Tag: Zygons

Timestamp #267: The Zygon Invasion & The Zygon Inversion

Michael Falkner8 Comments

Timestamp 267 - Zygon Invasion Inversion

Best. Speech. Ever.

The Zygon Invasion

Once upon a time, there were three Doctors, two Osgoods, and one treaty.

Those two Osgoods represent Operation Double, the peace treaty with the Zygons. Twenty million Zygons have asylum on Earth so long as they maintain human forms, and each of those Zygons has the capacity for both great evil and great good. The treaty exists in the form of the Osgood Box, which can start and end war on the planet with a single death. If one human or Zygon goes rogue, regardless of the circumstances, it will spark a rebellion.

During Missy’s attempt to take over the world with Cybermen, one of the Osgoods died. Zygon or human? Unknown, but the other twin mourns regardless.

In 2015, the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico is under attack. Osgood races for shelter in a police station and attempts to contact the Doctor but is soon found by a Zygon. Her message reaches the TARDIS as the Doctor rocks out to Amazing Grace, and he is surprised to see what Osgood wrote.

“Nightmare scenario.”

The TARDIS lands at Brockwell Park in London. The Doctor tries to reach Clara while watching children in the park and questioning two little girls. Meanwhile, Kate Stewart coordinates efforts during the nightmare scenario at a UNIT safe house. She receives intelligence that the Zygons have captured Osgood. She sends the Doctor news that the cease-fire has broken down as Zygons storm the park and take the girls.

The Doctor joins Kate at the safehouse and watches a hostage video from Osgood. He calls Clara, who has just arrived at her apartment. Clara finds a child who is missing his parents. She finds two adults posing as his parents but the resolution doesn’t sit right. Regardless, she calls the Doctor.

Kate takes the Doctor and Clara to a local junior school that houses a Zygon hatchery. The two little girls were local Zygon commanders who were kidnapped by rebels. The control center in the school’s basement can coordinate all of the Zygons on Earth, so the Doctor uses it to assess the current state of the Zygons.

After Missy killed Osgood, the other Osgood went into hiding in her grief. She was taken by the rebels, who have also executed the Zygon commanders. Their message, Truth or Consequences, leads Kate to investigate New Mexico while Clara and Jac (Kate’s assistant) stay in the United Kingdom. The Doctor takes the UNIT presidential plane to Turmezistan, which might house a Zygon base.

Kate tells Clara about Z-67, a compound created by a UNIT naval officer back in the ’70s or ’80s which basically turns Zygons inside-out. It was taken by the Doctor at some point. After Kate leaves, Clara and Jac return to Clara’s apartment in time to see the young boy’s “parents” hauling out a human-shaped bag. The women follow the “parents” to an underground complex that is full of Zygon pods.

When the Doctor arrives at the UNIT base in Turmezistan, he finds a drone strike in progress. When the Zygons take the form of a family, the operator aborts the strike. The Zygons had posed as the operator’s family, and the Doctor realizes that they have developed telepathy and can take the form of whatever their targets love most.

In New Mexico, Kate searches for Osgood and finds a police officer who holds her at gunpoint. Once they establish that Kate is not a Zygon, they discuss the town’s history with the aliens. They were not prepared for the rebellion, and the officer shows Kate dumpsters full of human remains.

The Doctor and UNIT travel to the village in search of Osgood. They surround a local church where the Zygons are said to be hiding, and the Doctor follows the commander while the strike team orders the Zygons to surrender. The Zygons pose as the team’s family members and convince the team to follow them into the church. The Doctor and the commander enter through a back door just in time to find the remains of the team members. The commander resolves to bomb the village and leaves the Doctor to search for Osgood. Soon after, he finds her under the church but she’s bait to lure the Doctor away from the United Kingdom. The bombing starts early and a Zygon is captured in the assault.

