A Discovery of Witches: What to Expect

SundanceNow is set to premiere A Discovery of Witches in the new year, unless you want to sign up for their service today to get a look at the first two episodes of the series.

Based on the bestselling and critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Deborah Harkness, “A Discovery of Witches” is a captivating modern-day love story set against the backdrop of Oxford academic life. Historian Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), a reluctant witch denying her heritage, accidentally discovers a long-lost bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, and is immediately thrown into the heart of a dangerous underworld…and into the path of enigmatic vampire and geneticist, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who hides a dark family secret

With magic a part of some people’s lives in the modern world, witches, vampires and demons are set apart as a supernatural set amongst the mortals all looking for long-long answers to their place in life. Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch, comes back to Oxford before finding herself in a mystery of a long-missing manuscript, Asmole 782, and a world of complicated power dynamics between witches, vampires and demons. What is the book holding and why has it been lost for so long?

The manuscript, bewitched by someone, has been the key to understanding for witches and vampires alike, bringing into Diana’s world, Matthew Clairmont, a very old vampire.

With Diana the only one who has been able to recall the book in years and a curious Matthew, the show sets out to explain what is going on with both Asmole 782 and the supernatural creatures of the world. How can the reluctant witch fall into the orbit of one very old vampire and not ruffle some feathers? How can Diana find something in her powers that could be useful to finding the answers to Asmole 782? Will all the other witches that Diana meets want the same information she found? Or is there something else that lurks in her reticence to understand and properly use her magic?

Tension eeks off the screen between Diana and Matthew, but what can or will happen between them? How can Diana use her aunt (Alex Kingston) to better understand the magic that she found? What of Knox and his other witch and his desire for the knowledge of the book?

In a series that travels from Oxford to Finland to Venice, and features centuries old witches, vampires and demons, A Discovery of Witches is a wild ride that draws in both the side of me that always wants answers to a mystery and the side of me that wants to see if the two leads can fall in love with each other.

Is the pull of a witch and a vampire something that should worry all other creatures or is the potential co-mingling of creatures a good thing for the twenty-first century?

A Discovery of Witches can be previewed today on Sundance Now. Check back here for more details on the series once its all available on January 17th.