Doctor Who "The Witchfinders"

notes:

* last time: a girl died for nothing.

* now SEE? this is an episode of Doctor Who which could never be made if the Doctor were not a woman. which, see what i did there?

* Companions: so what's it this time? did the TARDIS malfunction again and send us to the wrong time?
The Doctor: you haven't been on long enough to know that!
Graham: i told you, i'm a big fan. i'm what in the '80s was known as a stalker, the internet hadn't been invented yet, people like me traveled crosscountry on rickety concrete highways to cons for autographs. actually i had a thing for River Song till you came along.
Doctor: that's why we're here, cos my wife River would have loved this place. River, river, get it? i can't wait for the episode where i meet her in this form.

* Ryan: and what's with that strange noise the TARDIS emits? it's like a car battery from hell! my ears are being torn to shreds, now i have two disabilities cos of you!
Yas: i'm wearing earplugs so i can't hear anyone, even the director on set. i just wing it when i act, i'm Method.
Doctor: i actually cleared that out and up, just rubbed the engines with some Lemon Pledge. flushed out all of Peter Capaldi's earhair that was clogging the drain. i can say that joke cos i'm a woman.

* Doctor: little towheaded German boy, why do you bob for apples this time of year?
boy: *rubbing his palms together* where we live, it's ALWAYS Halloween, heehee.
Doctor: that boy's gon be a good soldier for a bad cause some day.
Graham: yeah sure that's a "Northern" accent.

* Doctor: what's with the seesaw?
Becka Savage: idle playthings...

* Gran: Earth, Wind, and Satanic Fire...
Willa Twiston: shoulda quit while you were ahead, grannie! two out of three ain't bad.
Yas: are all the episodes this season about a gran of some kind? i feel Chibnall has a special connection with his grandmother...
Graham: me? a gram of cocaine.
Ryan: why you lookin at me, old man? not cool.
Willa: don't i have a cool last name? just wiki'd it, named after a town which doesn't exist anymore. i'm fatter here than in real life, where i'm a typical British slim model with ghost eyes. it's the bellbottom clothes.
Yas: Tilly Steele. sounds like a porn name.
Willa: i'm a steelmill-worker's daughter…

* Ryan: this is all too dark for me...……...not like that...…..will we EVER see beyond skin color?!

* Becka Savage: i am Becka Savage. i am a bit of a savage. but then again i'm just a product of my age.
Willa: which is old.
Doctor: Millennial clapback, i'm learning on the job. here. here's the paper. see? i'm Witchfinder General.
Graham: it's like the Surgeon General but we deal in the fires which cause the smoke.
Becka: we are all humane here, we use water.

* Becka: got this month's rent?
Doctor: wha?
Becka: OH YOUR MAJESTY!!! WHAT A TREAT! BOW, INGRATES!!! I LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT WHEN YOU CAME IN. AND MY TRAIN OF DRESS!!! we don't get royalty all the way here at the edge of town. in fact there is no central government here for miles of acres.
Alan Cumming: now THAT's drama. watch and learn, actors. it's all in the entrance. that's what you uneducated washless masses voted for, right? Brexit is impossible, even now when there was a Central Church. never fear, i have just made this episode and Britain great again, it was teetering (seesaw, get it?) on the boring. who are you lot? what's with the strange clothes? normally you four would stand out so badly we'd have you shot or imprisoned, but i guess we're all drunk off the post-Trial clown juice.

* Cumming: oh baby. how can you take this grave matter of following the Bible and murder seriously anymore? my last name is Cumming. wanna shot? want me to play doctor? i'll give you a lollipop after, anally.
Ryan: bro you talkin to me?
Cumming nods.
Ryan: oh great. well at least i'm not shafted and treated like dirt as the token black in this one.
Cumming: on the contrary, you will be elevated. this is not how you think it's gonna go down. see you're a specialty here, a rare meat. you're a Nubian prince in a sea of pale white.
Ryan: hey i got a letter i want you to see. involving my kingdom's riches and an internet barter.
Cumming: AND he's funny! you're my perfect bedmate. and mate. yes, i know how flush Wakanda is becoming at this time period. you're like Eddie Murphy in that movie! let me be your Mel B.!!!
Graham: wow. there's royalty but then there's what Eddie Murphy was in Coming to America.
Cumming: America? it will never last, it's impossible...

