Posted in: AMC, BBC, review, TV | Tagged with: BBC, Bleeding Cool Showtime, Domino Day, romance, supernatural drama, witchcraft
Domino Day: Lone Witch (US title) is a solid, fresh take on the urban witch genre, but the lack of humor keeps the film from being great.
Domino Dayor as US title Dominio Day: Lonely Witch (to clarify what exactly the series is about in case anyone thinks it’s a show like gambling or the weather), is a new BBC Three series (available on AMC+/Sundance Now) about a renegade witch who moves to a new town while trying to control her powers and comes into conflict with the local coven and other forces. It’s a fresh take on supernatural fantasy in a post-Buffy Landscape that’s good but should have been great, and that’s its problem. It has a good premise and a fantastic cast of various unknowns, but is held back by clinging to all the usual and increasingly hackneyed cliches of the genre.
Sienna Kelly plays Domino, a lonely young witch who can barely control her power, which includes the need to feed off of humans. She’s moved to Manchester to start a new life and uses dating apps to pick idiots to feed off of at the end of the night. Her actions lead to her being pursued by the town’s coven, who must decide if she’s a threat to their order, and she’s still haunted by her toxic ex-boyfriend and his mother, who’s part of another ancient coven who wants to steal her power to add to their own. Domino and the young witches have to deal with predatory men and an establishment that remains rich and powerful and won’t take their power away. It’s a classic fantasy plot.
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The biggest problem with Domino Day is the shocking lack of humor of any kind at any point during the entire first season. Not once does anyone make a joke. Jokes and humor relieve tension to allow the mood of a story to ebb and flow, rather than clinging to a constant dirge of deadpan seriousness and intensity throughout the story. And let’s not forget that the British are the naughtiest people on the planet. Rebellion and irreverence are in the British bones, and Manchester, the city where Domino Day is now considered the coolest city in England, even ahead of London, and that includes a lot of crude, snarky humor.
It is impossible and inauthentic for these characters to survive without biting humor – they would be laughed out of town within a week. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was successful and became a classic because it not only added metaphors and symbols for modern fears to the fantasy genre, but because the witty sayings not only brightened up the dark moments but also gave them a sense of reality. Domino Day’s greatest enemy, in the end, wasn’t toxic men or older people trying to challenge her power, but everyone’s complete lack of humor. This lack of humor lets down the cast of young actors who would have been much more versatile as characters than the straightforward, serious ones we were presented with – even if they did get to deliver the occasional saucy line.
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If you still want to watch Domino Day: Lonely Witch? If you’re a fan of the supernatural fantasy genre, yes. The direction is good and the casting is impeccable, even if the story relies on the usual cliche of the heroine finding out the truth about her origins and discovering her true inner strength to defeat the establishment. The world it creates feels fresh, the Manchester setting is new compared to the usual practice of using Vancouver or Toronto as a stand-in for New York City, and the cast behave like people rather than that self-absorption you find in American TV actors. It’s better writtenless chaotic and less problematic than the first season of Mayfair Witches, but AMC has invested more in this series than I just got this from BBC Three. Instead of streaming it, I should have Orphan Black: Echoes to create a strong Sunday night program from AMC. If it had just a little humor, it could have been great. Instead, it’s just good enough.
All six episodes of Domino Day: Lonely Witch are now streaming on AMC+.
Domino Day: Lonely Witch
Rating of Adi Tantimedh
7/10
A fresh, diverse modern take on witches and a classic heroine’s journey, this series could have been great if the script had more wit and humor to back up the seriousness and increasingly common cliches of the supernatural fantasy genre. The cast is an ensemble of unfamiliar faces who act like people, not TV characters, and deserved a better script to make them shine. As a new entry in the urban supernatural fantasy genre, it’s still worth watching, but a lot of potential was wasted.
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