"You Have Left Us With An Impossible Situation, Doctor..."
This week I have to admit to taking a slight and minor kop-out when it comes to our weekly review of Doctor Who wherein instead of focusing on just one episode, I felt it was plausible to review both stories of the returning Zygon menace at the same time due to not only having all the facts and all the answers to the questions from both parts of the story, but mainly because it fits in rather well with my over-burdened work schedule (Screw you real life!). Returning from their short stint in the 50th anniversary episode, "The Day of The Doctor", an episode where we were left with the notion that the remaining Zygon threat had successfully been integrated into society via that of a rather flimsy peace treaty, "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" focuses on the uprising of a rogue Zygon threat, hell bent on releasing chaos throughout the world whilst attempting to break free from the secretive nature of their newly found Earth-based lifestyle. It is no surprise that this season of Doctor Who has definitely been more on the solid and consistent side than those previous with the return of the two-parter no doubt being one of the many reasons why with this week's story only adding to the quality that has been inherent throughout this year's entry into the Who canon so far.
The fundamental image that comes to mind whenever the Zygons are on-screen in Doctor Who, whether it be their first appearance in the 1975 Tom Baker serial Terror of the Zygons, or in today's NuWho, is that of the alien race present in the many versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a tale in which the titular "body snatchers" slowly take over the earth by hatching duplicates of those they have captured and then integrating themselves into society. Sound familiar? Of course, but what this week's tale effectively managed to do was increase the paranoia and sense of unknown of which the alien Zygon race automatically bring about with them whenever they appear on our screens culminating in a rather spectacular appearance of the "evil" Clara, a Zygon doppelganger of our beloved companion who tortuously attempts to bring about the death of not only Clara, The Doctor and that UNIT, but the entire world, with Jenna Coleman clearly having bundles of fun with her newly found evilness in such a role.
Where part one of this latest Zygon tale sought to show the uprising of the Zygon threat, the second part ultimately concluded in a resolution that not only was similar to that of the discussion that took place between human/Zygon Kate in "Day of the Doctor", but also gave Peter Capaldi another chance to shine, with his speech in which he describes the horror of war and the consequences it brings being another accolade in the Twelfth Doctor's already star-studded reign as the travelling Time Lord, a speech both incredibly heart-felt and powerful whilst being incredibly apt for a British audience in terms of its' relevance to Remembrance weekend. Not only does "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" show how the two-part format most definitely has added a new level of consistency to NuWho, but it also shows that when a story is given that extra amount of time to breath and to metaphorically spread its' legs, can result in a quality that may have been absent if squeezed into the relatively short and rather familiar, 45 minute time slot, something of which we seemingly are returning to next week in the Mark Gatiss penned, "Sleep No More". Will it hold up to the quality of Series 9 so far? We shall see.
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