Clara and Jac return to the caverns under her apartment with a UNIT team. As the Doctor and Osgood board the UNIT plane, he tries to call Clara but fails. The Doctor questions Osgood but cannot get a straight answer about her identity – human or Zygon – and labels her as a hybrid. The old rules were that a Zygon needed to regularly refresh the DNA imprint, so if the source died the Zygon would revert.

The new rules are that the Zygons have been taking people and placing them in stasis. That’s what happened with the young boy’s parents, and it is what happened to Clara when she asked after them earlier.

The Clara Zygon, who names herself Bonnie, has the UNIT team and Jac executed. Meanwhile, the New Mexican police officer reveals herself, turns on Kate, and takes her form. When the Kate-Zygon reports back to Bonnie at UNIT HQ, Bonnie takes a rocket launcher to the coast and takes aim at the Doctor’s plane.

The Zygon Inversion

The real Clara awakens in her apartment. There are clues that nothing is right, including her alarm clock reading wrong and her toothpaste being black gunk. She follows the Doctor’s voice to a static-filled television. She tries to escape the apartment but finds every exit blocked. As she watches Bonnie fire on the Doctor’s plane, she is able to manipulate Bonnie’s mind and actions, forcing her to miss the first shot.

The second rocket, however, strikes true. The plane explodes.

Later, Bonnie walks through the city in pursuit of a man. She tracks him to his apartment and promises to set him free. She zaps the man, forcing him to change shape and reveal himself as a Zygon. Bonnie returns to UNIT to retrieve the Osgood Box.

Clara reviews the footage of the explosion and discovers evidence that the Doctor survived. Sure enough, he and Osgood parachuted to safety in the debris. Osgood’s glasses were broken so the Doctor lends her the sonic sunglasses. They discuss the situation as they walk, including how much thought Osgood has put into how best to kill the Doctor if she were to take over the world. Meanwhile, Clara manipulates Bonnie’s hands to send the Doctor a message: “I’m awake.”

Osgood puts the pieces together and realizes that Clara is still alive and in stasis. They try to get help from the police but the officers are Zygons. Osgood tries calling Bonnie.

Bonnie watches the video about the Osgood Box but discovers that she was tricked. Osgood fed her false information about the box’s location. Bonnie takes the call and the Doctor is able to get information from Clara. They drive to Bonnie’s location as the Zygon travels to Clara’s pod and tries to extract information from her memories. Clara resists the effort and actually turns the tables on Bonnie before the Zygon reasserts control. Under duress, Clara reveals the location and access credentials for the Osgood Box at UNIT headquarters in the Black Archive.

The Box contains a button that will expose every Zygon for one hour. The sight alone will spark war.

The Doctor and Osgood arrive at the building where the Zygon that Bonnie awakened went on a massacre. They find the Zygon and discover that he only acted out of self-defense as humans turned on him. He was perfectly happy in human form and wanted no part in the rebellion. He kills himself out of fear.

Zygon-Kate (acting under Bonnie’s orders) arrives with two Zygons in disguise and offers to take the Doctor and Osgood to Clara’s pod. Bonnie has taken that pod with her to the Black Archive, but Zygon-Kate leads the Doctor and Osgood into a trap in the cavern. Bonnie orders Zygon-Kate to wait, however, when she discovers that the Osgood Box is really two boxes.

One box exposes the Zygons. The other kills them all instantly.

Bonnie frees Clara and tries to use her life as a bargaining chip. The Doctor tells her which box to open, but both contain buttons labeled Truth and Consequences. Bonnie screams in rage and orders Zygon-Kate to bring the captors to her. They are interrupted with the real Kate arrives, having survived her ordeal in New Mexico with “five rounds rapid“, and kills the Zygons.

The Doctor reveals that the boxes are safeguards for both species. Kate agreed to the contingency (and also to the Doctor wiping her mind) and agrees to take him to the Black Archive for a final showdown. When they arrive, the Doctor offers to take the boxes away and let the cease-fire stand, but Bonnie and Kate stand ready to push a button. So the Doctor lays out the stakes of the game.

