The Zygon Inversion

"Truth or consequences. Lie and you die."

Writers: Peter Harness & Steven Moffat
Format: TV
Broadcast: 7th November 2015
Series: 9.08

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis

With the splinter group of Zygons now ahead of the Doctor, there is only one thing standing in their way of obliterating the human race and taking the Earth for themselves: a moral dilemma!

Is Bonnie willing to compromise the peace already in place, just for the sake of Zygons not needing to hide, even if it means making enemies not only of humanity, but of her own race?

Verdict

The Zygon Inversion was a brilliant conclusion to the story already started in The Zygon Invasion! Now, I'm not a great fan of naming the episodes in a two-parter so similarly and would have much rathered just call it one or the other and give a 'part one/two' to the title as was done with The End of Time, but it doesn't really matter and what I was a fan of was what I watched in the episode! After the superb cliffhanger of the first episode, I was looking forward to seeing the immediate effects of what went on at the end of the episode as we had Clara launch a missile at the Doctor's plane. I was intrigued that we saw Clara, in her normal form, influence the actions of her Zygon duplicate and initially prevented the Doctor's presidential plane from being obliterated. It gave the Doctor and Osgood the warning they needed to prepare themselves for a safe landing once Bonnie did deliver the crucial blow. Seeing Clara's perspective from inside the Zygon pod was really intriguing and I liked how something new was being done with the great monsters. There were still quite a few references to The Day of the Doctor which I expected and I also liked the continuation of the references to Terror of the Zygons and the destructive gas that was developed by Harry Sullivan, the Fourth Doctor's former companion. The Twelfth Doctor's description of him was quite harsh but it was also humorously accurate so there was no problem there. Osgood was wonderful in this episode and I do hope that we get to see a lot more of her in future episodes. The way she had planned on what she would do if she wanted to take over the world was brilliant, especially her plans for the Doctor. She told him straight that if she wanted to take over the world she would shoot him right between the eyes, twelve times if necessary. Peter Capaldi was once again on stellar form and I really do hope that he remains the Doctor for quite some time yet. He's just absolutely superb and can switch in an instant from being calm and humorous to dark and serious. That's a fantastic quality to have and the obvious highlight of the episode would be his speech about war. The passion that was put into it was absolutely immense and I think I mentioned in my blog of this episode on broadcast that this seems to me to be Peter Capaldi's defining moment as the Twelfth Doctor, much as Matt Smith's epic speech in The Rings of Akhaten defined him as the Eleventh Doctor. The concept behind the Osgood Box was terrific and the revelation that there was actually two of them was very good. It seemed so obvious once it was revealed and I like things like that. The truth that Kate was not actually the Zygon duplicate that we suspected was wonderful and again unexpected. I liked that the Zygons never even considered that their species was defeated by a human and that wasn't the first time it had happened to them. The attempts by Bonnie to use the Osgood Box to unmask every Zygon on Earth were great and if that happened the panic that would ensue would have been quite problematic. The truth though that the boxes were actually empty was terrific and I loved how much passion the Doctor displayed despite that. He wanted to see who would go far and make the first move but the negotiation had worked out. Just. For now. I get the feeling that this theme will be returned to at some point and I'm absolutely okay with that. Overall, an excellent episode to conclude the story!

Rating: 9/10