Gripping. Well paced. Well plotted. Brilliant. The Zygon Invasion is all that and more. When the Day of the Doctor aired in November 2013, it opened with the original titles from 1963 (which gave me chills, even though I wasn't born then, let alone watching Doctor Who!) and ended with the Doctor dreaming of going home - the long way round. Steven Moffat and Matt Smith (not to mention Tom Baker) had played me like a fiddle and my face was awash, eyes brimming. Zygons? Osgood? The fate of the peace treaty? I didn't actually consider what the end result of Three Doctors and Two Osgoods may have been, but I'm thrilled someone did.
The episode teaser is a perfect recap of the 50th Anniversary Special, a perfect prologue - starting as it does with "Once Upon a Time…" - and a perfect hook into the episode.
Peter Harness brings Osgood back into the Whoniverse brilliantly, without having to resort to timey-Wimey paradoxes. But, to be fair, the groundwork for Project Double was laid at the end of the Anniversary special. So, even though we later saw an Osgood die (dematerialised by Missy) there was an Osgood still in the world; one who doesn't answer when asked whether she is human or Zygon, who sees herself as the personification of the peace treaty and thinks of herself as both human and Zygon.
"I don't answer that question. I am the peace".
The breaking of that peace treaty and increasing hostilities between humans and Zygons is, of course, a metaphor for current political events. So we find sleeper cells, radicalised individuals, immigration fears amongst the general populace and drone and bombing attacks on civilian populations leading to an escalation in hostilities, to war.
Whilst Guardian readers (whom I assume are predominantly adult) may decry analogies herein, saying that they're far too overt to be successful metaphors, I have to disagree. Doctor Who is a family show. I assume - for the sake of argument - that its target audience is aged six to sixteen, with the main bulk of the audience probably in middle school. Let's just hand-wave away the plethora of young adults, or actual adults, watching for a moment. Children's understanding of metaphor, especially complex visual metaphor, changes and grows as they age. We can assume most of the UK's younger audience probably watch CBBC Newsround, and so have some idea of world current events. They've probably also wandered past the early evening news on telly and may have seen images of ISIL flags and jihadi troops. Older children? Those now called tweens? If they've got their own smart phone anything is possible - even the beginning of radicalisation. Let's not forget the teenage girls who left the UK, to go to Syria and become ISIL brides, were as young as fifteen.
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Science fiction has often used metaphor to discuss controversial political and social issues. If I had to directly compare the Zygon Invasion with another text, I'd compare it to Orwell's Animal Farm. When written Orwell's tale was an allegory about the Soviet Union and the danger of totalitarianism under Stalin. Here The Zygon Invasion works fantastically as allegory for covert radicalisation in the UK - and abroad - Peter Harness (and the set designers) using imagery fantastically, the black claw mark on a white background directly calling to mind jihadi videos and propaganda. Thus, aside from serving the episode, the writer also creates context enabling younger children to have some understanding of current complex events which are shaping the world they are growing up in. If the metaphors are overt, it's because they're primarily aimed at an Whovian audience still playing on the monkey bars. The two little girls (referred to by their backpack images/brands as "Cinderella & Monster High") personify this exact audience. They may stand as a direct mirror for Osgood and her late sister, but are also the children of those Zygons who wanted to invade Earth from the past, via Time Lord stasis art. Monster Primary, rather than Monster High, if you will.
What is it to be other? Is some level of cultural assimilation necessary for a harmonious society? When is 'passing' actually discriminatory? These are the unspoken questions, threading beautifully through the episode, for both human and Zygon.
Leading the charge to try and preserve the peace is Osgood who, from the moment we first met her has personified fandom i.e. the audience. Is it speciest of me to say I was relieved to see that the Osgood hiding under the desk in the sheriff's outer office needed her inhaler, and so was human? That I looked on the original Osgood as more authentic than her twin? Probably.
In this episode Osgood is elevated past friend of the Doctor (which these days may include the entire contingent of UNIT troops and support workers) or companion to the Doctor, to someone who has truly tried to mirror herself upon him. And, she's shown to be someone he will cross time, space, the universe and the planet Earth to rescue. That's unusual given she isn't a companion (unless the Doctor knows Osgood will later become one) but understandable as Osgood is both the keeper of the database - listing where twenty million Zygons were rehoused - and the holder of the Osgood box, glimpsed briefly at the top of the episode. Part puzzle box, part direct nod to the Pandorica, the nested black cube may contain all the secrets of the universe. Or it may contain Z67, a chemical nerve agent developed for use against the Zygon race back in the 1970's (or was that the 1980's?) at Porton Down. Someone with a TARDIS may have taken it away for safe keeping (according to Kate Lethbridge-Stewart) but it wouldn't have been mentioned as a weapon if it wasn't going to be pivotal in the latter part of this two-part story.
Much has been made of the fact that Osgood represents the cosplay element of this fandom. Accessorising her clothes with little signifiers (referring back to the Doctor across all his earlier regenerations) definitely denotes her as a super fan, but also strongly implies wearing such symbols enriches her life. You could even take the analogy a step further and relate Osgood's question marks with religious symbols, for Osgood believes in the Doctor. Remember her chanting/praying (in the Day of the Doctor) whilst fearing she'd be killed that: "The Doctor will saves me?"
Harness tells us Osgood became unhinged with the death of her alien twin. Given that line, which may become Chekov's gun in this two-parter, let me just say I truly hope she's not the mastermind behind the rogue blobby faction. On first watch I admit I was in two minds about the possibility, given Osgood's demeanour when rescued by the Doctor from where she's shackled in the basement of a church. On re-watch I don't think Osgood's acting less than terrified because she's a ringleader. I'd say her composure is down to her faith in the Doctor (whom she initially called phoned for help and who, hearing her cry out, answered her moments earlier) her idealism and her belief in the Zygons being equal to herself and to humanity. Osgood didn't see her sister as other and doesn't see the Zygons as other either.
