Anticipation list follow-up: expectations met, mostly

Back in January, I did one of my almost-yearly "things to look forward to" posts (restricted to the area of pop-cultural consumption). As it's sadly a bit too early to start the 2025 lists, but I feel in the mood for a list post, what if I followed up on the projects I thought sounded at least vaguely promising? I mean, I know I've already blogged about some of them, but as a summing-up? No, I'm not dodging an in-depth analysis of the problems of making the multiverse work (in film/TV) at all...

I'll change the order around a bit, though; I'll start with the items I haven't discussed in blog posts yet and save the item that was the biggest disappointment to last.

Moonflower Murders: Thankfully, Swedish Television didn't let me down. They both aired the latest adaptation of an Anthony Horowitz crime novel and made it available on their streaming service, and I was well pleased with it. It had the same virtues as Magpie Murders: Lesley Manville's Sue Ryeland and Tim McMullan's Atticus Pünd make for a likeable sleuthing duo with their meetings on the border between fiction and reality (there's a multiversal incursion for you), and the way some of the actors played two roles in parallel plot threads was cleverly done. As with Magpie Murders, I felt less cheated by the way the two interlocking crime mysteries were laid out than when I read the novel. Moonflower Murders the novel ended with a firm goodbye to this particular fictional universe, but the TV adaptation (also done by Horowitz) leaves the door a little more open for a sequel. I would not say no.

The Bad Batch season three: Is it just me, or have the animated projects from the Star Wars and Marvel franchises been consistently great of late, while the live-action projects are a bit more hit and miss? It may very well be just me with my soft spot for animation. Be that as it may, this Clone Wars spin-off, which perhaps didn't seem that promising on paper, outdid expectations with an engaging, well-knit overarching story about a band of brothers and a sister trying to carve out an existence during the Imperial era of the Star Wars galaxy. Crosshair remained my favourite throughout, but as he kept himself on the path of redemption he hesitantly started on previous season, new entertaining if unsubtle villains were introduced. Doctor Hemlock (I warned you!) with his pleasing design, satisfactorily high level of competence and purring voice (American-accented, which makes a nice change in this context as Star Wars baddies are so often played by Brits) caused my villain-loving heart to flutter, and disgraced Vice Admiral Rampart was a hoot.

Inside Out 2: Yeah, as I've previously mentioned, this was pretty darn good. Even though I prefer the original, which is more rewatchable, the way Anxiety is portrayed in this film is almost too relatable. Roll on Inside Out 3 – next time, I want to see Riley fall in love.

Belgravia: The Next Chapter: OK, I can't pretend it wasn't a let-down that Julian Fellowes didn't pen this supposed sequel to Belgravia, which at the end of the day had very little to do with the original. I had other reservations as well, especially at the start of the series, but taken all in all it was a solid period drama that felt a little closer to being set in a recognisable past than many costume dramas of late (which are often knowingly anachronistic). It particularly seemed to find its stride in the final episode. Poor Oliver Trenchard was hard done by, though.

Doctor Who series fourteen/season one: As you may already be aware, this was a big let-down for me. When will I stop hoping for Doctor Who to return to its former glory? It's hard to let go of hope when the very same duo that were show-runners back in those glory days are still running and/or writing for the series. But by now, Doctor Who has become so heavily politicised that it has a harder time getting away with things that weren't such a big deal in the olden days. 

When the main thrust of Doctor Who stories was about something bigger (love, friendship, the wonders of the universe, the problems of near immortality, the strengths and weaknesses of mankind) or something smaller (oooh, look, Daleks and Cybermen are fighting!) than politics, I could shrug off the odd bout of clumsy messaging. Now, it seems, clumsy messaging is practically all the show does. I had hopes that the Steven Moffat-scripted Christmas special would be a suitably light-hearted palate cleanser, but the sneak peek we've been given does not look promising. "Evil must logo"? Really? Also, the main villain being a Big Bad Arms Manufacturer isn't only clichéd, it's not quite as obvious a choice of common enemy as it might once have been. Yes, of course there are all sorts of ethical implications when a company's products are expressly made to maim and kill people. But at the end of the day, what are we supposed to defend ourselves with if we are attacked? Bananas?

I've not yet reached the point where I will stop watching Doctor Who, and most likely I never will. But for now, it's no longer my favourite sci-fi franchise. For all its faults, Star Wars has eclipsed it. It gave me the most memorable Doctor to watch this year.

