It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.
Infused with magic, history, brilliant actors, and gorgeous scenery, A Discovery of Witches is a promising series that is sure to delight many fans of the series as well as introduce many humans to this new world.
Adapted from Deborah Harkness’s best-selling All Souls trilogy, A Discovery of Witches is a modern-day love story. The new series follows the brilliant academic and historian Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), a reluctant witch denying her magical heritage. That is, until she discovers an ancient manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of enigmatic geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont, (Matthew Goode), who hides a dark family secret. As Diana and Matthew embark on a journey to understand the secrets of the manuscript and their relationship develops, events threaten to unravel the fragile peace between witches, vampires, daemons and humans, a peace overseen by the Congregation, a shadowy institution made up of a handful of powerful vampire, witch and daemon representatives.
It All Starts With A Book
We arrive in Oxford England around the time of the Autumn Equinox and we are quickly treated to Matthew Clairmont’s (Matthew Goode) dreamy narration about the world while he watches on as our other main character, Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) rows along the water. After her regular ritual, Diana gets ready and heads off through the streets of Oxford on her bicycle. When she arrives at her destination, she drops some papers and exclaims, which is followed by her hands lighting up and the papers magically sorting back into order… Diana is there to present her research on alchemy to some fellow historians, and she is given a glowing introduction indicating her brilliance. She speaks of learning more from Elias Ashmole’s manuscripts at Bodleian Library followed by being offered a potential position as faculty.
Gillian Chamberlain, a friend of Diana’s, was attending her lecture and the pair have coffee together. Gillian reveals she is part of the local coven and there is a meeting soon, however, Diana is uncomfortable with practising magic after what happened with her parents. She does reveal that her powers are completely unpredictable due to her lack of practice.
The next day, Diana visits Bodleian Library and requests various Ashmole manuscripts, however, Ashmole 782 isn’t there at first, but when the librarian comes back, it’s there. Immediately Diana seems intrigued by Ashmole 782 and after opening, both Matthew, who is in a church, and Diana feel something. The manuscript appears to have missing pages and hidden, scrambling words, which crawl on to Diana’s skin before burning a mark into her hand. Matthew then receives a call from Miriam Shepherd (Aiysha Hart) as she feels her blood is reacting to something also. Diana quickly returns the book and leaves before running into a man who looks exactly like her deceased father when Gillian comes rushing out, as she felt something too. She asks many questions about the manuscript, but Diana runs away.
The Family Around Us
At a lab, Matthew tells Miriam about Diana, who is a direct descendant of Bridget Bishop—the first woman to be executed during the Salem witch trials. Apparently Matthew has been looking for Ashmole 782 for centuries to help him learn more about their origins.
We are then introduced to Marcus (Edward Bluemel) who is trying to convince his friend James to go out, but he heads home instead. However, he is hit by a car and it appears he is dead. With nobody around, Marcus makes the decision to bite into his neck (hello vampire!) before feeding his blood to James, who reacts hungrily. Unfortunately, James then flops dead once more. Later on, Marcus is interrogated by the police while Matthew listens on in the hallway and he’s angry with Marcus for doing what he did. Marcus wonders why it didn’t work, and apparently that’s what they are researching, and now Marcus is their new test subject much to the dismay of Miriam.
Diana wakes the next day after some nightmares and calls her family in Madison County, New York. Sarah Bishop (Alex Kingston) is immediately worried and Diana tells her what happened with the manuscript. Sarah is infuriated that Diana returned the book without learning more about it when Sarah’s partner Emily Mather (Valarie Pettiford) joins the conversation. Diana informs them she thought she saw her father, and Sarah’s approach is much more aggressive, while Emily is more laidback and loving.
Back at Bodleian Library, Diana needs another manuscript and after struggling to reach it, her magic flares up and it goes flying in the air. Thankfully, Matthew turns up and rescues the book from falling to an early book grave. Diana senses he is a vampire and he introduces himself as biochemist Matthew Clairmont. He speaks of his interest in her work and then remarks on her public displays of witchcraft before abruptly departing.
Diana goes for lunch and cyberstalks Matthew, when lo and behold, he walks in the door and he’s quite amused. Diana becomes very direct with him about what he wants and he asks about the Ashmole manuscript and if it is 782. Matthew says many people are after the manuscript and she should turn it over so she won’t be in any danger. She won’t have a bar of it, and returns to the Bodleian until it closes. She heads out with Sean (Adetomiwa Edun), a worker at the Bodleian, for a drink and we learn more about Diana’s past. Her parents were murdered during a research trip to the Ukraine/Russian border and believe the villagers turned on them thinking they were witches.
