Though it comes just short of being the most powerful episode of Jodie Whittaker’s tenure as the Doctor (that’s still “Rosa”), “The Witchfinders” raises the bar for what the more adventure-based stories of Doctor Who can be. Every second spent in the Puritan village of Bilehurst Crag makes the skin crawl as writer Joy Wilkinson explores a horrific period of cruelty against women from history, providing a cathartic dressing down of witch-hunting.
But the episode also felt in many ways like a return to the comfortable formula of an extraterrestrial aberration in history and the mystery of uncovering it. In other words, this is exactly the type of story millions of fans have been waiting for ever since the Doctor’s gender had finally switched.
This might be the first episode Jodie Whittaker has been able to fully claim as her own. Whereas the other highly satisfying episodes can be chalked up to Whittaker’s perfect portrayal of the Doctor’s essential character traits and values, ‘The Witchfinders’ is a story directly impacted and marked by the Doctor’s newfound femininity. After being degraded and dismissed by Alan Cumming, the Doctor even remarks on the fact that if she was still a man navigating this predicament would be exponentially easier. But her being a woman in this time period is the episode’s exact point. None of the previous 12 Doctors could have given this episode the weight it needed, but Whittaker carries it with absolute ease. Wilkinson’s careful consideration for this makes ‘The Witchfinders’ one of Whittaker’s most memorable episodes.
Elsewhere, the King James character was perfectly smarmy and repugnant and Cumming carried him so well he gave the illusion that James was focal to the plot despite deliberately doing nothing. This episode focused on the Doctor for a change and let Graham, Yaz and Ryan take the back seat, allowing her experience as the smartest person in the town that demonizes smart women to be the focal point of the episode, thus having the biggest impact on its audience. The episode also noticeably took place entirely in 16th century Lancashire with no cuts to the present day or onto the TARDIS, letting the impact of the episode remain untarnished by any extraneous influences.
Any viewer with a cursory knowledge of mystery writing could see the Becka Savage reveal coming, but it hardly matters. The twist is an accessory to the themes and messages of the episode rather than their delivery. ‘The Witchfinders’ effectively conveys both the cruel sexism and the hypocrisy of the witch-hunting era, and makes for a fantastically poignant, if a little top-heavy, Doctor Who story.
Overall rating: 8/10
