“Demons of the Punjab” was the seventh episode of the 11th series of Doctor Who, first being broadcast in November of 2018. It starred Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor, and was set in The Punjab at the time of the Partition of India.

In modern day Sheffield, Doctor and companion Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) are talking to Yasmin's grandmother, who makes mysterious illusions to a past in Pakistan. This leads, inevitably, and despite the Doctor's warning, to the Doctor and friends going back in time to see her grandmother on her wedding day. As in every other Doctor Who story since Black Orchid in 1982, this historical adventure is interrupted by at least some science-fiction elements, although here they take a minor role to the historical drama. The exact extant and reason of the alien involvement is somewhat of a red herring to both the characters and the audience, and by the end of the episode, the title “Demons of the Punjab” is more clear.

Between this episode and the next episode, the title of the first episode of the series, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”, became more clear to me too. This entire series of Doctor Who has been more “down to earth”, with the concept, often used in the Moffat era, of the Doctor as a “Space God”, immortal and beyond human understanding, replaced with the idea of the Doctor as being more human than alien, and with dealing with human conditions such as peace, war, love, and arrogance. This episode, which like “Rosa” dealt with historical issues with the minimum of science-fiction elements, showcased “Doctor Who” as being about life on earth.

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