In the red box, one button will release the Z-67 gas and kill every Zygon on Earth, but the other button will detonate a nuclear device under the Black Archive and destroy London. In the blue box, one button will unmask every Zygon on the planet, but the other button negates the ability of Zygons to shapeshift and locks them in human form forever.

Bonnie makes her case in front of the blue box but the Doctor dismisses her cruelty. The only way that anyone can live in peace is if they are prepared to forgive.

This leads to one of the best speeches of the Twelfth Doctor’s era.

This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you. Because it’s always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who’s going to die! You don’t know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk! Listen to me. Listen, I just, I just want you to think. Do you know what thinking is? It’s just a fancy word for changing your mind.

[…]

I don’t understand? Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine. And when I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight till it burns your hand, and you say this. No one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!

This is a man who has learned from the horrors of the Last Great Time War. He sees the faces and hears the screams every single day. This is a man who never wants to see it happen again.

And he’s willing to extend the hand of forgiveness to prevent it from happening again.

Kate closes her box and apologizes. The Doctor thanks her. After a few tense moments, Bonnie realizes that box boxes are empty. The Doctor tells her that she’s started to think. When Kate explains that threat is also empty, the Doctor tells her that she’s said that for the last fifteen times before activating the Black Archive’s defenses to wipe her mind.

Bonnie had not been persuaded fifteen times before. The Doctor repeated the events until he got a good result.

This time, he doesn’t wipe Bonnie’s memory. He explains that he had a similar choice once with a very special box, and just like Bonnie, he had Clara Oswald in his head as a guide. Bonnie returns to the master console and tells every Zygon that they are safe. She then returns to her normal form.

The Doctor offers to take Osgood in the TARDIS, but Petronella stays behind to take care of the boxes. As Clara goes inside, the Doctor asks one more time about Osgood’s identity. She won’t tell him, even as Bonnie arrives as the new Osgood, restoring the balance once again.

It doesn’t matter if they are human or Zygon. They are Osgood, and a credit to their species.

With that, the Doctor and Clara return to the stars. The Osgoods return to the defense of Earth.

But first, ice creams.

When people tell you that Doctor Who isn’t political, show them this pair of episodes. Invasion deals directly with imperialism and parallels the Global War on Terror, including a trip to a fictional central Asian nation. Inversion continues the thread by talking about war – both cold and warm – along with insurgency and brinksmanship. The analysis is capped by the speech that embodies the attitudes of many war veterans and students of history.

The trend of countrystan-ing to create a generic nation with easily identifiable stereotypes is disappointing and lazy. I don’t mind the tool when the writers take time to give the inhabitants actual personality and character – see Black Panther‘s Wakanda, for a great example – but here we see a play from the television dramas of the Cold War, Gulf War, and Global War on Terror eras. Think 1980 to present, spanning MacGyver, The A-Team, 24, and so on.

That aside, this tale is tense and important, following on from the sea change instituted in The Day of the Doctor. It echoes back to that pivotal day in the Doctor’s lives, including a life-changing box (or two) with a big button (or two, each). This story exercises the lessons that the Doctor learned from both sides of the Last Great Time War to save humanity.

I wonder if the path started with Kahler-Jex, another person who could hear the screams when he closed his eyes.

This story also picks up the thread of Harry Sullivan, whose last regular appearance was Terror of the Zygons. It seems that his last adventure stuck with him, and we remember from Mawdryn Undead that he ended up at the Porton Down chemical and biological weapons facility. The Doctor still considers him to be an imbecile.

As a war veteran myself, I can’t sing the praises of this adventure enough.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Sleep No More

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The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #80: Terror of the Zygons

Michael Falkner18 Comments

Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons
(4 episodes, s13e01-e04, 1975)

Timestamp 080 Terror of the Zygons

 

A peaceful looking oil rig collapses into the ocean after a high-pitched chirping echoes throughout the structure. Welcome to Season 13 and the debut of the Zygons.

