In the episode, Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) asks the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) to take her to see her grandmother (Leena Dhingra) during her youth (Amita Suman), only to cause both them and her friends Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh) and Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) to become caught up in the events preceding the partition of India.
Returning to the others and convinced by Yasmin to see the event through, the Doctor oversees the marriage ceremony with the group witnessing the watch being accidentally broken as Umbreen cherishes its significance.
After the premiere episode, "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", was broadcast, it was announced that Shane Zaza, Shobna Gulati, Hamza Jeetooa, and Amita Suman would be among a number of guest actors that would appear in the series.
[2] Akinola also created a new arrangement of the closing theme after the style of Punjabi music, performed by Kuljit Bahmra, Surjeet Singh, and singer Shahid Abbas Khan.
[14] It received an official total of 7.48 million viewers across all UK channels, making it the eighth most watched programme of the week, and had an Audience Appreciation Index score of 80.
"[6] Writing for New York magazine, Ross Ruediger gave the episode five out of five, calling it "exceptional Doctor Who on pretty much every level," and praising director Jamie Childs and the production team for "delivering something so engaging and adult and educational.
[16] Matthew Kresal of Futurism praised Vinay Patel's "compelling" script, complimented Akinola's "evocative" and "haunting" score, and said that "Demons of the Punjab" saw some of the best production values that Doctor Who has had in recent years, calling it one of the show's most "polished" episodes.