REVIEW #12 A Discovery of Witches (2018-present)

The first Sky original series on the Film Review Club blog!

A Discovery of Witches is a fantasy series based on the ‘All souls’ novels written by Deborah Harkness. The series follows Diana Bishop a historian who is thrown into a dangerous world full of Witches, Vampires and Daemons as she attempts to uncover the secrets of a bewitched manuscript.

CAST & THE ACTING 

Diana is played by Teresa Palmer who does very well in bringing the character to life as she discovers more and more about the creatures living among her and how she struggles in coming to terms with her own past, that up until now, she was unaware of. The supporting cast consists of Matthew Goode, Owen Teale and Alex Kingston. I think the acting was pretty good across the two seasons, each character brought something different to the series, from the light hearted comedic side of Edward Bluemel’s character Marcus, to the more vindictive and spiteful portrayal of Owen Teale’s Peter. There was a nice balance across the array of characters, the only thing I could criticise is perhaps the characters are a little predictable and what you would expect from a series in this genre.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

As I’ve mentioned a few times across the blog now, I am a fan of this genre and it is about time we had one that was set in England! Most of the mainstream series/films of a similar nature take place in America so it was nice to see one set here. The plot is pretty easy to follow and does well to capture your attention pretty much straight away. You learn the dynamics between the different creatures early on and it was refreshing how it didn’t just involve a load of killing and gore from the outset, which is often the route most vampire series tend to go down. The second series incorporates some of England’s history which was a nice little touch and helped make the plot and storyline more believable. Again it can be predictable at times but I think because the genre is so overused now, I come to expect that. I have watched pretty much all of these type of series which is perhaps why I find them so predictable.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

I think as a whole the special effects were pretty good! The special effects used to show the magic being used was believable enough and didn’t scream low budget which is a good start to any series. The vampires weren’t over-animated which has been the case for other series of a similar ilk. The camera work was pretty standard but good enough to maintain the quality that most Sky series have nowadays. So a respectable score here!

OVERALL (7/10) 

In summery I liked this series and you can tell Sky are investing more and more into their original series because they are all showing some real quality. It’s good to see them explore the ‘Fantasy’ genre, although I am not surprised given its rise in popularity over the past few years with big Netflix shows like the Vampire Diaries and The Originals and even The Fate that has proven popular on the streaming platform. If you’re a fan of the genre I would certainly recommend, however if you’ve never really been a fan of these types of films/series then it’s probably one for you to miss because I don’t think it will change your mind on them!

Thanks for reading!

Callan