July 23: "The Zygon Invasion"

Stuart Manning's poster for "The Zygon
Invasion" (from Incredible set of retro
Doctor Who series 9 posters)

Peter Harness's story last series - "Kill the Moon" - didn't exactly impress me with its writing (it was in fact my least favorite episode of series 8).  So it was heartening to see just how much of an improvement "The Zygon Invasion" was over that entry.  Perhaps that's because there's less frustrating pseudo-science in this episode; one of the major problems with "Kill the Moon" was the feeling that it was an early draft, with events connected by the barest of threads that were never properly resolved/technobabbled away; the underlying idea wasn't too bad.  Fortunately, there's very little of that unfinished feeling here.

It's also good to see the show finally address the major dangling plotline left unresolved from "The Day of the Doctor": what exactly happened with the Zygons at the end of that story.  The opening of this episode gives us a bit of expository-heavy but necessary background: a resettlement opportunity was created where 20 million Zygons would take on human form (so as not to unsettle the humans) and would live peacefully on Earth.  "[The Zygons'] shape-changing ability should not be considered a weapon," one of the Osgoods says.  But should the ceasefire between the humans and the Zygons break down, there's something called an Osgood Box that will resolve the situation, although we don't know how.

That's the setup.  The actual storyline deals with this "Nightmare Scenario", with a small faction of Zygons demanding the rights to live without hiding, even though it seems that's only possible if the human race is destroyed.  The story doesn't shy away from being political; with pointed references to radicalization of a splinter group who nevertheless believe they're acting in the best interests of their entire race, it's not hard to draw parallels with groups like ISIL/ISIS or Al-Qaeda.  Fortunately, however, this isn't turned into the focus of the story, but rather is used to draw a parallel for the audience.  What the story wants to make clear (although, honestly, it'll be more obvious in the next episode) is that this group (called Truth or Consequences, it seems, after the name of the town in New Mexico where relations between the two species first broke down) only represents a small proportion of the Zygons living on Earth; this isn't the standard monolithic alien race bent on conquest, but something more nuanced.

There's also a more global feeling to this story; we get scenes in London, New Mexico (in reality filmed in Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, but they've done a decent job making it look like a town in the American Southwest), and the fictional country of Turmezistan (presumably somewhere in central Asia, near the other similarly-named former Soviet republics), which does expand the scope of things.  And the use of a more global cast for UNIT (Colonel Walsh is fairly obviously British, but others like drone operator Lisa and soldier Hitchley are American) helps with this as well.  And so the combination of these global elements, combined with the radicalization plot, gives "The Zygon Invasion" the feel of a contemporary political thriller -- something of a different style for Doctor Who, but one that's very effective.

And of course it wouldn't be a Zygon story without doubles.  Here we learn that Zygons can now reach into people's memories to take human form (no more need to refresh the bodyprint à la Terror of the Zygons), which leads to lots of memorable moments, like a whole group of UNIT soldiers' family members emerging from a Turmezistan church or, charmingly, the revelation that the Zygon High Command have been operating as two little blonde girls.  But the most impressive of all is Jenna Coleman, who's taken over early on (though we don't learn that until the end of the episode) and then pretends to be Clara -- although her pulling her hair back (something I can't recall seeing the real Clara do) is a bit of a sign that something is different.  But she seems so much like Clara ("Did you just call yourself 'Doctor Disco'?" and "Everybody middle-aged always thinks the world's about to come to an end" being two of her more memorable lines) that when that façade drops, and we see just how cruel she is as "Bonnie", that's genuinely chilling and impressive.

Osgood and the Doctor question a Zygon captive. ("The Zygon
Invasion") ©BBC

That's not to belittle the other actors by comparison, mind; Peter Capaldi continues to impress (and he seems to be going for a '70s theme in names, calling himself both "Doctor Disco" and "Dr. Funkenstein", after the Parliament song), Ingrid Oliver is wonderful as Osgood (and it's nice to have her back in a clever way, after she died at the hand of the Master in "Death in Heaven"), and Jemma Redgrave does a good job as Kate Stewart, investigating what happened in Truth or Consequences (which includes a scene, as she drives up, with a clichéd tumbleweed rolling by -- until you realize after the fact it's not a tumbleweed but the remains of a Zygon victim²⁶⁵) -- even if she seems a lot more trigger-happy than before.  (What happened to "Science leads"?  But I guess if you suddenly had to monitor Operation Double all the time, you might become more inclined to violence too...)

In other words, this is an incredibly strong episode, one that has a good chance of being one of the standout stories of series 9 -- so long as the second episode can keep things going, that is.  And what a cliffhanger!  "I'm sorry, but Clara's dead.  Kate Stewart is dead.  The UNIT troops are all dead," Bonnie says to the Doctor.  "Truth or consequences," she adds, as she shoots the Doctor's plane out of the sky with a missile launcher.  If that doesn't get them tuning in next week, I'm not sure what will.







²⁶⁵ Unless I'm reading too much into this, but I don't think I am.