Doctor Who: The Demons of The Punjab

Ham-fisted and patronising.

This is the second episode of this series to address historical events and the repercussions thereof.

Like ‘Rosa’ a guest writer has been brought in for this one; Vinay Patel. Unlike ‘Rosa’, Patel cannot match Blackman’s writing talent and so misses the mark entirely in terms of conveying the consequences of carving up a  country.

Every issue is exposited through dialogue rather than visual representations. This means that we essentially have characters saying “this is really bad” over and over again. First rule of screen writing; show don’t tell.

The supporting cast in this episode could have done with some refinement. Hamza Jeetooa is completely wooden as Manesh; a person supposedly filled with religious/culturally motivated rage. It would lend credibility to his character, if emoted he every once in a while. Amita Suman is similarly without emotion throughout most of the episode. It was impossible to take either of these characters seriously when they were played as though their lines were being read of a teleprompter.

The fact that the titular demons turn out to be nothing is also annoying. A red herring has to be earned, else it’s just a cop-out. This is no different from ‘Kill the Moon’ where there was actually never a threat.

I was hoping that another guest writer might create a spike in the quality again, but sadly the story remains firmly on the Chibnall-level. Although the clearly low budget for this episode may be down to the head writer himself blowing a chunk of the cash on the terrible previous episode.

Another carry over from last week’s episode is the Doctor being completely without presence. She’s along for the ride in her own show and comes across like a side character.

Even when Moffat chose to focus more on Clara, the Doctor would still steal every scene. This probably has something to do with the fact that people are tuning in to watch Doctor Who. Not to view a patronising, poorly paced, GCSE level lecture on recent history.

If this lack of quality continues, we’ll have no choice but to forgive Moffat for ‘Twice Upon a Time’ and get him back on the writing staff.