‘Doctor Who’ Recap: ‘The Witchfinders’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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​There are a great many things that fascinate me about humanity and our evolution through the years, one of them being, our distinct desire to abandon the darker parts of our past so that we can in fact become a better species. Because that is quite the noble cause when all is said and done, since such a push toward that should in turn, remove the worst parts of our species from modern and future society. But the fact of the matter is, while we have been able to reflect upon and stop repeating the bigger mistakes of our past, we’ve yet to eliminate the root causes to said mistakes, meaning that these issues sometimes find new ways to thrive in our modern world.
 
In fact, in 2018, America and the world for that matter are seeing quite the unexpected wave of close mindedness and well, outright stupidity and all of it is grounded in our inability to remove the root cause of what brought about these issues in the first place. But thankfully, science fiction is always there to examine our current world and our current missteps in order to provide us with a potential fix or way forward and once again, Doctor Who took the time to dig into such matters in its own unique way. Because ‘The Witchfinders’ took us to an era of history where a lack of knowledge caused more harm than good since we were privy to some witch trials in the 17th Century, and well, the series held nothing back when it comes to the parallels of this particular era, and our modern world.
 
For the show made it abundantly clear that in the 17th Century, people who spoke in bold tones about something they claimed to be experts of were able to sway people’s opinions and decisions through their ‘knowledge’ and fear, and because of that a great many people died for unnecessary reasons and well, it didn’t take long for this Witch Hunt to reveal that not much has changed in four centuries when it comes to that. Be it the Anti-Vaccination movement, or the sudden rise of Facism/Racism in America, or the continued bias and hatred toward the LGBTQ community, all of those problems in our world are related to several key things; a lack of knowledge and understanding and fear. 

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And of course, the people who spread their hatred or misinformation do it loudly and boldly on the internet in this day and age and rally their cause with rhetoric and fear and well, this examination made for one brilliant episode. One where Jodie Whittaker shined in her performance since she was able to call out these issues in quirky and bold fashion, and her speech to King James regarding how one can better understand the world was just brilliant and even the setting was laden with commentary since the people of this Colonial-era village, were satisfied with whatever decisions others made for them, serving as a grand allegory to the fact that ignorance is bliss and that indifference is sometimes as great a problem as fear mongering since it allows for such matters to persist.
 
However, all commentary aside, the show did have a big alien mystery to deal with, and for the first time since the series/season premiere, we actually had some nasty aliens on our hands since we came to learn that this tiny village was in fact, settled next to an ancient alien prison, one that houses a species known as the Morax, and they were eager to escape their chains and take over the world and thankfully, the Doctor was able to put them back into their cells. And as an added bonus, this episode also featured one hell of a guest star in Alan Cumming, and his portrayal of King James I was just a delight to say the least since he played the obsessive monarch with a zest and zeal that only he can deliver and of course, he found a way to stand out and make every single scene he was in as memorable as possible.
 
But, make no mistake about it, this was an episode that unleashed all kinds of fury toward the ignorance that currently permeates our world and honestly, that’s a good thing. Because every single one of those issues that I listed a moment ago continue to make headlines in the modern world and this episode more or less served as a fine reminder to continue fighting the good fight for those who are already working to combat such matters and it also served as a wake-up call for those who believe it will all simply go away on its own and well, that’s what good science fiction does, it challenges us and it just goes to show that Doctor Who is the smartest show on television right now and I hope it keeps this up, because a good kick in the pants, is sometimes necessary. Until next time.   

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