Villordsutch reviews Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 7 – ‘The Zygon Invasion’…
Zygon – We want the truth of who we are to be acknowledged. We want to live as ourselves at any cost. We want our home.
Doctor – Well you can’t have the United Kingdom, there’s already people living there. People will think you’re going to pinch their benefits.
The Zygons returned in Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who, last seen in the Day of the Doctor, but first appearing in the Fourth Doctor story Terror of the Zygons back in 1975. Then The Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan – along with UNIT – had to deal with our shape changing friends and the Loch Ness Monster. There is no such fresh water aquatic beastie in this two-part opener however we do have numerous members of UNIT and a lot of Zygons!
We open with a recap of the 50th Anniversary special with a brief reminder of the Zygon Peace treaty, before a Whovian pleasing infodump from the Osgoods about the 20 million or so Zygons living amongst the humans. They go on to inform us that also like Humans there are a handful that aren’t so friendly and it’s here we’re shown the Osgood box, which the Doctor had given to them both as a last resort. Cutting to New Mexico we find the remaining Osgood being hunted through the rioting streets; before she’s captured – by a Zygon – she manages to get send a text message to the guitar playing Doctor which reads, “Nightmare Scenario”.
The Doctor arrives at a children’s playground and begins to talk to two small children who we discover are Zygon Commanders. UNIT are tracking the beginnings of this invasion and have spotted Osgood who is held captive is Turmezistan. With the system hacked and “Truth and Consequence” appearing on the scene, UNIT are becoming more and more helpless. The Doctor is confronting the High Commanders insisting that the two sides come together, to help stop the uprising of the other faction, however the Zygons refuse. UNIT informs the Doctor that the Zygon Faction now has the location of all peaceful Zygons on Earth and the ceasefire has broken down, at this moment a gas attack is made upon the park, the Doctor clears the rest of the children from the area, but the two Zygon High Commanders are kidnapped.
With another video of Osgood being issued by the Zygons threatening UNIT, the Doctor phones Clara to urgently contact him. As Clara checks her messages she meets a small boy upon the stairs who claims to have lost his parents, Clara offers to help. Searching the boys home she is startled by both parents who seem to appear from out of nowhere and carry the screaming boy into the back room. Clara, then appears out of the flat and calls the Doctor; they meet up later with UNIT at the Zygon main base which is Drakeman Junior School, Dulwich. It appears that since Osgood left, both the Zygons and UNIT lines of communication have begun to break down and there has been some radicalisation in some of the younger ones.
Finding the main Zygon Command Centre the Doctor attempts to communicate with the control centre, and it’s revealed that they’ve never been able to tell if Osgood was human or Zygon and neither would say who was what. The Doctor activates the control centre to find that Zygons are hatched and dispersed all across the globe. However mid-relaying information another video comes through of the High-Commanders being executed as traitors. With the Doctor taking on the role of President of the World he refuses to allow UNIT to start to drop bombs on the Zygons last known location, insisting on talking to them. Clara however works out, via the message they just watched, where they videos are coming from and the Doctor sends Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to Truth or Consequence in New Mexico to investigate, Jac goes with Clara and the Doctor takes the plane to Turmezistan as he likes to pounce about in big planes.
With the Doctor onboard, Kate discusses weaponry with Clara and it appears there was once a Bio-Weapon that could easily kill the Zygons, before a person with a TARDIS came along a took it away. Clara and Jac return to Clara’s flat to pick up a few personal items and notice the small boy’s parents dragging a body into the lift. Running downstairs hoping to catch them in the act, the lift opens to reveal nobody inside. They discover an ooze seeping from the control panel; discovering another button behind the panel, the lift then descends into an underground tunnel where they both witness more people being bundled into a boxed area.
The Doctor arrives at Turmezistan, just in time to catch a failed drone attack, as the Zygons use the image of the operator’s family as the targets form. With Kate arriving in a deserted town she instantly finds indications that the Zygons have been on the rampage with their symbols on the walls. However, she’s soon at the wrong end of a very paranoid police officer’s gun who believes she’s here with the Zygons and demands to know if Kate’s alone. Back in Turmezistan UNIT are moving a patrol to the Zygon camp to flush them out and kill them. Over in London Jac discovers that bodies are being dragged into lifts and disappear in the blink of an eye. Flipping back to New Mexico we’re brought upto speed on what happened, with the British Citizens being located in the town, numerous fights, a murder, then the Zygons revealing themselves then they began to attack people.
With the patrol in Turmezistan surrounding the church filled with Zygons they begin to call out the rogue group of aliens out, however they emerge with the appearance of the relatives of the surrounding patrol, unable to shoot their own Mothers, Sisters, Brothers the patrol choose to investigate first for which they are murdered. All except Walsh who was commanding the squad from behind the church, giving the Doctor ten minutes to find Osgood she leaves the church to order the airstrike. Thirty seconds later the Doctor finds Osgood under the floorboards – chained up – however a Zygon remained behind to execute the Doctor; lucky for the Doctor, Walsh orders the airstrike early and part of the church knocks the Zygon unconscious.
With Kate being shown the human remains from the Zygon massacre we return the underground of London with Clara, Jac and a large amount of UNIT troops investigating the room where the Zygon’s where gathering. The Doctor is sat upon the plane with Osgood and he questions her if she is Human or Zygon for which she refuses to answer, informing him that she is peace. The Doctor however knows she is human as Zygons need humans to stay alive to keep their form, for which Osgood tells him those are the old ways, these days the previous host can die. Questioning the captured Zygon from Turmezistan, it informs the Doctor that they want the world. Returning to the London Underground more UNIT troops arriving to destroy the pods previously located, where we discover in the pods are living humans and one of them is Clara! Jac realises this is an ambush and with that this duplicate Clara informs the surrounding Zygons to, “Kill the Traitors!” the UNIT troops and Jac are eliminated. We flashback to the little boy’s parents and the moment Clara was duplicated, we also discover this new Clara’s name is Bonnie.
With the Zygon making his list of demands upon the Presidents aeroplane we return to Kate in New Mexico, the Police Officer shows herself in her true form to be a Zygon, who realises Kate has no back-up. Off-screen Kate is shown to have been duplicated by a Zygon as she’s contacted by Bonnie who is arming herself from the UNIT weapons locker. Standing upon a cliff and with UNIT all but crippled in the UK and North America she then takes aim at the Doctors plane with a Rocket Launcher and opens fire.
A very solid, adult in tone episode, dealing with numerous political instances that are occurring currently across our globe today, but twisted with sucker-faced, morphing aliens claiming a right to live instead, under a terrorist banner. However, due to its lack of “funny” I can see this episode turning off the casual viewer, unlike myself who saw this as a brilliant piece of both Doctor Who and science-fiction. Yes there were moments which were head-scratchingly stupid, for example Kate going alone to New Mexico, the Doctor taking a plane instead of the TARDIS, Walsh leaving the Church on her own, and Osgood being the only person to have the real knowledge on the Zygons but UNIT lets her wander off. Still with these oddities this episode of Doctor Who was still extremely impressive.
SEE ALSO: Check out the Series 9 episode title and descriptions here
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbGjqStNZ2w