My problem with witches

My feelings about the latest Marvel TV series Agatha All Along are mixed. On the one hand, I think it's a solid-quality product and much better than one had any reason to expect. The story hangs together, the acting is strong, and the characterisation good enough for the viewer to go "awww" when a character dies (there's a surprisingly high body count). There's a particularly well-crafted, timey-wimey (sorry, Doctor Who slang) episode which manages to give one of the characters a satisfying send-off. Unlike some commentators, I found the series stuck the landing, too. The flashback in the final episode, showing how Agatha really lost her son, was perhaps a bit lengthy, but delivered the emotional gut-punch needed.

On the other hand, there's the witch thing.

Now, to be clear, I don't disapprove of all fictional witches, as my fondness for Once Upon A Time can attest. Many, perhaps most, witches in popular culture I'm perfectly fine with. But there are some I have a really hard time with, and I find the premise that witches should naturally be seen as a great symbol of girl power supremely irritating. 

To over-simplify, witches in popular culture I've come across mostly fall into one, maybe two, of the following categories:

Fairy-tale witch: Often lives in the forest and is a menace to children, above all. Mostly very, very bad – there are good female magic-wielders in fairy tales, but they tend to be called something else, like "wise women". Her own boss.

Malleus Maleficarum witch: I'm not sure if she's the brain-child of learned men of the 17th century who was then enthusiastically adopted by the populace, or if it's the other way around. Has clear diabolical ties and flies away at certain times to certain places to celebrate Witches' Sabbaths, where she gets up to all sorts. Forms covens, but – how shall I put this? – not for obviously feminist purposes. Evil (duh).

Fantasy witch: Can also be called Harry Potter witch after one of the many fantasy franchises where she resides. Here, "witch" basically just means "female practitioner of magic", and there's nothing suspicious about the magic's origins. The fantasy witch can be good or bad, depending on her own choices, whom she chooses to hang out with and whether she uses "dark magic" (not the same as downright black magic) or not. Only forms covens when the plot demands some extra magic boost, but it's not a way of life.

New Age witch: Wants to be close to nature. Vaguely pagan – likes to talk about earth and moon goddesses. Forms covens for sisterly, female-bonding purposes. Paints herself as the victim of centuries of persecution, a victim status largely unearned (more on that in a bit). Harmless.

Of these categories, I have zero problems with the fairy-tale and fantasy witches, except I'd say bad habits such as snacking on children or cursing babies make them questionable as feminist icons. But as villainesses or redeemable anti-heroines they work very well. New Age witches I think are annoying, but I recognise they probably mean well. Malleus Maleficarum witches, however, I find downright disturbing, and if the witches in a story don't take steps to definitely distance themselves from the seriously occult I'm apt to tut-tut.

The problem with the witch lore in Agatha All Along is that it borrows freely from all four categories above. All right, to be fair, there's not much of the black-magic stuff, but there certainly seems to be a bit more hardcore things going on than, say, the everyday New Age witch would get up to. The witches in Agatha may not consort with demons (and we should be thankful for that), but occult imagery does not faze them, and the focus on covens gives out some creepy-cult vibes.

I'm willing to give Marvel witches the benefit of the doubt and categorise them as a mixture of fantasy and New Age witches. Marvel witch magic appears to be in itself morally neutral, and can be used for bad (Agatha) or good (the other witches) depending on who wields it. Ugh, do they have to spell it "magick", though?

Something that really gets my goat (no pun intended) is the way popular culture appropriates the horror of the Witch Trials. I've lost count of how many times it has been implied, in different fantasy franchises, that there actually were witches in Salem. Sure enough that's a theme in Agatha as well. 

Now, this may seem priggish, especially as I'm usually quite nonchalant about historical wrongdoings, but I can't help feeling this is a bit disrespectful to the innocent women (and men too, in surprising numbers, but mostly women) who were killed in olden times because they were accused of witchcraft. What was so horrifying about the Salem Witch Trials was that there were no witches. In real life, witches do not exist. In a fictional world were witches do exist, the most terrifying aspect of historical witch hunts – that they could strike down anyone, no matter how blameless – is lost, and we're left with a yet another lame persecuted-minority metaphor.

I mean, what's the better defence when accused of witchcraft? "There is no such thing as witches, and you're out of your mind", or "Look, I may have cursed, you know, the odd cow. But no demonic hanky-panky, I swear"? I rest my case. 

Lilia, one of Agatha's coven members and generally a good egg, gets irritated about "misconceptions" about witches. But it's hard to know what the "misconceptions" are when so many witch tropes turn out to be true. Not long before, Lilia herself doesn't want to exit a death-trap of a house through an oven as a friend of hers was killed that way. Cute. But if the Hansel and Gretel witch existed in this universe, did she eat children? And why would it be so out of the way for the good people of the MCU to believe that witches have extra nipples?

I did enjoy Agatha All Along, and for someone without my occult-wary hang-ups it's probably even more fun. But spare me the whole "feminist coven" rhetoric. A good witch is a witch who works alone.