The Witchfinders is the second episode to be both written and directed by a woman in the history of Doctor Who . What’s even more shocking is that it’s the first episode with that combination since 1983 . Now, in a perfect world, their genders wouldn't matter. We'd only be concerned about their ability to make a good episode of Doctor Who . However, if this combination is so rare, clearly more than just talent is at play. Series 11 has quite explicitly made it its mission to diversify both in front of and behind the camera. Inevitably, this means the series has more pressure to 'prove itself’ and demonstrate that white men aren't the only ones who can make good television. So far, arguably the two best episodes ( Rosa and Demons of the Punjab ) have had scripts penned by writers who don’t fit the ‘white male’ label. Obviously, their lack of white male-ness isn't the only reason they wrote good episodes, but their backgrounds certainly enriched their stories wi...

Previous Doctor Who series haven’t shied away from politics (take the Zygon storyline from series nine featuring Capaldi’s incredible anti-war speech), but it's never been incorporated as explicitly as it has this series. Not every episode has bothered; neither The Woman Who Fell to Earth or The Tsuranga Conundrum touched on any noticeably political themes. However, it’s still been more prominent than before. Most interestingly, there appear to be two quite different ways the series has approached this. The first way has been to visit significant historical moments that tie into the politics of the episode. Both Rosa and Demons of the Punjab explore relevant and monumental moments in the past to powerful effect. This approach makes the most sense for a programme centred around time travel and it has certainly proven to be successful. The second way is through sci-fi allegory. This also seems to make sense for Doctor Who as one of the biggest sci-fi shows in the world. Howev...

One might assume that the futuristic, sci-fi Doctor Who episodes would have the largest scope, yet this series that hasn't been the case. Whilst I loved The Ghost Monument , that was more for its familiarity than anything else and The Tsuranga Conundrum was a real mixed bag. Instead, the humble historical episodes have proven to be the most ambitious. It's also potentially notable that so far the historical episodes have been the only ones not exclusively written by Chris Chibnall. Rosa was co-written with Malorie Blackman, who explored the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in a deeply powerful and moving way. Now, Demons of the Punjab sees writer Vinay Patel, also a Doctor Who newbie, take viewers to another significant but often overlooked moment in history: the partition of India. Initially, I was concerned about this episode. Patel starts by introducing a number of plot threads that could’ve easily got tangled up as things progressed. I was also unsure about...

We are now halfway through the series and showrunner Chris Chibnall has been involved in writing every episode so far. This is quite unusual. Even in their first series as showrunners, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat weren't responsible for the entire first half (in both cases, Mark Gatiss wrote the episode the showrunners didn't). Of course, Rosa was co-written by Malorie Blackman, and I suspect Chibnall was the lesser involved of the two given the episode's themes. However, Chibnall has controlled the start of this series very carefully. This makes sense, considering how different Chibnall's vision for Doctor Who is from his predecessors. It's important that he establishes this new, character-driven focus so that viewers can get used to it and other writers can build on it. That said, it's also nice to have contributions from different writers and The Tsuranga Conundrum indicates that it's about time that happens. The Tsuranga Conundrum is proba...