Osgood's mirror is the Doctor. Yet as the episode progresses she does step into Clara's shoes, Clara meanwhile seeming to step into hers.
When we first met Osgood she was P.A. to Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. In this episode, once UNIT's Chief Scientific Officer (Kate) heads abroad, her right hand woman, Jac, is left to head up the investigation. Shadowing her (much like a P.A.) is Clara. Though this is an action packed adventure episode, there's also a strong narrative thread drawn from spy fiction. Clara aka Bonnie is later revealed a Zygon sleeper agent, so too most of UNIT's troops. What is clear on re-watch is how Bonnie seems to be acting naturally, imparting information as Clara, but is in fact not only leading UNIT's Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to New Mexico (thanks to her supposed Trivial Pursuit knowledge) but also pumping her for information. That subtle, in character questioning, has to be some of the smoothest exposition I've ever seen.
This is a fantastically well written episode. And, it's very well acted too!
Jenna Coleman subtly changes stance (and the way she plays Clara) from the moment she exited the little boy's flat. I knew instantly that she'd been 'doubled'. How Clara gained access to the flat, after having met the child on the stairs, is anyone's guess. Disbelief suspended, I'll take it as given that companions learn lock-picking skills nowadays.
I did find it incongruous that Kate Lethbridge-Stewart would head to Truth and Consequences alone, dressed in her usual London business attire no less! I know the British military is suffering budget cuts, but UNIT is meant to be a United Nations task force. Her business suit is, of course, meant to make Kate look like a fish out of water and someone to be underestimated, which is precisely what I did on first view believing she'd been killed. On re-view the well-placed editing jump cut creates a lovely possibility: that of Kate having over-powered the Zygon who was attacking her. I assume the next episode will see her going under cover as her supposed Zygon double.
The infiltration and occupation of London (before the rest of the world) via lift shaft calls to mind not only urban myths about subterranean London, but also brings back memories of the Doctor Who episode Night Terrors. What's hidden under London nods to The Matrix. Visual references to the 1999 movie by the Wachowskis are unmistakable, those caught in the Zygon pods are fuelling their alien duplicates, human brainwaves and memories harvested and copied, just as originally (in the film) human bioelectricity and thermal energy was harvested by aliens farming people in pods.
At the top of this episode the Doctor enters the frame strumming his electric guitar, playing the hymn - Amazing Grace - whilst Osgood's call to the TARDIS goes unanswered. He then plays phone tag with Clara, travelling across the universe, coming to check on the leaders of a blobby faction in Brockwell Park South London. He finds them at a playground, one with an apt TARDIS blue colour scheme. Or is that a UN Blue colour scheme? The man who, a few short episodes ago, told Clara Oswald: "I'm not actually the police. It's just what it says on the box" is actually policing the situation, or trying to. But - aside from rescuing Osgood - he spends much of this episode out of frame, travelling abroad to the Zygon terrorist training camp in fictional Turmezistan (and the UNIT base that has been set up outside the town) trying, and failing, to curtail military intervention.
Why did the Doctor travel by Presidential UNIT plane rather than TARDIS? I assume the reason wasn't simply budgetary (in terms of the cost of C.G.I) but for the scene in which the Doctor transports a Zygon prisoner back to the UK, tied up in what looks like electric gaffer tape. In the same way that it's out of character to have had the Doctor simply ask the UNIT task force to keep Zygon casualties low (he abhors killing and would probably have tried harder to stop them storming the town) he probably wouldn't transport a prisoner by TARDIS. It is interesting though that this series has seen less direct use of the TARDIS, as a means of travel within episode story lines, and of course the relegation of the sonic screwdriver in favour of those Raybans.
Clara's already uncontactable at the beginning of this story, "on the tube or in outer space", the Doctor having left approximately 129 voice messages for her. She never calls him back. By the time his messages are returned it's 'Bonnie' who asks whether he truly called himself Doctor Disco, Clara having been captured and turned into an alien version of herself. Is Clara dead? Or dreaming of the Time Lord, coming to her rescue? That possibility links this episode back to last years Christmas Special, when Clara's dreamscape (complete with Danny Pink) was a dream her heart made, whilst dream-crabs were feasted on her brain. The Doctor saved her on Christmas Day. Will he do so in the next episode? I admit I have my doubts.
He has to save himself and Osgood first, which makes me wonder if the Raybans don't double as Vortex Manipulators - or is he doesn't have a Vortex manipulator handy. Are there only jellybeans and yoyo's in the Doctor's coat pockets? The cliff-hanger (a rocket streaming through the sky to intercept and shoot down a plane) was both gripping and unfortunate given current events. Given the Russian Airplane disaster, I wonder if the BBC will have been forced to edit the opening sequence of the next episode.
When the phrase Truth and Consequences was first uttered in this episode, I thought of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission assembled in 1996 in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. If I hazard a guess, I assume it will be a central metaphor to the latter part of the next part of this adventure. But first the Doctor has to save the world and his best friend.
Peter Harness's script is brilliant, fantastically paced and greater than the sum of it's parts, which is why I have high hopes for the second part of this story. The Zygon Inversion, for which I remain almost spoiler free, is penned by both Harness and Moffat. If Harness's writing holds, and Moffat's equals Listen, the latter half of this story could make these episodes my favourite overall this series.