Bug#1031701: python3-pandas: Pandas requires version '2.0.1' or newer of 'xlrd'

[Rebecca N. Palmer]

Control: reassign -1 python3-xlrd
Control: affects -1 python3-pandas
Control: retitle -1 pandas can't open xls (not xlsx) files, xlrd too old

Then yes, you do need xlrd.  As Debian is currently in freeze, I suggest 
installing it from PyPI (warning, this doesn't automatically install 
security updates):

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
pip3 install --user xlrd

(I'm not actually sure whether Debian _should_ update to xlrd 2, as 
there are some (possibly not-technically-valid) .xlsx files that xlrd 1 
can open but openpyxl can't, and xlrd 2 is .xls-only.)