The Witchfinder: The Witchfinder, Episodes 1-6

March 21, 2024 5:23 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

In seventeenth century England, during a time of civil war, plague, and rampant superstition, a less than successful witchfinder, Gideon Bannister (Tim Key), must transport accused witch Thomasine Gooch (Daisy May Cooper) to a trial he hopes will impress the witchfinder general and change his fortunes, but he runs into various hindrances along the way, not the least of them being Thomasine's inconvenient habit of questioning the business practices of the witchfinding system.
posted by orange swan (2 comments total)

I liked this! While the comedy in the middle episodes was a bit weak, I enormously enjoyed Gooch's strategy of appearing somewhat simple, somewhat slow, and inviting various antagonists deeper and deeper into a steadily more hostile morass of logic, contradiction, and critique. Also the ending was really well handled, and did a great job of bringing the themes of the show to a sharp, strong, stinging, single point.
posted by Balna Watya at 3:41 PM on March 22, 2024

I enjoyed this as well. The looking-glass logic of seventeenth-century witch trials does make for good comedy, and Cooper and Key are very talented comedic actors who can make even silly puns about bees work.
posted by orange swan at 2:02 PM on March 25, 2024