Cumming.
• A well-made story despite being dominated by a lot of Cumming.

Cons

• Desaturated tones are boring.
• It's pretty tight in this TARDIS Doc'.