S11.E06: Demons Of The Punjab

[RobertDeSneero]

I'll go ahead and say that 12 and 4 are my favorite Doctors and that I enjoyed the interaction between 12 and Clara, but I also really love Buffy season 6, so my tastes are not always the most mainstream.  I see 13 being in continuity with the previous NuWho Doctors, but it's like the angst of being the War Doctor isn't weighing the character down anymore.

Anyways, this is not the first time where we've seen the Doctor have to stand aside and let history happen.  I could see this being repeated and the Doctor reading a breaking point where she can no longer take it and intervenes or it could be foreshadowing that she will have to stand by and watching one of her companions die to preserve history.

[TheGourmez]

I'm quite happy with the series thus far, though I need to give this episode a proper rewatch, because it didn't have my full attention. But what I saw was interesting - more good aliens? History I'm not that familiar with? Sounds great! It also seemed a bit engineered from the get-to just to be heart-string pulling. Though I grew up on soap operas, I do like those strings a little hidden.

But what I'm really liking is how 13 keeps explaining what she's thinking. I think that may be part of what people *don't like*, but I think it's great insight into what we often just see magically happen - the Doctor figures things out on his own and then fixes it. Here, we're getting insight into *how* the Doctor figures things out, because she's telling us. I think it's a change in Doctor personality in that this one seems to have learned that being unknowable, mysterious, removed doesn't actually help her life any or the lives of the people she encounters. She's really making an attempt to connect with her companions rather than shut part of herself off from them.

Of course, if we learn she is keeping part of herself shut off, I'll be all the more intrigued. ;) I do love a good overarching plot, and I love when Who delves into its vast wealth of Time Lord history, so I'm missing that aspect. But I think it'll come. Meanwhile, I've only really hated the not-Trump because it was so ridiculously obvious. Not that real Trump isn't as well...

[Mabinogia]

9 hours ago, TheGourmez said:

But what I'm really liking is how 13 keeps explaining what she's thinking. I think that may be part of what people *don't like*, but I think it's great insight into what we often just see magically happen - the Doctor figures things out on his own and then fixes it. Here, we're getting insight into *how* the Doctor figures things out, because she's telling us. I think it's a change in Doctor personality in that this one seems to have learned that being unknowable, mysterious, removed doesn't actually help her life any or the lives of the people she encounters. She's really making an attempt to connect with her companions rather than shut part of herself off from them.

OMG I love this. I hadn't consciously noticed, but looking back, she does seem to be making more of an effort with the companions to include them (and us) in her thought processes. And I love it. She's definitely chattier, which again, I love because I'm a dialog whore. LOVE me some quick, witty dialog. Her constant, stream of consciousness chattering is delightful to me. I love being in the Doctors head. 

[ganesh]

Of course the Doctor can't just untie a rope and uses the sonic. 

I don't know why the aliens waited so long to tell the Doctor what they were doing there though. 

[DanaK]

18 minutes ago, ganesh said:

I don't know why the aliens waited so long to tell the Doctor what they were doing there though. 

Yeah, that was my question initially too. I guess they didn't feel they needed to initially, and then they were clearly pissed that she took the sacred urn so they weren't in a friendly mood to chat in the barn. It does make me wonder what they were doing for those hours after they took her after they broke the transmat locks. She acted like she woke up after a time and they were just standing there being non-threatening (and she wasn't holding the sacred urn). Perhaps they probed her mind and realized how mistaken she was about what was going on and maybe figured a more cooperative approach at that point would work better. Their transmat locks indicated they preferred to do their thing without people interfering

You also have to wonder why it was so easy to grab their sacred urn. I guess Ryan pushed the right buttons. Alerts did go off at least

A sequence that confused me was when the Doctor got the 3 of them out of the ship, told Ryan and Prem to run and then when she noticed the first transmat lock, the aliens popped in and then just kind of stood there staring while she grabbed it and ran. I'm not sure what exactly was going on with the aliens in that moment

[ganesh]

2 hours ago, DanaK said:

I guess they didn't feel they needed to initially, and then they were clearly pissed that she took the sacred urn so they weren't in a friendly mood to chat in the barn.

I suppose that I probably wouldn't want to have to explain to everyone that while I was out assassinating I let my entire world be destroyed. 

[starri]

You know, prior to this season, the only episode of Who that had made me cry was "School Reunion."  This season has managed it three times.

I was holding it together okay, even with the Doctor's beautiful wedding vows.  And then the Thijarians shows up at the end, and told Team Tardis that it was okay, and they would watch over Prem, and I just lost it.

For anyone else who had a strong reaction to the music at the end of the episode, it was actually the Who thing, performed vocally, with an Indian-inspired arrangement.  It was so beautiful, it probably contributed to my sad as well.

[Kromm]

On 11/11/2018 at 4:09 PM, Llywela said:

I found myself wondering when that final scene of Yaz and her Nani took place - in Yaz's future, after she leaves the TARDIS and returns home? Or does it imply visits home in between adventures? Either way, the conversation did not so much as hint at Umbreen recognising in her granddaughter the mysterious stranger who showed up at her wedding...and yet she chose to give Yaz that watch for a reason.

I was wondering if that final scene even still could have been in her past.  Every statement she made, from "why did you wind up in Sheffield" to the one not wanting to know about the watch still could have been statements she made not having yet seen 1947.  They're suggestive of having done so. but the great part of the writing with this one is that we're just not sure.

On 11/12/2018 at 1:35 PM, DavidJSnyder said:

Did they say something about Yaz's mom birth that dated it to 50s that I don't remember? (Also did they say what birthday it was for the grandmother?)