After receiving the emergency call from the Brigadier, the Doctor and his companions are back on Earth and walking through the countryside. The Doctor has embraced the Scottish theme of this story with a (unnamed) Tartan scarf and matching Tam O’Shanter hat, while his companions have adopted the typical hat and scarf. They hitch a ride to town with the Duke of Forgill, a local landowner who is upset about Hibernian Oil’s employees trespassing on his land, and meet up with the Brigadier and his Clan Stewart kilt.

You know, I’ve kind of missed him.

The Doctor is upset that he has been called back for a simple oil problem, hardly an emergency in his book, but agrees to help nonetheless. Harry goes to examine the injured rig crew in sickbay, Sarah Jane goes to interview the locals, and the Doctor joins the Brigadier to investigate the oil company. As Sarah Jane interviews Angus, the inn’s landlord, a Zygon eavesdrops on their conversation through an unknown bug. Angus thinks the Tulloch Moor is haunted, but Sarah Jane is not convinced.

While this is their first appearance in the franchise, I have seen the Zygons before in the new series. They really haven’t changed much over the years.

A survivor named Munro stumbles out of the ocean and Harry finds him. Caber, the Duke’s right-hand man, inexplicably shoots Munro and grazes Harry. The Doctor and Sarah Jane visit Harry in sickbay wher the Brigadier informs them of another oil rig collapse — the Zygons summoned a creature from the deep to destroy it — and the Doctor accompanies him as Sarah Jane tends to Harry. The Doctor examines part of the rig’s wreckage and discovers the imprint of a giant tooth.

Sister Lamont, the nurse who is attending to Harry is creepy. At first I thought she was a Ratched, but instead she’s a Zygon who attacks both companions. When the Doctor (who was on the phone with Sarah Jane when the Zygon struck) arrives the hospital, they companions are missing. The Doctor finds Sarah Jane in a decompression chamber and is trapped inside when he attempts to rescue her. He hypnotizes Sarah Jane to slow her breathing, then places himself into a trance as well. Meanwhile, Harry is taken to the Zygon ship, which is deep under the ocean. They crashed on Earth centuries before and waited for rescue, but their world was destroyed. The creature, a cyborg called a Skarasen, is their weapon and means of survival. If it dies, they die.

The Brigadier and his team are knocked out with poison gas, and the Doctor and Sarah Jane are rescued by Warrant Officer Benton. The trance was something he learned from a Tibetan monk. They return to the inn and discover that the same nerve gas that affected the Brigadier’s team also incapacitated the entire village. The Doctor receives a signal device, which controls the Skarasen, and the Zygons are upset by the turn of events. The take Harry to the chamber to become the pattern for one of the Zygon invaders.

The Brigadier’s team recovers and discovers one of the UNIT patrol soldiers who was killed by the creature. The Doctor goes to investigate and leaves Sarah Jane at the inn, much to the Zygon’s delight. Harry’s doppelgänger arrives, steals the device, and runs, leading Sarah Jane and some troops on a chase. She finds him in a barn, and he attacks her, but he falls on his pitchfork and reverts into Zygon form before dying. The Zygons disperse the corpse before Sarah Jane brings UNIT to see it.

Sarah Jane deduces that the Zygons are spying on UNIT, and the Zygons send the Skarasen to destroy them. The Doctor lures the beast away in a truck as the Brigadier tracks the signal’s origin. The Skarasen chases the Doctor, who has to run after the truck runs out of fuel and the tracker attaches itself to his hand. The Brigadier traces the signal to Loch Ness.

Ah, of course: Nessie is an alien cyborg.

