- Title: A Discovery of Witches – Episode 1
- wiki: link
The opening episode of A Discovery of Witches introduces us to historian and closet witch Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) who while working on research at Oxford University stumbles up on a long lost volume in the library that appears to her. The ripples of her exposure to the book ring across the school and raise the interest of the vampire Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode) as well as other witches and daemons. It turns out the lost manuscript involves the origin of supernatural species and may hold the key to their survival or extinction.
Adapted from the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, the series does a solid job with introducing us to Diana and Matthew and setting up the framework of a world where witches, vampires, and the like live openly in a world mostly ignorant of their existence. Palmer is the key to the opening episode, infusing Diana with wits and strength as well as fear and doubt about her heritage and role as a witch in the world. Despite wanting to ignore the book, her discovery of it sparks too much interest dragging into a world she only wanted to interact with through the fog of history.
