A Discovery of Witches, one of my favorite books of all time recently was turned into a series by Sky One, a Canadian and UK based production company. It was released in the US via Sundance Now and Shudder (streaming services) on January 17th. Naturally I watched all 8 episodes of season 1 in 3 days. And then it took me 2 days to process how I felt about it. Conclusion, still not sure.
I read Discovery of Witches back in 2013 and again at the end of 2018. I loved it then and love it now. Deborah Harkness creates a fantastic world of witches, vampires, demons, and humans it is hard not to get sucked in. The love between Matthew and Diana on paper is incredibly powerful, tugging at your heart in ways you never thought possible. I hoped that whenever this story was sent to the big or little screen the love would resonate on screen just as much if not more than on the pages of the book. Unfortunately what I have come to realize is that the book is much better than the television series and for me the television series was a disappointment.
Before I get into what made this a disappointment, let me first start out with what I enjoyed about the series. Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer who plays Matthew and Diana were magnificent. They were able to embody the spirit of Matthew and Diana as best they could given the script and storyline they were given. The love they were able to produce was wonderful, making me fall in love with the characters all over again. Goode was able to show an incredible range of emotions (stoic, anger, love, peace) and that is not easily done over only 8 episodes. Palmer went from invoking a strong, independent thinker who in a matter of hours is thrust into a swirling world of witches, vampires, demons who all want a piece of her and she has no idea why. Palmer’s ability to go from an independent woman to someone who has to rely on others for survival because she is in the dark about everything is wonderful. She plays Diana exactly how I would have thought and imagined.
This is where my love for the show essentially ends.
The book is by far one of the best books I have ever read. The story, characters, and plot points that Harkness creates are so moving, the reader is sucked in without even realizing adn before they know it, they have 75 pages read and want to read more. There is an incredible amount of plots and storylines in this novel that it is no wonder they could not put everything into the show. However, I believe the reason why this show failed for me is because they left out some critical pieces of storyline, many having to do with Diana. Despite Palmer’s incredible performance it felt like the writers created a different Diana for on screen. In the book, Diana is fearless before she realizes what is going on. She knows that she can do magic but she tries to choose not to. She understands a little about the magical world, enough to make her realize she doesn’t want anything to do with it. During the course of the novel, she becomes trapped in a world that is her own but knows nothing of it having to rely on other people to guide her. But right after she is torrtured by Satu she starts to realize that she needs to be taught, she needs to learn things to protect herself and Matthew. And she grows stronger and stronger until the end of the novel. In the show, it seems to me the writers kept her as this fragile, confused woman who needed help at every step of her life instead of realizing that at one point in the novel she decided to take action and arm herself because she knew what she needed to do. She knew that only she could save herself so she did just that. She was a much stronger character in the book and I was disappointed to watch that character not come to life in the show.
The other reason why the show disappointed me was they completely removed the relationship that Ysabeau (Matthew’s mother) adn Diana forged while at Sept Tours. They formed a small mother/daughter bond but the show never talked about it and never formed it which made me said. Diana never had a mom figure growing up (even though she was living with her Aunts) and to have Ysabeau accept her (albeit reluctantly at first) was an incredible motherly act that forged their bond. The book went deep into that but the show didn’t. I am not sure if the writers didn’t have time (which they probably didn’t) or if they just simply skipped over it deeming it not important. On the contrary to me this plot in the story was very important because Ysabeau was able to get her out of her witch water episode when Matthew left by singing to her like a daughter.
In the end, this show was worthy of my time and I will watch season 2 and 3 whenever they come out. I just hope that they order more than 8 episodes for each season because the first season seemed too cramped and rushed through. My only having 8 episodes they were unable to build on the relationships between Ysabeau and Diana, Matthew and Hamish, and Matthew/Miriam/Marcus/Ysabeau. I feel those relationships are an integral part of the trilogy and am hoping that the choice not to include those relationships will not haunt them in season 2 and 3.
I read Discovery of Witches back in 2013 and again at the end of 2018. I loved it then and love it now. Deborah Harkness creates a fantastic world of witches, vampires, demons, and humans it is hard not to get sucked in. The love between Matthew and Diana on paper is incredibly powerful, tugging at your heart in ways you never thought possible. I hoped that whenever this story was sent to the big or little screen the love would resonate on screen just as much if not more than on the pages of the book. Unfortunately what I have come to realize is that the book is much better than the television series and for me the television series was a disappointment.
Before I get into what made this a disappointment, let me first start out with what I enjoyed about the series. Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer who plays Matthew and Diana were magnificent. They were able to embody the spirit of Matthew and Diana as best they could given the script and storyline they were given. The love they were able to produce was wonderful, making me fall in love with the characters all over again. Goode was able to show an incredible range of emotions (stoic, anger, love, peace) and that is not easily done over only 8 episodes. Palmer went from invoking a strong, independent thinker who in a matter of hours is thrust into a swirling world of witches, vampires, demons who all want a piece of her and she has no idea why. Palmer’s ability to go from an independent woman to someone who has to rely on others for survival because she is in the dark about everything is wonderful. She plays Diana exactly how I would have thought and imagined.
This is where my love for the show essentially ends.
The book is by far one of the best books I have ever read. The story, characters, and plot points that Harkness creates are so moving, the reader is sucked in without even realizing adn before they know it, they have 75 pages read and want to read more. There is an incredible amount of plots and storylines in this novel that it is no wonder they could not put everything into the show. However, I believe the reason why this show failed for me is because they left out some critical pieces of storyline, many having to do with Diana. Despite Palmer’s incredible performance it felt like the writers created a different Diana for on screen. In the book, Diana is fearless before she realizes what is going on. She knows that she can do magic but she tries to choose not to. She understands a little about the magical world, enough to make her realize she doesn’t want anything to do with it. During the course of the novel, she becomes trapped in a world that is her own but knows nothing of it having to rely on other people to guide her. But right after she is torrtured by Satu she starts to realize that she needs to be taught, she needs to learn things to protect herself and Matthew. And she grows stronger and stronger until the end of the novel. In the show, it seems to me the writers kept her as this fragile, confused woman who needed help at every step of her life instead of realizing that at one point in the novel she decided to take action and arm herself because she knew what she needed to do. She knew that only she could save herself so she did just that. She was a much stronger character in the book and I was disappointed to watch that character not come to life in the show.
The other reason why the show disappointed me was they completely removed the relationship that Ysabeau (Matthew’s mother) adn Diana forged while at Sept Tours. They formed a small mother/daughter bond but the show never talked about it and never formed it which made me said. Diana never had a mom figure growing up (even though she was living with her Aunts) and to have Ysabeau accept her (albeit reluctantly at first) was an incredible motherly act that forged their bond. The book went deep into that but the show didn’t. I am not sure if the writers didn’t have time (which they probably didn’t) or if they just simply skipped over it deeming it not important. On the contrary to me this plot in the story was very important because Ysabeau was able to get her out of her witch water episode when Matthew left by singing to her like a daughter.
In the end, this show was worthy of my time and I will watch season 2 and 3 whenever they come out. I just hope that they order more than 8 episodes for each season because the first season seemed too cramped and rushed through. My only having 8 episodes they were unable to build on the relationships between Ysabeau and Diana, Matthew and Hamish, and Matthew/Miriam/Marcus/Ysabeau. I feel those relationships are an integral part of the trilogy and am hoping that the choice not to include those relationships will not haunt them in season 2 and 3.
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