When it ended, I had to look up “What is a mahr?”
That was, by far, the best episode of the season.
minor spoiler -
Shouldn’t Yaz’s Nani recognize her in the future at the end of the episode? As the Doctor & Companions were half of the people at the wedding, I would think they might be something remembered.
Can you remember someone you glancingly met fifty years ago? Notice the others weren’t with her in the presence of Nani, which might have sparked suspicion, but to her she’s seen Yaz grow up, and probably envisions her as she looked as a teenager more than resembling a fleeting figure of decades past.
It looks like you were not the only one. The Wikipedia page traffic was up from the regular 3000 to 28,500 views in one day.
I think she does recognize Yaz - I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Yaz is her “favorite granddaughter” and that she gave Yaz the watch.
That line about “my favourite granddaughter” made me cringe - in front of the other granddaughter!
Made Yaz’s mom cringe, too! 
I almost feel like this episode could have functioned just as well, maybe even better, without the obligatory aliens. They didn’t end up having much to do with the story. Plus, not having them would have eliminated the rather weird moment where these alien creatures, famous throughout the galaxy as feared, ruthless assassins, suddenly declare, “No, we don’t assassinate anybody anymore, now we just watch folks die, honest,” and the Doctor just takes their word on that.
Take out the aliens, and this becomes something that the show used to do often, but hasn’t in quite a while now–a pure historical story. Even more so that “Rosa,” where the Doctor and her friends still had to do something to keep history on the right track, here they really were just there to witness events.
It may just be Bradley Walsh’s greater experience as an actor–he can sell a lot of things with just an expression, more so than his younger co-stars–but Graham is shaping up the be the strongest and best-characterized companion. He seems to treat the “Doc” almost as an equal, rather than standing in awe of her as most companions do. With three companions, the TARDIS is a bit crowded right now, and unfortunately some of them are getting short shrift.
I’ve seen every episode this season except for the latest one (seen the Pting one, not the Punjab one). I’m a casual viewer, rather than an actual fan of the show, but I’ve been really impressed with Doctor Who in the past, based on individual episodes I thought were really well-written and thought-provoking. So I’m really not trying to be mean when I say this, but…
Does this show even have writers? Or do they have a script-generating-machine where they set the dial to “generic sci-fi” and let it crank something out? It’s cliches, tropes and stock characters all around - script-writing by dartboard! I can’t even begin to enumerate the problems with it (I’m sure you’ve discussed some of them, I haven’t read the whole thread). Anyway, I’ve found every episode of the new season to be a complete waste of time. I felt the same way about several episodes from the last season as well.
It’s not the cast. They’re fine. It’s the complete lack of anything interesting or… smart!
Like I said, I’m not a real fan, so maybe I just don’t get it. And there may be some better episodes coming through the pipe. I just don’t understand how they expect to attract new fans like this! What does this show offer to people who aren’t already fans?
Wonder what happened to the Thijarian homeworld? I suspect that will come up again later. Wonder if the Shadow Proclamation had anything to do with it?
Hope it wasn’t something the Doctor did, or at least failed to prevent.
I’m guessing it does have something to do with the “Oncoming Storm”.
I’ve been somewhat disappointed, especially since the new showrunner, Chris Chibnall, has written some of my preferred Doctor Who episodes in the past (I particularly liked “42”) as well as a couple of Torchwood episodes.
In thinking about it, though, he does have a tendency to NOT explain everything about aliens that show up, in contrast to Moffat who often over-explained. For whatever reason, Chibnall also seems to have gone for the “historical episode” format which, as noted, is not new to Who but hasn’t been seen for awhile.
In retrospect, this actually goes back to last year’s Christmas Special, where there was NOT an evil alien plot, it dealt with a real, historical time period and event (Christmas Armistice of WWI), and that event was NOT precipitated by the Doctor(s) but rather than people in the event and the Doctor(s) stood on the sidelines as an observer. But that was more interesting plot-wise because you had the Doctor encountering himself and that’s hard to make boring.
Of the shows so far:
“The Woman Who Fell to Earth” - there is an “alien invasion” of sorts, but it’s of the one person variety and the Doctor (with some help) saves the day. So… let’s call it traditional NuWho. Not a historical set piece.
“The Ghost Monument” - takes place on an alien planet with “human aliens” on a deathworld full of bioengineered hazards. Typical of the later OldWho and some of the NuWho. Not a historical set piece.
“Rosa” - set in real history, about a real event, something we haven’t really seen since HartnellWho. A lot of people felt strongly about this one, probably because it does deal with real history within living memory. Yes, this is a historical piece.
“The Tsuranga Conundrum” is in space, in the future, and involves problem solving much like “Oxygen” and “Under the Lake/Before the Flood” (none of which are Chibnall scripts). We’ve seen that sort of episode not only in NuWho but also OldWho.