Trouble Is Brewing
We are taken to Finland where Peter Knox (Owen Teale) and a man with a gun look into the woods before venturing into them. With several strange cult looking items hanging around, you just know something terrible is about to happen. When the man with the gun thinks the coast is clear, a witch comes up behind him and engulfs him a ring of fire before letting the ground take him. Peter knew of Satu Jarvinen’s (Malin Buska) power and says she will be sworn into the Congregation. Meanwhile, Gillian downs a glass of wine before heading to meet with another witch named Sylvia (Nila Aalia) about the disturbance they felt.
The next day at Bodleian, some hot-shot professor has all the librarians running around and it turns out to be none other than Matthew. Diana’s not exactly pleased to see him, except he points out that the library is filled with witches and they are there to watch Diana, which causes her to storm off. Gillian chases after Diana to ask her about Matthew and wants to know what is going on with him. Later that day, Peter and Satu visit Gillian and Sylvia to find out what happened with the manuscript and who discovered it. Judging by Peter’s face, he knows of Diana.
And So It Begins…
Matthew watches over Diana throughout her day from getting coffee to running, and then rowing, and she seems to sense him. During her row, he visits her room to search for Ashmole 782. Afterwards, Matthew returns once she has finished her session and asks her what she did with the Book of Life, but she doesn’t know what she is talking about. Matthew takes a deep inhale of Diana’s jacket and his demeanour changes immediately as he appears as though he’s going to rip someone’s head off, and that head may just so happen to be Diana’s.
Overall Thoughts?
In all honesty, I thought the book was a slow burn, and it could have easily been about 150 pages shorter as it went a little too in-depth with the alchemy and some scenes. It’s obvious television doesn’t have that amount of time to go as into, so perhaps this will be a positive for the series. That being said, I still think the series will be a slow burn even with it only being eight episodes, and newcomers may find it a little slow or uninteresting. Fans of the series will most definitely enjoy it, despite there being some differences that have been voiced already by fans.
Any time there is an adaptation, I always take the time to remind people who you can’t just talk a book and translate it word-for-word on to the screen. Firstly, that’d be boring. Secondly, there are so many components such as the constant narration, dialogue, and being in the character’s head that you cannot translate on to the screen because the screen relies on visuals. Of course there’s the changes to characters, scenes, and what not, but obviously the creators have a reason for doing what they did. If you’re not happy and you’re going to be all overly vocal about it, don’t watch or go make another adaptation yourself.
Now, back to the episode. I truly think it is going to be quite the adaptation because it felt just like the book, and even with the preview at the end, it had me exclaiming “Matthew is going to see Hamish, Diana get away from Peter!” While it’s hard to give a first episode of a series a rating, I based mine off how well the adaptation was and the way I felt while reading the book in comparison to watching the series. Diana had all her mannerisms; Matthew is charming but yet oddly weird at first, especially with his shirt sniffing; Sarah is firm and Emily is the compassionate half of the pair; Satu is completely dangerous and makes me want to scream already; and Peter is receiving an immense amount of hatred from me already.
It’s a promising start, but the final judgement can’t be made for another episode or two.
On next week’s episode, Matthew goes to visit his friend Hamish Osborne (Greg McHugh) for a little hunting expedition, while it appears we will be introduced to a few new characters with some vampire killings occurring. Peter Knox will also meet with Diana to ask her about Ashmole 782 as it will tell them how they created vampires, and how they can end them.
I haven’t read the books. I never thought I would start with another vampire romance; my eldest granddaughter, age 10 in 2008 begged me to read Twilight and discuss it with her, and although I read the books and watched the movies with and for her, the ONLY appeal was one actor. I thought the series was poorly written, often obnoxious and noxious. So when I saw the book Discovery of Witches advertised as ‘Twilight for grownups’ I avoided it. Then TV guide rated it fairly well and pointed out that Matthew Goode was in it and his usual excellent self, so I thought it was worth watching just to get a peek at another character he could bring to life. And–I was hooked. I binged watched the entire season, and ordered the books. There are certainly some elements 9in the TV show) that seemed as if it might have started as Twilight fanfiction, but it’s far better, far better acted, and fairly interesting. Many reviews gushed about the sense of history making it feel/seem intelligent or scholarly. Involved in academics in one way or another most of my life, the ‘scholarly’ aspect hasn’t impressed me much, although I certainly appreciate the setting far more than I do a high school. I do hope that the series can be renewed. The acting is, to me (not a mayvin) truly excellent as is the chemistry between the 2 leading characters. This episode hooked me in, but episode 3 is my favourite. I hope to comment about it there.
When Diana turns at the very end of the episode, she smiles, but it is not revealed what she sees. I was hoping a later episode would explain this, but I’m on episode 6 and nothing of it has been mentioned yet. Does the book mention what she sees? Are we told later in the season? Should I wait for season 2? Or should I just leave it to mystery forever?
Will you recap each episode?
Hi Vivian,
Yes we will be!
You can find the latest recap here: https://www.thenerddaily.com/a-discovery-of-witches-recap-1-02/