* Doctor: huh. my paper went wrong, that's never happened to me before.
Cumming: you're a woman this time, you got confused.
Doctor: thank you, Captain Obvious.
Cumming: i was a captain in the Royal Navy, yes. we have one ship but still.
Doctor: *in Nikki Haley voice* i am NOT confused!
Graham: oi yeah it's more of a level branch of government.
Cumming: branch of government? why?

* Yas: holy shit! it's a fucking zombie! i love being away from my parents and able to swear like this.
Willa: a zombie? but the good news is my grandma is still alive!
Yas: well, technically...
Willa: i always wanted to be a healer with potions in glass bottles like the Smurfs! i'm a bitchin' brewin' broad! i'm gonna be a writer, too. Cather...wheat...
Yas: catheter? that should be your next glass bottle. lot of old crusty men in this town.

* Yas: Doctor! Doctor!
Doctor: give me the news.
Yas: there was this tendril that came from this mud monster eating mudpies!
Doctor: Yas what did i tell you about getting rid of all that hentai in your room closet before we journeyed together? it's only slowing down your development (as a character).
Graham: i read anime, it's my demographic.
Ryan: you watch anime, read manga.
Graham: you're not a monkey, i love you, you're my son, son. have some mango, i fetched it from that bottomless bog. while i was bottomless.

* Yas: i stood up to bullying…
Willa: there's a name for just generally being a young person?
Yas: yes, it's a term, a term of art, a form of currency used to get you money and fame and riches later on when you start writing music. her name was Izzy Flint.
Doctor: oh yeah, sorry, I was Izzy Flint.
Yas: Doctor! you dunked me in the girl's toilet!
Doctor: yeah i was practicing being a girl before i took this form.

* Cumming: i've racked up 100 kills so far, how many you got?
Ryan: you git. wish i could get back to my system and video-game chair at my flat. why do you have such a hard time trusting people?
Cumming: there's no Village Tony Robbins.
Ryan: but there's a village idiot. foolish to trust a man in the sky.
Cumming: are you talking about our mutual absentee fathers whom we will bond over and groom over palace tea?
Ryan: why are you both James I and VI?
Cumming: i lobbied to be both James VI and IX. but the public wasn't having it. the people have spoken, the bastards.

* Graham: oh great, i get to wear those pointy black hats that were just squared enough to avoid being a witch's hat that was only worn two times in English history: for Thanksgiving and for The Plague.

* Doctor: you beat me for Coronation Street, too, huh?
Becka: let me see your vibrator.
Doctor: a woman knows...
Doctor: yeah it's this whole Reanimator-after-the-Renaissance thing. good sci-fi, not anything here you've seen. it's alien, not satanic in origin, one of these is ridiculous, one is not.
Becka: you don't believe in Satan?
Doctor: met Him once, a beautiful huge CGI puppet.
Becka: so i was cutting down the wrong tree at Pendle Hill...
Doctor: I KNEW IT! Castle on the Hill! i KNEW before this series was up i'd catch that rat-bastard ginger! wait, you're like George Washington innit? he was descended from you guys. we have you to blame for America.

* Doctor: what are you hiding, Becka?
Becka: cut your tongue!
Doctor: i have my tongue pierced actually, along with my ear cuff. did it at a dirty dungeon in San Francisco. you'll see that later when i fuck for the first time in this female body...
Doctor: does any of this sound familiar? the key? in your basement? monsters? zombies? more like Titans?...

