Full Notes: Demons of the Punjab
Full Notes: Demons of the Punjab
Spoiler: It's not a happy ending.
Plot Summary
The Doctor takes Yaz to see her grandmother in 1947, but the fam soon finds themselves caught up in both the Partition of India and an alien plot.
Notable for:
Filmed in Granada, Spain
An episode that goes outside conventional “Western” history. Chibnall era did this a few times (e.g. Legend of the Sea Devils)
The Doctor wears a welding mask with Gallifreyan symbols on it.
One of the only times alternate music was put over the closing credits. Also ran into the Next Time trailer. Other stories with different (or no) end music: Rosa, Earthshock
Pete commentary:
I love how this opens with a very relatable moment with Yaz’s family. Beyond that, the watch is a really cool opener to the mystery, and her nan’s claim that she was the “first woman married in Pakistan” is a superb tease. And her nan saying, “My favorite granddaughter” is pretty genius writing.
That scene is immediately followed by Yaz pleading with the Doctor to take her to see her grandmother when she was younger, which gives Mandip Gill one of the best lines: “What's the point of having a mate with a time machine, if you can't nip back and see your gran when she were younger?”
The assassins-turned-caretakers/witnesses is a beautiful idea, but we’re mostly told it, not really shown it. There’s some spectacle with the FX, but you don’t ever really feel what they’re about, which is a shame, because there’s a lot of beauty in it. It feels like a superficial take on the same idea as Testimony: It’s great that you’re bearing witness to these forgotten people, and preserving their memory, but to what end? What are you doing with those memories, and what is the endgame? Lots of potential there, totally unexplored.
Also, reading the “timewaves” is pretty weaksauce. They’re just throwing in words now to justify how they can be here before Prem (or anyone) is dead. Are these assassins time travelers? I guess, but that presumes a lot of power.
Gotta be a record for “No” to “OK”:
PREM: I'm coming with you.
DOCTOR: No.
PREM: I know this forest. I can help.
DOCTOR: Okay.
It feels like the urgency of the demons/aliens stalking them is glossed over really quickly. Before the Doctor figures out they’re not assassins, the characters know:
Aliens are here
They’re technologically very advanced
They’re assassins
They appear to have killed one person already
They’ve barely been able to repel them via the doohickeys the Doctor hooked up
Yet somehow the Doctor convinces everyone to just forget about these assassin guys and carry on with the wedding prep like nothing’s happening. The Doctor and Yaz do some henna with and chat about what the partition means to them, and Graham and Ryan hang out with Manish and Prem to talk about being soldiers, listening to angry men on radios and whether or not Prem should go through with it. Like aren’t we under siege here? GUYS, ALIEN ASSASSINS ARE RIGHT OUTSIDE! At least they mention the dead guy, a reminder of the situation.
Grace is so smart: At “angry men on the radio,” she turned to me and immediately said: “I get it. Podcasts.”
I love the gang when they find out Prem’s going to die and there’s nothing they can do about it: The Doctor’s helpless plea to the Thijarians. Yaz crying at the wedding. Graham’s hug to Prem. It’s a testament to Shane Zaza’s performance.
That said, it feels weird that the Doctor knows what’s going to happen — and who killed the holy man — and still plays her part. It makes sense, since she and the gang are resolved at this point to simply bear witness (like the Thijarians), but you start to feel the lack of participation, and when you realize that none of the main characters can make any decision to affect the actual plot, the whole exercise feels a bit hollow.
Let’s talk Manish. Hamza Jeetooa’s performance is stellar, IMO — perhaps the best of the lot. His cold intensity makes him a believable villain: no histrionics, no dumb ominous scares, nothing to read other than hints that his worldview doesn’t line up with the other characters’. For that reason, he may be one of the most believable villains in all of Doctor Who.
An observation about Manish and the climax: It’s a reminder that the idea of “brother against brother” — while somewhat alien to Westerners in 2023 — is something that has been more common in history than we’d like to think. Manish coldly accepts that his brother has to die for his ideology. That’s hard for modern Westerners to understand, but it’s not a historical aberration, and the idea of fervent ethnonationalism is still alive and well in many parts of the world (just look at the current conflict in the Middle East). That’s a hell of an evil plot.
Great music throughout — Segun Akinola really shines, as do the vocals of Shahid Abbas Khan. I like the choice of an Indian-style Who theme playing over the closing credits, but it felt really weird over the “Next Time” trailer for Kerblam!
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace enjoyed it, but didn’t think too much of it. Jack was sick this week.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Going from changing one person’s personal history to completely leaving it alone, and accepting that sometimes tragedy is inevitable.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? The evil plot — Manish’s — succeeds. But the evil plot is really that idea writ large: what happened during the Partition itself. I don’t know if the Partition took more lives than it saved or vice-versa, but it’s certainly scarred the histories of both countries. But what if the evil plot DIDN’T succeed? Say, the Doctor and crew rescue Prem and help him get away. Yaz pops out of existence, or can the Doctor find some end-run?
Where's the Clara splinter? She sold older Umbreen the daffodil to give to her granddaughter, making sure she didn’t buy the one from an Auton.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? Nice Dalek. Good characters, great performances, plus points for taking on some history that’s relatively unexplored. But ultimately it’s like watching characters watching a play, with a thin plot and facile “monsters” that are just invented to make worthwhile point in a clumsy way.
Chris commentary:
Partition history corner. This is huge. And even directly, goes back to the first major massacres in 1946.
Often better explored through fiction: Train to Pakistan, Tamas. What I read cover to cover: those plus The Great Partition (Yasmin Khan), Freedom at Midnight (Larry Collins)
Way, way more violent and grisly than shown here, obviously. But I wasn't prepared for how much.
Only thing lacking here is modern technology, which is all over India. The horror of partition is that it took place in a country that had a lot more "modern" stuff than we see here. Maybe the bandits at the end should have been in an armored column, not a bunch of horses? Would have been even more of a shock.
Chibnall and Patel both had the same idea at the same time. It was time.
Love that the Doctor basically admits she's British. And has met Mountbatten before?
The Doctor can't stop this. It's Aztecs-level chilling.
Graham's scene with Prem may be the most heartfelt. I wept.
And the wedding. I don't know how anyone can be unmoved by that scene. She's being a bit Ghandi, in her way. A Mahatma, a Great Soul.
The 10th Doctor has been to Partition before, on the Calcutta end of it, in Ghosts of India novel with Donna – and meets Ghandi.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Because I dared ask for something less cerebral. Because I needed to learn about Partition. And boy did I. Bigeneration = partition
What if the evil plot had succeeded? It … did? Partition is the evil plot? Not that anyone involved was actually evil.
Where's the Clara splinter? Keeping the other villagers and the roving bands at bay. Protecting Prem and Umbreen for long enough that the Doctor can marry them.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? Mahatma Banger. It did the Lord Reith/Sydney Newman thing.
Cast (per TARDIS Wiki)
The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
Nani Umbreen - Leena Dhingra
Umbreen - Amita Suman
Prem - Shane Zaza
Manish - Hamza Jeetooa
Hasna - Shaheen Khan
Najia - Shobna Gulati
Hakim - Ravin J Ganatra
Sonya - Bhavnisha Parmar
Voice of Kisar - Emma Fielding
Performance of Kisar - Nathalie Cuzner
Voice of Almak - Isobel Middleton
Performance of Almak - Barbara Fadden