Doctor Who Series 11: 4 Ups & 2 Downs From 'Demons Of The Punjab'
1. Ryan's Awful Dialogue
I’m convinced that Graham’s dialogue is written by some wonderful, wholesome soul, whereas Ryan’s dialogue was written by either predictive text, those fridge magnets with limited words on them, or was just told on the day to point at this and spell it out for the audience. The scene with the Doctor, Prem, and Ryan inside the hive was awful. The Doctor sonics the thing and something happens. “Hey, that worked.” “What is it?” Goodness me, Ryan. First you point out the bloody obvious, then you ask what something is, assuming the Doctor ISN’T already preparing to monologue the living daylights out of something alien. I’m sure this guy has had his eyes and ears closed from what the Doctor’s actually like this entire series.
Ryan’s a really hit-and-miss companion. In ‘The Ghost Monument,’ ‘Rosa,’ and ‘Arachnids in the UK,’ he was really quite interesting, now he’s about as interesting as watching the colours from a poster in a corner shop window bleach in the sun. You could genuinely see this episode play out absolutely no differently without Ryan, or even Graham.