“The Demons of the Punjab” - another historical set piece. But it’s the one where I feel the alien presence is most superfluous, they could have done this as a story entirely without aliens.
So… really, the historical pieces are still a minority for this series, and only half if you count the Christmas special. Yet they seem to be grabbing peoples’ attention (whether for positive or negative reasons). The Doctor does seem more passive in this regeneration than in past ones, certainly more so than Eleven or Twelve. Is that good or bad? Depends on the story, I think. That really is the key - Doctor Who allows for nearly any sort of story as long as it is well written. To my view, there has been a certain clunkiness to this season. I thought there was in Eccelston’s tenure as well. Actually, it’s come up at times for every version of the Doctor, but seems more of an issue this time.
We’ll see how the rest of the series shakes out. The next three episodes are writers other than Chibnall, so maybe that will spark something. Or maybe not. I know Chibnall is capable of writing a compelling story, he’s done so, but I’m not entirely sure how he’s doing as showrunner.
The Doctor is passive in the historical episodes because they deal with “fixed moments in time” which in canon are those events, big or small, that have far too much future intricately interwoven into them to let them be interfered with. Time Lords are usually the protectors of those moments.
I really like how “Demons of the Punjab” was a bait and switch. It looks like it’s about an extraterrestrial incursion, but it’s really a historical in the end.
I think the show is doing a pretty good job of getting us to like the regular characters, which implies that the scripts are better than we may be giving the writers credit for. I do think it’s nice to have a showrunner whose approach largely lacks the archness of Russell T Davies or Stephen Moffat. “Arachnids in the UK” and “The Tsuranga Conundrum” do try to get that kind of silly energy back, but I think this series so far has been a little more concerned with making the cast sympathetic and a lot less concerned with eliciting laughs and outrage.
I’ve been enjoying the season so far (just caught up on my DVR backlog).
Let’s be honest, there have been episodes of varying quality in every season. My opinion is that there is more good than bad right now. And Chibnall and the new cast seem to be finding their footing more and more firmly as it goes, which makes me optimistic.
“Demons of the Punjab” was just flat-out great storytelling; easily the best of the young season. More like this, please.
The companion situation is a bit unclear to me, though. Is the Doctor dropping Yaz off at home to hang out with her family between each adventure? If so, is she still a cop? If not, has her family noticed? And what are Ryan and Graham doing at these times?
I know the Doctor mentioned in Episode 2 that they’d only been gone for half an hour. So is that the case each time now? Historically, though, the Doctor has been less than precise when it comes to this sort of thing; once you get on the TARDIS, you never know when or if you’re going to make it home. Frankly, I prefer that dynamic - it makes for higher stakes on the companions’ part.
Finally, I have to admit I’m crushing on Jodie Whittaker quite a bit. Which is fun because Mrs. Wheelz had a thing for David Tennant. Turnabout is fair play. 
I think it’s pretty well established that the Tardis is pretty accurate when it wants to be. In the Trenzalore episode, it brought Clara to the right place/time at least twice, he jumped back accurately on Martha’s first episode, and I think Clara would have been hard pressed to keep her teaching job if she wasn’t returned to the right time.
Now when the Tardis is feeling her oats, one never knows where you’ll end up - and I think the Doctor a lot of times (at least in the past) just kind of randomly set switches to see where he’d end up.
To add to that, a quote from the 11th’s doctors episode “The Doctor’s Wife.” (written by Neil Gaiman BTW)
There have also been blessedly few attempts at “satire”.
Yes, Walsh is phenomenal - as mentioned elsewhere his previous Who-turn as Odd Bob in The Sarah Jane Adventures remains one of the few DW villains that genuinely creeped me out (along with the original Weeping Angels before they got ruined). Walsh is a master of quiet understatement and thus scores a lot more emotional punches than his younger counterparts.
I’ve still yet to warm up to Ryan who,despite being given lots of blatant emotional hooks (dyspraxic, found his mother dead at 13, absent father) still comes across as a bit flat and is only really engaging in his interaction with Graham. I haven’t decided whether this is a writing or an acting problem but something isn’t working well there.
Yes, and I think the aliens were essential for this storytelling.
Don’t watch SunTrap then.
I thought it was a good way to personalize their adventure a bit in the context of the historical backstory.
Although warning Yaz about “butterfly effecting” her way out of existence was a bit out of nowhere. That’s a thing now?
It’s a consistent source of “timey wimey” hand-waving, but it seems kind of arbitrary whether or how the doctor decides to interfere in historical events when and where she/he lands. i.e. not stopping World War II, but preventing the Cybermen or Daleks from invading Earth. Like maybe that’s what was supposed to happen.
Well…it’s a time machine so from her families perspective Yaz just steps out for a few minutes and comes back looking tired and dirty and possibly covered with alien shit.
Yaz appears to be written to be a law enforcement officer to about the same extent as Amy Pond in her police costume.