Harry bursts into the control room and starts mashing buttons on the console, which conveniently results in the tracker falling off the Doctor’s hand. In a terrible special effects sequence, the Skarasen crushes the tracker, which stops the signal and makes the Zygons assume that the Doctor is dead. Meanwhile, Benton is searching the inn for bugs, and we figure out that the Duke’s prized deer head trophy is the transmitter.

After finding out where the signal came from, the Doctor asks Sarah Jane and the Brigadier to take him to the Duke’s castle. The Duke does not believe their tale, and he refuses to allow UNIT to use depth charges in the loch. Back at the inn, Angus discovers the deer head transmitter, and the nurse goes full Zygon on him and removes the eye. Benton and his team give chase into the woods, shooting at the Zygon as it flees, and report to the Brigadier that they have it cornered. The Doctor and the Brigadier leave Sarah Jane to investigate the Duke’s library as they rendezvous with Benton. The Zygon resumes its form as Sister Lamont, knocks out a UNIT soldier, and escapes. The Doctor discovers the missing eye and concludes that the Duke is a Zygon agent.

At the Duke’s castle, Sarah Jane discovers a hidden passageway behind the bookshelf and follows it straight to the Zygon ship. Shortly afterward, the Duke finds out about her intrusion. He and Caber help the injured Sister Lamont doppelgänger back to the ship, and the Duke orders Caber to find and destroy Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane rescues Harry and they return to the Doctor and the Brigadier. The Doctor heads to the ship but is intercepted by Zygons and held hostage. The Zygons tell the companions that the oil rigs were only the prelude to the “big event”. UNIT begins shelling the loch and the Zygon ship surfaces and flies away. The Brigadier prepares to follow, but the companions suggest searching the castle for clues. Sarah Jane discovers that the Duke is the President of the Scottish Energy Commission, but Harry dismisses the information and they join the Brigadier for a trip back to London.

The Zygon ship lands at a disused quarry, but UNIT cannot track it due to a jamming signal. Broton, the Zygon leader and Duke doppelgänger, tells the Doctor that a refugee fleet is on its way to Earth, but in the intervening centuries, the planet must be rebuilt to suit them. After Broton leaves, the Doctor rigs some of the technology in his cell, which electrocutes him but broadcasts a tracking signal to UNIT. The Zygons leave the Doctor for dead, but he comes to, infiltrates the body print center, and frees the humans being held there. He then blows up the ship using the self-destruct mechanism, which is a bit bloodthirsty, but he did try negotiating first.

Broton, having left moments before, goes to place a tracker on the target so Skarasen can destroy it. The Brigadier and the companions figure out that the International Energy Conference is the target, and that the Broton can get in using the Duke’s credentials. They all reconvene there, and the Doctor confronts the Zygon. Sarah Jane summons the Brigadier, who shoots and kills Broton.

Hey, firearms finally worked!

The Doctor takes the tracker and rushes outside where he feeds it to the Skarasen. The creature returns to the river and swims back to Loch Ness, and thus we have the legend. The team returns to the TARDIS near the loch, and the Doctor offers them all a ride home, but only Sarah Jane joins him with one proviso: They are to return straight to London.

Yeah, right.

We finally say goodbye to Harry. I can’t say that I’ll miss him, but I can say that he’ll join the ranks of Steven Taylor as one of my least favorite companions.

As far as the story goes, it’s lackluster and all over the map. It’s an unfortunate case of style over substance: The Zygons and their ship were well done for the era, and the story plays on the prevalent oil-politics in the news, but it also heavily leans on Scottish stereotypes to drive the story, and I had a hard time getting around them. From the very first line haggis-laden line of the first episode, the story jumps from kilts to beards to bagpipes to second sight to the Loch Ness Monster, and it finishes on a joke about stingy Scotsmen.

Don’t get me wrong: It’s nice to visit Scotland again, but this doesn’t come close to the spirit of Jamie McCrimmon. It was a fun, but ultimately routine and forgettable romp.

 

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Planet of Evil

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.