Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab (11x06)

This episode was maybe a tiny bit underwhelming in some aspects, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

Cons:

The Doctor isn't really getting a chance to stretch her wings. Jodie Whittaker is incredible, but thus far she hasn't had a lot of deep material to really dig herself into. Of all the revival Doctors, I feel I understand her the least as a person so far. I'm not giving up hope, though - she's electrifying in the role, and the second we get a story that has personal stakes for her instead of for one of the companions, I'm absolutely sure everything will snap into place.

This episode was Yaz-centric, something that we badly needed. And yet even so, we focused so much on her family that I still feel like we didn't get to see a ton about her own thoughts and feelings and her own every-day life. I liked that we got more Yaz this week, and it certainly helped. But I still need even more of her. The two male companions are just much more developed than Yaz and the Doctor at this point, and I hope that changes really soon.

While I found all of the guest characters really compelling, and the story of Yaz's grandmother to be genuinely heartwarming, I will say that the relationship between this family story, and the alien threat, seemed a little weak. First of all, haven't we told this same story already? An alien race shows up, seems to be threatening or killing people, but it turns out they are just record keepers, there to witness the passing of certain humans? I feel like Doctor Who has done that story before. In any case, it was yet another example of something where the aliens seemed threatening, but then didn't end up being dangerous. The weakest part of the excellent episode "Rosa" was the time traveling racist interloper, and the weakest part of this episode was the aliens. I know Doctor Who needs to have some science fiction element to it, but maybe sometimes just the time traveling could be enough. We could have watched this story play out firmly in the realm of the realistic, and I think it would have made it stronger.

Pros:

Prem and Manish kind of broke my heart. We didn't get a ton of time to develop their brotherhood, but the performances of the actors totally sold the pain and conflicting emotions going on in both of them. That final moment was utterly chilling, and hard to swallow.

Umbreen was an incredible character. I felt such intense sympathy and connection to her from the very moment we saw her, and knowing how important that relationship is to Yaz, it was touching to see Yaz's interactions with her. Umbreen's love for Prem was a pure and beautiful thing, but I like that she's still alive in our present day, that her story ended not the way she expected it to, but with a happy marriage and a family she loves. Obviously the episode had some incredibly dark elements to it, but there is a mostly happy resolution for Umbreen, which is so important.

This episode also toed a very good line between being about Yaz's family, and being about Pakistan and India and the utter tragedy of partition and the lives it cost. The larger issues were certainly not ignored, but instead of trying to find characters who represented every aspect of the conflict, the episode instead chose to focus on two families, and how this situation became so confusing and difficult and strange for them. They tried to persevere, in the face of so many obstacles, and even though the ending didn't work out the way Umbreen and Prem had hoped it would, they still didn't give up. They got married. In Pakistan. Because Umbreen wanted to be the first person married there.

The wedding ceremony itself was touching beyond belief. In "Rosa", one of the most powerful moments was realizing that our heroes couldn't help Rosa Parks in her moment of rebellion, because history had to play out the right way. And here, again, the Doctor knows that Prem is destined to die, and yet she can't interfere. She can perform a ceremony, marrying two people who are about to be separated by death. She knows it, but they don't, and it makes for such a potent combination of joy and sorrow.

Also, despite finding the aliens a little unoriginal in concept, I did like the scene where the Doctor finds out the truth, and talks with them. See, apparently this alien race used to be intergalactic assassins, and the Doctor recognized them from that. But their entire culture was destroyed, and now the few that remain have taken on a different purpose. They were unable to be there for their fallen people, so instead they will be there to witness the fallen of other worlds. That's incredibly moving. I liked the moment when the Doctor did the hand symbol that the aliens were doing, out of respect for their loss. She won't put up with people threatening Earth, and indeed she says that the planet is under her protection. But she also has incredible sympathy, and the ability to see all sides of a situation.

This season of Doctor Who is overall shaping up to be... good. I wish there were more moments where we could dig in to the Doctor's character. I hope we have her around for a few more series so we can really start to dig in and know her more. Thus far, there's been very little connection to her past selves, and I could use a few references, honestly. That said, this was a strong episode, and I really do appreciate getting to spend a bit more time focusing on Yaz!

8/10