Yaz and Ryan are the same age and Ryan is supposed to be 19, so they where born 1999ish  (Both significantly younger than the actors.)

Shobna Gulati who plays Yaz's mom was born in 1966.  If you assume the character is about the same age, that would make her 33ish when she had Yaz.   If Yaz's grandmother is 18 is 1947, that would make her 37ish when she had her Mom. 

Yes, the timeline for this episode is pretty rough, and does rely either on Yaz's mathematical understanding of her relatives' ages being somewhat sketchy, or there being some other explanation we have to presume Yaz already knew for the generations being the ages they are.  That said, it's 71 years since 1947. If we go super-young and suppose Nan could have been as young as 16 in that, she'd be 87 in the current time. which is reasonable.  That leaves around 68 years to play around with, supposing it's correct that Yaz is 19 (really she seems a bit older). Really this becomes more about shifting around how old Yaz's mom was when she had her, regardless of how old that actress is, if we assume I mean that Yaz had a reasonable basis to believe her Nan started a family and had a child not that many years after Yaz THOUGHT she got married. 

Edited November 17, 2018 by Kromm

[Ceindreadh]

20 hours ago, Kromm said:

I was wondering if that final scene even still could have been in her past.  Every statement she made, from "why did you wind up in Sheffield" to the one not wanting to know about the watch still could have been statements she made not having yet seen 1947.  They're suggestive of having done so. but the great part of the writing with this one is that we're just not sure.

Yes, the timeline for this episode is pretty rough, and does rely either on Yaz's mathematical understanding of her relatives' ages being somewhat sketchy, or there being some other explanation we have to presume Yaz already knew for the generations being the ages they are.  That said, it's 71 years since 1947. If we go super-young and suppose Nan could have been as young as 16 in that, she'd be 87 in the current time. which is reasonable.  That leaves around 68 years to play around with, supposing it's correct that Yaz is 19 (really she seems a bit older). Really this becomes more about shifting around how old Yaz's mom was when she had her, regardless of how old that actress is, if we assume I mean that Yaz had a reasonable basis to believe her Nan started a family and had a child not that many years after Yaz THOUGHT she got married. 

Yaz's mother could be the youngest of a bunch of siblings.  Yaz might not necessarily know exactly how old her Aunts or Uncles are. 

[Llywela]

On 11/17/2018 at 2:23 AM, Kromm said:

I was wondering if that final scene even still could have been in her past.  Every statement she made, from "why did you wind up in Sheffield" to the one not wanting to know about the watch still could have been statements she made not having yet seen 1947.  They're suggestive of having done so. but the great part of the writing with this one is that we're just not sure.

Yes, the timeline for this episode is pretty rough, and does rely either on Yaz's mathematical understanding of her relatives' ages being somewhat sketchy, or there being some other explanation we have to presume Yaz already knew for the generations being the ages they are.  That said, it's 71 years since 1947. If we go super-young and suppose Nan could have been as young as 16 in that, she'd be 87 in the current time. which is reasonable.  That leaves around 68 years to play around with, supposing it's correct that Yaz is 19 (really she seems a bit older). Really this becomes more about shifting around how old Yaz's mom was when she had her, regardless of how old that actress is, if we assume I mean that Yaz had a reasonable basis to believe her Nan started a family and had a child not that many years after Yaz THOUGHT she got married. 

I thought the point was that the TARDIS took the group back in time earlier than Yaz expected. She knew her grandmother had lived in Lahore in the 1950s, and probably also knew that Umbreen had got married at about that same time. She would also know that her mother was born in Sheffield in the 1960s. What threw her was finding Umbreen living on a farm in the middle of nowhere and preparing to get married and live her life there. Because that didn't fit with the family history she knew. And that was explained by the date - it was 1947, several years earlier than Yaz had expected. The problem wasn't that Yaz didn't know her grandmother's age or roughly when and where she got married, the problem was that she knew nothing about Umbreen's life before then. Because Umbreen had deliberately never talked about that part of her life.

Yaz is definitely 19, or 20 at the most. We were told in episode one that Ryan is 19 and that he and Yaz were in the same class in school, which means they were born within the same school year; that is how the British school system works, there's really not much room for flexibility there. The ages are slightly dicey, but the young Umbreen in 1947 was probably about the same age as Yaz, which puts her at around 90 in the present day - and that just about works if we allow for her being a slightly older mother to Najia, which is certainly plausible. She may well have needed a good few years to recover from Prem's death before she was ready to marry again - and not everyone is able to conceive easily. Or there may have been other children before Najia, but I don't think so - I got the sense from this episode that Najia was an only child.

[DavidJSnyder]

4 hours ago, Llywela said:

- and not everyone is able to conceive easily. Or there may have been other children before Najia, but I don't think so - I got the sense from this episode that Najia was an only child.

Yeah, Grandma Umbreen mentions being grateful for Yaz, her mom, and her sister, but nobody else.

[DanaK]

After rewatching this multiple times, sometimes just parts of it, this remains my favorite episode of the season. The look, the feel, the music, the emotion of it, just continues to move me, especially the last 10 minutes. I really appreciate the composer making a real effort to make the score with South Asian musicians and multiple instruments

Also, according to a BTS feature on the Blu Ray, they (possibly the BBC?) juggled episodes a bit to make sure this was shown on Remembrance Day

Edited February 5, 2019 by DanaK

[DanaK]

I think one of the few things I would have changed would be to have Ryan and Graham escort Umbreen and her mother as they escaped to Pakistan and just have The Doctor and Yaz watch as Prem confronts his brother and the others and walk away as he’s shot. Ryan and Graham weren’t really needed in that scene