So as much as I appreciate the show returning to its roots by passionately portraying topics to educate its viewers, I do hope that it remembers that it is still Doctor Who.I can remember sitting in church as a young teenager as my pastor posed a question about the possible links between demon possession and mental illness. Much as the inclusion of the Doctor and Team TARDIS feel like an afterthought to the central plot - if you were to remove them from the episode, things would turn out no different. But most of Umbreen's hardships, all her struggles, feel like an afterthought. "Demons of Punjab" gracefully conveys the horrors of the Partition of India and hammers in the tragedy with a Biblical story of two brothers on two sides. The episode's payoff is amazing and could go down in history as an all-time great Doctor Who moment, but with a weak foundation based on circumstance and shoddy characterization, it feels slightly hollow.Īnother episode of television that came to mind as I watched "Demons of the Punjab" was Master of None's breathtaking episode "Parents," which deftly portrayed the lifelong struggles of immigrant parents in a half-hour of masterful TV storytelling. Even maybe Umbreen herself, who presents a noble figure willing to shed traditions and religious differences in the name of love, but ends up mainly as Yaz's shaky connection to the central conflict between Prem and Manish. Not just Yaz, but the aliens of the episode, who appear and disappear as quickly as they explain their career pivots from assassins to "witnesses" of historic deaths. And in an episode in which she plays a central role in bringing about the conflict, Yaz ends up taking the backseat yet again, spending most of the episode in either a state of confusion or bashful admiration. She is frustrated when her Nani won't tell her about her past, so she goes back to 1947 to find out exactly what happened. She loves her family, but they irk her enough that she wants to.run away in time and space. But six episodes since the season 11 premiere, I still couldn't tell you who Yazmin is, which is even more egregious considering this episode is ostensibly about her. At the beginning, I pegged her as the "action girl" - the affinity for leather jackets and no-nonsense attitude lent to that archetype. But the problem with Yazmin is that she remains a still-undefinable character. All centered around Yaz, the constantly underserved member of Team TARDIS. "Demons of the Punjab" takes this premise a step further and interweaves complex sociopolitical threads with a doomed 20th century romance. It was an intimate, character-driven story that used sci-fi as a vehicle to examine the mundane tragedies, and triumphs, of life. Immediately, "Demons of the Punjab" recalls another all-time great Back to the Future-inspired Doctor Who episode, "Father's Day," the season 1 episode that centered on Rose (Billie Piper) coming to terms with her father's death. But, like I mentioned before, the aliens end up becoming secondary to the story of the real-life human tragedy that arises in the wake of the Partition of India. The Doctor immediately jumps into action, throwing away her own warnings against Yaz to not interfere in order to protect the planet she loves so dearly. The demons - who look like a cross between Lovecraftian creatures and Power Rangers - naturally aren't demons but aliens. But that's not the only trouble that is brewing: a familial conflict has spawned around the impending nuptials, as Prem's radicalized younger brother Manish ( Hamza Jeetooa) spends his time happily celebrating the British division of their homeland and seething about their union, while Umbreen's mother is convinced that their wedding is cursed by demons. Trouble follows in the form of two demon-like creatures, who the Doctor first spots in a painful and unnerving vision, and who seem to be the culprits in the mysterious deaths of several people related to Prem - first his older brother in World War II, then the Holy Man who was supposed to marry Umbreen and Prem.
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