1) Julie never lies.
2) However, this is opinion, and opinion is always subjective.
3) This is spoiler-filled, obviously. If you haven't watched, best not to read.
4) Don't let Julie have dairy. She's lactose intolerant.
5) However, she will eat pizza and ice cream without you needing to ask.
6) Also tacos.
7) I use different forms for the reviews, depending on the week.
8) Much like regeneration, you never know what you'll get.
9) Also, I'm not ginger.
This week we get the first part of another 2-part story (which essentially makes 4 2-parters in a row, which I LOVE), titled The Zygon Invasion. You would not be surprised, then, to find out it has Zygons in it. It also has Kate Lethbridge Stewart. Surprise surprise, it has an Osgood, only we're not sure which one, because one was killed my Missy in last year's 2-part finale.
What you may be surprised by is just how current events-esque the episode is.
Now, for my money, Doctor Who has always had a political, social justice side. It's had its share of problematic episodes as well, don't get me wrong. But it's also tackled some serious issues in its time, all the way back to the first Dalek serial and concepts of xenophobia. A Zygon story, with it's themes of identity, would be a perfect setting for some heavy discussion, and in an era where even Batman comics are dealing with Black Lives Matter, economic and racial inequality, and other issues of similar ilk, Peter Harness does a very good job juggling those heavy themes without slowing down the action one iota.
We open with a lovely and quick explanation of the events to this point. Three Doctors, 2 Lethbridge Stewarts, 2 Osgoods, Zygons, and a peace brokered by the fact that neither Lethbridge Stewart knew which one was the human and which was the Zygon.
W4e then get a lovely video from the Osgoods describing Operation double, a UNIT program to repatriate 20,000,000 Zygons, allowed to take human form, and live peacefully among human kind. They've been spread across the world, with the idea that no one would know that they were not, in fact, human. This being UNIT, safeguards were put in place. The treaty is based around the Osgoods, who seem to have acclimatized to their Zygon/Human doubling quite well, to the point of considering each other sisters.
They also have a protocol in place if one of them were to die, or the peace begins to fall apart, or both, and it's apparently in the box in front of them. This leads, obviously, to a cut where Osgood stands over her sister's grave, after the events of the Series 8 finale.
"Every race is capable of the best and the worst. Every race is peaceful and warlike...good and evil. My race is no exception...and neither is mine,' the Osgoods tell us, in a grand foretelling of just what is about to go down over the next 90 minutes (2-parter, remember?)
But if something were to happen? Well...
This is called the Nightmare scenario.
Cut to a chaotic city street, with Osgood running like mad for the police department. And I look at this and I see city streets in the Middle East with people running from cover from insurgents, factional warfare, and the like. She hides under a desk in the sheriff's office and desperately tries to deliver a message to the Doctor, but she is caught by a Zygon.
The message gets through somehow, and the Doctor is playing Amazing Grace on guitar...until he sees it, and realises what's up.
And this is our pre-credits sequence...almost enough action for a whole episode in 4 minutes.
Cut to the Doctor outside a children's park in London trying to get in touch with Clara. He calls himself Doctor Disco (really?). He's doing a bad job of not attracting suspicion.
Meanwhile, in a UNIT Safe House, Lethbridge Stewart and her crew are trying to get locations on the Zygon duplicated as things start happening around the world. They've found footage that suggests Osgood is still alive, with is a relief. However, UNIT has been hacked, and the Zygons are sending videos through.
Back to the Doctor...and the ricochet from dark to lighthearted as he tries to discuss with 2 7 year old girls what's going on. He's somehow sorted out that they are the commanders of the Zygons...at least, the peaceful faction, and he's trying to collect intel. A phone discussion with Lethbridge-Stewart is broken by a gas attack, and the two girls are kidnapped by a rogue element. The Doctor's attention has to be to save the other kids on the playground lest they get gassed, and the leading council is lost.
Then, in one of the most frightening scenes...because it's lifted right out of modern headlines, Osgood is seen unwillingly reciting a letter given to her by the radicalised Zygons, outlining their demands. It's dark, there are two Zygons guarding over her, and she sits, face down, under a Zygon sign with Zygon messaging underneath. I don't have to say what this looks like...if you don't know, you haven't been paying attention.
