AN ANCIENT WITCH GETS A MODERN CRIME SCENE
Yaga is a contemporary reworking of Baba Yaga, the legendary witch of Slavic folklore. AMC+ describes two investigators uncovering dark secrets after questioning a mysterious professor about a missing student. The story lives in a coastal town, not a forest hut with chicken legs, but the old legend still supplies the menace.
Carrie-Anne Moss plays professor Katherine. Noah Reid and Clark Backo play the investigators, while Hudson Williams plays missing fishery heir Henry Park and another role. The cast alone sounds as though someone staged a very expensive party for people with secrets.
THE PRODUCERS SAY THE QUIET PART LOUD
Entertainment Weekly's preview describes a mix of witchcraft, noir, romance and decidedly adult energy. Creator Kat Sandler expanded the story from her own stage play; in interviews, the creative team embraces the collisions rather than pretending Yaga is a conventional police procedural.
The interesting question is not whether the premise is restrained. It is whether this much confidence can become a coherent show. Even the music makes a bid for excess: AMC's trailer uses Alanis Morissette covering Donovan's Season of the Witch.
THE WITCH ARRIVES FRIDAY
The eight-part series premieres October 23 on AMC+ in the United States, with two episodes at launch and new installments scheduled weekly. That means nobody should pretend, on October 20, to have judged the completed season.
But the pitch itself deserves the Entertainment desk. A fearsome folk legend, a missing heir, a sexy noir mystery and Carrie-Anne Moss as a professor with something to hide: sometimes the press release already reads like a very good joke.