The Zygon Invasion

"We couldn't fight them. You can't tell who's who."

Writer: Peter Harness
Format: TV
Broadcast: 31st October 2015
Series: 9.07

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis

The fragile peace between the humans and the Zygons is on a knife edge. Tensions run high as factions within the Zygon community seek to incite violent action against humanity. Called in by UNIT, the Doctor and Clara fight to bring the situation under control. But one question remains: where on Earth is Osgood?

Verdict

The Zygon Invasion was an excellent episode that kicked off this highly anticipated two-parter in some style! Following their epic return in the fiftieth anniversary special, the Zygons were back and we would be getting a double dosage! We saw a nice little recap of just what happened in The Day of the Doctor and this episode serves as the first part in the story that acts as its sequel. It's an intriguing thing in my opinion to have a sequel of such a significant episode but this works fantastically. We learn a lot about what has gone down on Earth since the events that required three Doctors to solve and it was pretty cool to see a glimpse of things between that special and the last series finale of Dark Water/Death in Heaven in which we thought that Osgood had been killed off. That was technically true except there just happened to be two of them! They acted as the peace between humanity and Zygon and wouldn't allow themselves to reveal to anybody which one they truly were. Osgood, both of them, was committed to upholding the peace and I really liked that. The concept behind the Osgood box was good and I am sure will be further explored in the second episode but it was quite obvious from the start that a harmonious relationship between humanity and Zygon on Earth just was not going to work. There were 20 million Zygons being embedded into civilisation on the planet which was never going to work out and although I liked how the Doctor indicated the current trouble that prompted the nightmare scenario was being caused by a relatively small splinter group, as the episode went on I got the feeling that things were a bit more advanced than they seemed. The Doctor enjoying his role as President of Earth was great and I loved just how many different places this story visited. We had the obvious setting of the United Kingdom but then we also ventured out to New Mexico and (the fictional) Turmezistan. Why an actual nation wasn't used I'm not sure but it didn't really alter much. Jenna Coleman looked spectacular and I loved that we got to see her play Clara in a slightly darker way as she was actually a Zygon for pretty much the entire episode. Bonnie had taken on her form and I thought the revelation of what she actually was had perfect timing! It was paced very well and watching for the second time knowing for sure that Clara was actually a Zygon meant that I picked up on all the subtle hints that pointed towards the truth of her identity. It was brilliant to see Kate and the rest of UNIT again following their brief appearance in The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar and I really do like how Kate and the Doctor have quite a lot of disagreement, usually when it involves bombs. The picture of the First Doctor in the UNIT Safe House was wonderful to see and I liked the homage to past incarnations of the Doctor with the Osgoods donning the infamous question mark jumper of the Seventh Doctor whilst the other was wearing the familiar scarf associated with the Fourth Doctor. The theme, and partial setting, of Truth or Consequences was very good and I liked the whole hostage video clip thing that was going on and I remember being quite shocked on broadcast at just how similar it was to current affairs at the time. The cliffhanger was absolutely superb as it appeared that both Clara and Kate were dead and the Doctor had someone who he thought was Clara telling him, whilst she fired a missile at his plane! It doesn't really get much better than that and I honestly did think that it was one of the best cliffhangers of the modern series. The build was perfect, the plot twist was superb and the danger was very prominent! Overall, a fantastic episode to kick off the story!