Waiting on my Sil DVD, I’ve decided to start on The White Witch of Devil’s End
Was wondering if anyone else had watched these or had any interest in them, (there’s only three ratings currently on the guide (including my own) for the first story)
At the very least, from just the first story you can already tell that New-Reeltime is much more competent than New-BBV, though admittedly that’s not a high bar to clear
These and other Wilderness Years productions are something I’m planning to delve into a bit more in the new year. It all sounds so wild, weird and very 90s, so I want to experience it all myself!
checks release date
I didn’t realise you felt that poorly about Capaldi’s last season 
/t
Oops, I didn’t realise these were new productions! I saw that you mentioned Reeltime and BBV and assumed we were in the 90s 
The Capldi era sure was wild now and then, but there’s not a lot of wilderness in it 
Having just finished The Inheritance, I thought I’d give some reviews as well
There’s some things to like here and some… not to like.
The idea of having these stories be narrated as if an oral history of these events is rather interesting, and Damaris Hayman, reprising her role as Olive Hawthourne from 40+ years prior, certainly makes a good narrator for that story. It’s especially an interesting choice to have her almost dubbing over other characters who we see speaking to the camera, it puts us in her place really effectively, hearing her mindset recounting the events as we watch through her eyes.
The story itself isn’t really much to write home about, but it’s an interesting expansion on the character’s history, the sort of thing you could see being mentioned in The Daemons, but there not being much time to explore.
That all said, the liberal use of a romani slur does somewhat darken my perception of this story, without it I’d place this higher, but it’s frustrating to hear, especially in a story that was released so relatively recently, and casting very much white actors for romani roles is also not a great look.
2 stars for The Inheritance?? Oh wait, we’re not in the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles thread. Phew!
And of course we get the classic TV trope of a witch and a vampire falling in love!
I joke about it being trope-y, but it does work for me here a lot better than it does in other places even just from the base premise what with the actors both being much much older than what you’d expect to see from this trope. Far too many vampire stories have hot young men falling in love with late-teen-early-20-somethings, but there’s not enough love out there for the older vampires and older women. It’s just a refreshing change of pace with the trope.
That said, the fact that she’s a witch doesn’t really come into play with this story at all, and if anything it detracts from it. You can write that she was blinded by love all you want, but a witch not cottoning on when she’s told ‘don’t give me permission to come into your house’ just doesn’t work. The same goes for Hawthorne asking to be turned into a vampire, except to an even greater extent.
How short the story is as well doesn’t do the story any favours, they try to cram the full arc of a vampire (comfort with a detached life → finding attachment → realising how soulless undeath is → worrying you’ll harm that attachment → dusting yourself to protect your attachments) into like mabye15 mins. It just feels very rushed and I’m not a fan.
There’s also some pretty poor editing here in places, the effects for the vampire dying are a bit comical, and you can tell they didn’t have quite enough footage as it repeats the very end in reverse. Plus there’s a moment where you’re meant to see one thing in person, and one in the mirror, but they shot and cropped it in a way that you can still see the non-reflected arms waving in front of the mirror.
All in all, eh, it’s fine, it has it’s moment, but I’m not coming back to it any time soon.
I’ve ordered these on the sale so expect my review when I get around to watching (and when I get in charge of the TV!)
The Child acting isn’t great, and that wig is awful, but the story itself is sweet.
Some more classics of witch folklore are those of the Fey and the Familiar, and I think they’re blended together really nicely here. You get the image of the trickster fey, just there to cause mischief, here stealing apples, as well as that of the darker fey stealing children. You also touch lightly on the idea of fey laws, with one being forced into the role of a familiar for acting against the other. It’s a really nice look at the folklore, touching on everything it needs to for the story without feeling at all rushed.
There’s a genuine heart to this story as well, the fondness with which Hawthorne talks about her cat, her sounding sad as it goes missing, and the reveal that after the brief respite, returning home, her familiar returns again in the guise of a new cat.
It all just sort of works for me… apart from the child acting and the wig
I wanted to be the first to rate these on the site! Damn. I loved her in The Daemons and a while back I filtered stories by “least ratings” (which is how I found the Blogs of Doom) so I could get that future “first to rate” badge (still waiting on that, @shauny ). I actually planned to binge them tomorrow! Guess you beat me to it.
If you binge them, you may still rate all of them before me, I’m taking a break right now after episode 3!
Oh boy, we’re off to a…start. 3/10
planning on watching this at some point in the nebulous future, and I’ve always been fascinated by these weird direct-to-video spinoffs, which is to say – loving the reviews and comments in this thread!
The second one is slightly better. 4/10
I shouldn’t have said I would binge these. They’re almost painfully dull, it’s really hard to watch them one after the other.
It did help that I was playing stardew as I ‘watched’ them
I’m playing sudoku.
An improvement! But not in the effects department. 6/10
Eh, another just sort of fine story.
I do like how this series is taking a look at various different forms of witchcraft and sort of blending it all together, Familiars (which has some nice small continuity here), Fey, Vampires, and now poppets. The idea of the person creating the poppets being a hairdresser is a nice little touch which makes her influence over all of the town a lot more believable, it’s a small touch, but it’s fun.
The effects here aren’t great, they haven’t been for most of this series, but there’s one moment with a pulsating poppet here that worked surprisingly well for me.
And lastly, the ending also works pretty nicely, the solution being replacing the hair that’s in the poppet makes sense and is something that both feels smart to be figured out, but also something that the audience could figure out themselves in that situation. And then Hawthorne ending the story, the emotions come across pretty well, and the last shot of the poppet in the fireplace gives a very satisfying sense of closure.
Well I mean he doesn’t really, does he?
Ghosts are another point of witch-related folklore it makes sense for this series to touch on, and it’s done fine here. The connections to Daemos and The Daemons are pretty minimal though, Hawthorne talks about the events of the story, but it kind of feels like they felt they had to do a story like this rather than it being a story they wanted to tell.
The actual mechanics of what’s happening feel pretty vague as well unfortunately, and not in the interesting way of the other stories, just in a sort of ‘meh’ way. And Hawthorne doesn’t seem too torn up about the fact that the solution involved her friend dying.
Like, I see what they’re trying here, but overall I can’t force myself to feel anything but ‘eh’ about the story