I've always had mixed feelings about The Straw Woman, there are some incredibly powerful and memorable moments from it, but it's as if they're all put together in the wrong order.
The start is hugely powerful, if ever a concept was taken from The Wicker Man and used to good effect it was this one, worthy of a scene from a horror movie, that stayed with me. The seemingly spontaneous human combustion of the Vicar was incredibly well done, you don't get more daring or realistic then that. As a big admirer of Jemima Rooper I'm always glad to see an appearance by her, even if she is underused. Richenda Grey as always was brilliant. Good use of straw dollies and themes of witch craft, but....
The main story was uninteresting, didn't flow, and largely made no sense, poor Keith Barron was given a dreadful character, he had nowhere to go, as did the glamorous Maggie O'Neill. The ending was atrocious, as was the discovery of the killer. I didn't believe in Scott's liaison with Liz, nor his reaction, but I'd argue it's Scott's best story.
I'm not normally one to comment on bad taste, but some elements of this story I thought were in rather dubious taste, draw your own conclusions there.
This could and should have been a classic, the elements were certainly there, just poorly executed. 6/10