The sudden shift from grim reality to cheerful music and Clara hopping off her bike is jarring, but it offsets just how oblivious some people can be to the world and events around them. Clara's been unreachable, and thus us unaware of the unsteady world she is currently gallivanting through. She finds a neighbour crying on the stairs because he can't find his mum and dad, and Clara, of course, offers to find them for her. She goes in their apparently and lo and behold, both parents are there. Only when dad comes back with Sandeep, Sandeep is crying, and things seem awfully not right. Still, Clara leaves, and finally calls the Doctor back after getting his messages, asking if he really called himself Doctor Disco.
At Drakeman Junior School, we find that the entire operation and High Command were set here. The Doctor left them, Lethbridge Stewart, with a most impossible situation...to which the Doctor replies snarkily 'Yes, I know...peace.' And now we start hearing the words...radicalisation. Revolution in the younger brood. And deeper we go, until we find the Zygon control center, and the command pod. The Doctor begins to communicate with the pod through frond titration...and starts getting info on what is going on. Chaos and confusion and panic everywhere.
And another video comes through.
The High Command is visible on screen, staring placidly at the camera while other voices outline the betrayal...they were sold, rights violated. They demand the right to be themselves, not what the humans asked them to be...and not what the Zygon command asked them to be. The High Command shape shifts to their real form under duress...and then are assassinated on screen. And again, I don't have to tell you what this is reminiscent of, because...you know why.
Lethbridge-Stewart refuses any thought of negotiation; instead jumping right to the military option...bombing settlements to smoke them out and eliminate them. The Doctor sees this for what it will do...it will cause all Zygons young and old, regardless of faction of belief, to radicalise and take up against humanity, and that is something he refuses because it's not the right, humane way.
An off hand UNIT dating line is tossed off...lovely fodder for the long time fans, and everyone is off...the Doctor to the Zygon encampment, Lethbridge-Stewart to Truth or Consequences New Mexico, and Clara and Jac (Unit member) staying behind to protect the UK from the scary monsters...and the Zygons too.
Clara and Jac chase down some potential Zygons in her Apartment block, and find the elevator empty. However, there's weird goop coming from the control panel. Clara opens it, revealing weird Zygon bioelectronics. In a very curious scene, she seems to know how to use it, and suddenly I feel less safe for Jac than I have all episode. They find themselves in a secret area under the block, and Clara recommends reinforcements, an idea I do not agree with in the consequences.
Cut to a military base where the President of the world, a.k.a. Doctor Funkenstein, has come to belay any military orders, with a curt 'Yes we know who you are' in return from the C.O. Interesting things happen with the strike; meanwhile, Kate Stewart ends up in an empty Truth or Consequences NM. No British signs on the walls, Zygon signs everywhere, certainly not a bombed out shell like cities in Iraq or Syria, but the analogue is there. Kate meanders to the police department as well, much as Osgood did, finding it desolate and torn apart...and is then at gunpoint by a deputy demanding to know who she is and if she has backup. She's paranoid, acting like Kate is a Zygon. And we hear a familiar song...the 'Brits' turn up...no jobs, no money, nowhere to live (sounds suspiciously like refugees). They didn't want them, but they came anyway. They were 'odd.'
How many key words are YOU hearing?
And back to the training camp, now being raided by UNIT. The Doctor is uneasy, but follows the military orders as they try to take the Church, where they seem to be holed up. The Zygons start to come out, in the faces of the soldier's family members. Or are they the real ones, and the Zygons are gone? We watch as the entire UNIT unit lowers their weapons, and all they have to do is go inside the church and they'll prove that they're not the aliens...which they decide to do. And when the Doctor and the CO get in there...everyone is dead. Of course. She wants the bombing to start now. The Doctor needs to find Osgood, and is given 10 minutes in which to do so. Luckily, within 20 seconds Osgood starts calling out. He finds a way down to her and finds the filming location for some of the videos. A Zygon comes up from behind...but the bombing has started, and sneaky is dead, and the doctor and Osgood have to get out of there stat.
