One that has hampered A Discovery of Witches since season one, episode one: Matthew Goode plays this undead beast as clipped and inert, you cannot buy him as having unleashed any chaos. It has dogged him and his family, and may be connected to a series of murders in present-day Oxford.

The looming denouement also obliges Matthew to atone for the carnage he has wrought across the centuries, this being the dire consequence of the “blood rage” – basically, a catastrophic loss of manners, which is a big deal in this show. There’s a satisfying neatness in the way someone who began as a blushing newcomer steadily becomes the strongest player in the game. That strand might not cohere very effectively as it winds along – it’s a magic book that fixes stuff and tells people things when the narrative requires it to – but it does prompt Diana’s last push towards self-actualisation. Key to the ultimate resolution of the story will be Diana’s quest to find the lost pages of The Book of Life, a mystical tome carrying secrets that perhaps only she has the ability to unlock. Millennia of passive-aggressive narking are about to come to a head.

This is the HQ of vampire matriarch Ysabeau (Lindsay Duncan), where all three types of creature have gathered to plot their response to a rare and shocking killing at the end of season two. Even the arch villains are less awesome monsters than slightly annoying gits.Īnyway, where are we as the third – to some extent climactic – and final season begins? We’re around a long oak table in a luxurious French castle retreat and, although the characters in this show seem as if they could simply own a holiday home there, there is dark business to discuss. His sidekick in the pursuit of mild evil: Owen Teale as senior witch Peter Knox, disgruntled and crass like a resentful divorcee. Gerbert is played by Trevor Eve, who knows his way around a drama that takes itself too seriously and is in his element here, often having fun with line readings by inserting a … colossal pause where the viewer, and indeed recognisable English idiom, least expects … it. Increasingly powerful … Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop in A Discovery of Witches.

A discovery of witches audio book