* Doctor: this is all about your mother.
Cumming: who are you, Freud?
Doctor: wait, what? you won't get to your mother by killing me.
Cumming: what is the meaning of life? i want my art to be as virtuous as possible.
Doctor: look within the human heart.
Cumming: no fair, you have two hearts! no wonder you know twice as much!
Doctor: no, like the universe is actually God's Heart. and i am Genderless God.

* Becka: i hereby sentence you to death!
Doctor: oh rubbish! it's not that you think my space-travel magic is the devil's work, you just hate that i'm cuter than you! it's a tale as old as time! wait, is it dunking or ducking?
Becka: ducking.
Doctor: O that is so adorable! *goofy grin*
Companions: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO DOOOOOCCTTTTTOOOOOOORRRRRR!
Doctor: it's alright, kids, the chains weren't fastened tightly. you thought i was fatter than i was, you cow. ha! that was fun, i needed to take a skinnydip. you thought chains could hold me? you obviously weren't there when Houdini performed on me the first female cunnilingus. in front of the gasping crowd, right there on stage! now THAT boy was into chains! if you looked up kinky in the dictionary at the time, his picture would show up.

* Becka: i could not bear touching wood!
Doctor: that's your problem.
Becka: *in normal speaking voice of Regan MacNeil* so i'm the Grand Witch of the Morax.
Doctor: the wha?
Becka: Morax. it's like the President. of Hell.
Graham: are you sure that's how it's spelled? we had a few problems with the last aliens in a previous review.
Doctor: you know, Linda Blair really wanted to outgrow that role as soon as possible. she did it all for the nookie. she just wanted to be with Rick James.

* Doctor: damn, bitch, you threw poor Willa here under the bus!
Becka: sorry, i wasn't myself at the time. we need that wood, it's a prison.
Doctor: let me take you aside to this bush here and tell you a little something about men.

* James: i saved the day!
Doctor: no, I did!
James: let's call it a tie. but can you be my full-time psychiatrist? there is no psychiatry yet.

* Yas: do we at least get some mudpies out of all this?
Doctor: NO! custards! you will eat the custards and you will like the custards!

* Cumming: wanna come with me?
Ryan: i get it, mate. come, cumming. but no.
Willa: i want to come with you.
Doctor: four Companions? it just might work!
Ryan: sorry, Willa, i would have left if he had been a babe. even a babe with a beard. i would have run off with the bearded lady and joined the circus.
Willa, The Doctor, and Yas: thanks a lot.
Graham: i'm tryna unshackle my chains and get myself out of this circus of you three nutcases errday.
Ryan: a babe like Izzy Flint.
Yas: that Christmas episode is getting further and further away...
Graham: i talked to an undead spirit this episode, too. my wife and your Nan, who was hot for the record.
Ryan: ew.

* Doctor: Chibnall, can i get out of these soaking-wet clothes now?
Chibnall: the ratings tell me you have to keep them on, we're not attracting enough boys.
Doctor: you know this is really not the way i thought things were gonna go.

* Cumming: you're drunk, go home.
Doctor: i'm not drunk, you're drunk.
Cumming: of course i'm always drunk, i'm gay. what's your excuse, pops pensioner?
Graham: i had a drinking game set up before the episode. i took a swig whenever the word "Satan" was used.

* Doctor: remember, the best technology looks like magic.
Graham: who said that?
Doctor: Houdini when he was making his O face. except Alexa, who is magic.
Graham: i keep thinking your Alexa is the voice of the TARDIS.
Cumming: where will you go now, young lady? where will you work?
Willa: this town.
Cumming: this town doesn't exist anymore, remember? i decreed it.
Willa: fuck you, you man.
Cumming: get the dunkers! just kidding. come on, i made this episode, it would have been dull as mud without me. this is the first time a Witch Trial has been played for laughs, like if the whole thing was a joke...
Doctor: or a comedy of errors. big errors.