Back in London Clara, Jac and reinforcements have made it back underground...and things are worse than one would think.
But first we have to cut to the Presidential airplane, where Osgood is now wearing a Brig-style jumper and a white dress shirt with question marks on the lapels. Our lovely cosplayer has expanded her collection, and she wonders why he stopped wearing them. The dialogue here is light, which offers a brief respite from the bleak harsh grim reality we've been dealing with...though we find out one frightening bit of Zygon evolution that I think the Doctor really didn't want to hear.
Back to London, and a massive chamber filled with pods...filled with...something...we're not allowed to see yet, because we cut back to the jet, where the Doctor is interrogating a Zygon.
Back to London (this is a recurring theme) and the reinforcements have been lined up, and Clara orders the soldiers to neutralise the pods before they hatch. Another tell...Clara's enjoying this. Clara tries to explain why they need to do this, and opens a pod to show...
Herself.
Jac works it out, in exposition, Clara all the while turning with a smile growing on her face. She's sprung her trap...she's been Zygon all episode allowed into UNIT, probably responsible for the hacking (remember, she got programming skills left inside her way back in The Bells of St. John 2 years ago), and now eliminating the last of UNIT's resistance in London in one fell swoop.
Well, all except one, who is on his way back.
Who hears that they Zygons no longer want to be anyone other than who they are. They want to live as themselves. They want the truth of their being to be acknowledged. And as they have the UK in their control now, they have not only won the first battle, they are going to begin the war.
Kate is digging through paperwork in the sheriff's office still, and obviously there's a feeling that things can't possibly be right because hey, everything has gone pear shaped channel 13 so far. And thus, the deputy starts talking strange, going so far as to imply that she's been keeping Kate busy to determine if she had any back up. She shifts, and Kate is held at 'gunpoint,' metaphorically speaking.
And now we have a Kate Zygon again, and Clara grabbing a case out of armoury, announcing that UNIT in the UK is neutralised...tho a RADAR screen shows a big red jet on its way back to London. The interrogated Zygon announces the plane won't land, and Zygon!Clara preps a surface to air missile to take down the jet.
'I'm sorry, but Clara's dead. Kate Stewart is dead. The UNIT troops are all dead. Truth or consequences.'
Trigger pull.
Missile launch.
'To Be Continued.
Now...do you see what I mean?
We have multiple factions of Zygons, rogues and ones that want to maintain the peace. We have fears of radicalisation; we have decisions to bomb entire conclaves to eliminate all of the 'monsters.' We have statements that Zygons and Humans are similar in that not all are bad, not all are good, and all it takes is one bad one, or one group of bad ones, to ruin it for all of them. We have peace treaties being bilaterally broken, with both sides ready to destroy the other without prejudice. I can count so many parallels to Islam and radical Islam, the systematic oppression of other races (so long as they look like us, we can cheerfully ignore them...but if they don't, they need to be hidden away where no one can see them)...all the kinds of things that are far from light entertainment.
And yet there they are.
In Doctor Who.
Just like they have been for 50 years.
I mean, when you have a history where two of your show runners were leftists (and one Buddhist) in the early 70's (Terrance Dick and Barry Letts, rest his soul)...then another show runner and most of his writing staff were staunch leftists and anti-Thatcherites (The lovely, lovely Cartmel years)...you get this. I have no idea where Moffat stands (other than his feet), and this is possibly the most political the show has been since those glory years in 1988 and 1989, but it's good to see the show embracing the fact that it's been political and using that platform to say important things as well as entertain.
I have NO idea where we're going.
Kate Lethbridge Stewart is in a showdown with a Zygon.
Clara is in suspended animation in a pod, and her duplicate is shooting down the Doctor.
The Doctor is trying to interrogate a Zygon, and has learned more about how Zygons work now from Osgood (who may or may not be Zygon) than I think he wanted to know.
And there's that pesky hybrid word again.
Next week is The Zygon Inversion...and I can only hope it's this good.
Series 9, you've gone hella dark all series long. I think I love you.
Roll on Week 8 (we're really almost 75% of the way through the series already? Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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