So, the Thijarian mission is to bear witness to those alone. It was the phrasing when they described it, that’s racking around in my brain. They started this because their own race died unwitnessed, unsaved.  In that moment I thought of River, dying alone in the library. Yes, the Doctor was there but he didn’t know her. To him she was merely a stranger from his future. Her worst nightmare had come true, the Doctor didn’t recognize her and River knew right then, that it was her time to die. Her death was their beginning.  She died saving not only the Doctor but all those 4000 souls trapped in the database. Did the people River sacrifice her life for, ever learn who saved them? Did they ever wonder how or what happened that caused them to return from Cal’s memory space? But, we also know the Doctor didn’t come back to see her ever again, he never came back to the library. River died unwitnessed and alone with no one beside her but her team, who was already in the database. The planet was probably quarantined as well, because the Doctor gave it back to the Vashta Nerada, so no human ever went there again or rather they couldn’t if they wanted to. 

If one thing is becoming increasingly clear in the Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era of ‘Doctor Who’, it’s that things aren’t what you expect and that our own assumptions about people and things and monsters can be horribly wrong.  The show this year seems to want to point out some of the darkest aspects of our own world while reminding us that hope can get us through.  That could be seen as saccharine by some.  I’m not sure I wouldn’t have felt the same a few years ago.  Enough has changed in our political climate though that these reminders serve as reassuring messages in the dark.

‘Demons of the Punjab’ covers the same material that one of the first revival episodes of the show covers, but the differences in story-telling couldn’t be any more clear.  Rose travels back to witness the death of her father in 2005′s ‘Father’s Day’, and here Yaz asks to travel back to 1945 India to witness the marriage of her grandmother.  The difference between the stories is that for ‘Doctor Who’ of old, a monster comes to fix the wound to the timeline that Rose creates and an alternate universe is set up.  In ‘Demons’, the campier sci-fi is replaced by history trying to remind us that not being able to see past our differences can lead to more pain and suffering than we care to imagine.  Our heroes are forced to walk away from saving dying heroes again because the timeline cannot be altered.  Earlier ‘Who’ would have excused the interruption with a wink and a nod.  It’s a different world for fans of the show, but one that is worth the journey if you are willing to take it.