Timelord Thoughts 8 - The Zygon Inversion

Well, that wasn't what I expected at all. Last time I said that this looked like being a more traditional Classic Series multi-parter. I couldn't have been more wrong.
It certainly lived up to it's title of:

The Zygon Inversion

• As always, the production team like to tease us by not resolving the cliffhanger in the first few seconds. It looks like the answer to this one will take a bit longer to explain.
• The backwards clock (in a very out of date style, and quite dirty to boot), the odd camera angles, the black toothpaste, the eerie soundscape - it's all wonderfully unsettling and adds up to make us and Clara realise that something is not quite right. Of course Clara should be used to weird dreams mimicking reality after the events of "Last Christmas".
• Incidentally has someone been reading Philip K Dick's "Time Out Of Joint"? The tube that says "This is toothpaste" makes me recall something similar happening in that short story. Of course "Time Out Of Joint" could be applied as an overall umbrella title for this whole series...
• It gets even better with doorways and windows being blank walls and the lights flickering. Although I may have seen this kind of thing before in SF movies, a lot of casual viewers won't have.
• And then Clara proves my point by making "dream checks". I love the newspaper with the seahorse image on the front cover. If you extend my (admittedly convoluted) Greek mythology guesswork, then the Greek's called a creature with the head of a horse and the body of a fish a "Hippocampus". That's the part of the brain that plays an important role in the transfer of information from short-term to long term memory. Clever huh?

 

• I also tried to work out if the words on the newspaper are really gibberish or actually a code of some kind - assuming that the first word in the name is "THE". I'm pretty useless at code breaking though, so if anyone else has found it, let me know. However, feeding the headline "PQUE SSL VELP KJKK" into Google did get me 9 results, the third of which was "conversations with horses" !
• I did like the fact that Clara tilting the TV in her dreamscape caused Bonnie to jolt and miss her target. I didn't spot that in the closing moments of last weeks episode. It further strengthens the idea that Zygon and original have a mental link. That could have been it and the cliffhanger was resolved - but no, Bonnie has a second rocket and the tension is still rising.
• Although it was original to get Clara to cock her trigger finger and eventually bite it to get Bonnie to fire at the wrong moment, I would perhaps have liked to have seen more signs of an internal mental struggle on the Zygon's face. Bonnie was a little bit robotic and Terminator like (and perhaps straight out of a Robert Palmer video).
• By Peter Harness *and* Steven Moffat? It'll be interesting to see how much 'The Moff' filters through. There wasn't a lot showing in "The Girl Who Died" but I have a feeling this might be a bit more obvious.
• It's a bit horrible to have the crackling remains of people (or Zygons) swept up like so much refuse.
• The scared man runs into "Meelfe House". A transposition of "Feel me"? I'm reading too much into all this aren't I?
• Jenna Coleman really manages to make Bonnie act and sound different to Clara. It shows that Ms. Oswald is an acting role and that her personality (good or bad) is deliberate.
• We've had lot's of different depictions of the Zygon's changing shape since they came back in "Day of the Doctor". The slow reveal and goo spitting, the fast morph, and now probably the most full on body horror version, as the Zygon's human form breaks out in random pustules and suckers accompanied by a wet squelch and gurgle. His head starts to swell and the full transformation occurs. I can imagine a few kids will be hiding their eyes from that.

• A sucker-faced monster is one thing, but housing estate kids just sitting there and watching with looks of extreme boredom? I don't buy it. They'd have either run to get their mates, beaten it up or at least offered an expletive filled derogatory commentary. The same goes for the bearded man with the carrier bag in the background as our Zygon friend runs away - he stands there as if it's the most normal thing in the world when you pop down to Lidl for a tin of beans.
• A nice smile from Clara as she spots the parachutes drifting away from the exploding plane and realises her delaying tactics worked, We are seven and a half minutes in and only now do we get confirmation that the Doctor survived. I'm also glad that her TV remote didn't have a CSI-like "enhance" facility to make those little dots clearer. One small point though, if Clara is seeing these images through her link with Bonnie, why didn't the Zygon spot the parachutes too? Maybe she was too confident. Remember, the Doctor's not dead until you see the body and even then he could be faking.
• We then get what looks like a scaled down Welsh version of the opening scene from "Lost" - all smoking metal and detritus. Osgood looks suitably shocked and then we pan across to see *that* parachute. Yes it's a homage to "The Spy Who Loved Me" (Roger Moore's favourite Bond film apparently) but it's just wonderfully funny, as are the Doctor's answers to Osgood. After all nobody does it better than the Doctor.

• In fact Capaldi seems to be almost a different man this week. He's delivery is different. He's channelling Tom Baker and the other Doctor's sure, but in a good way. Even the stuff about the sonic shades and the invisible watch and the browser history - I'm not cringing, I'm smiling. This. Is. A. Good. Thing. Perhaps it's the Moffat influence on the dialogue starting to make it's presence known?
• Osgood also feels so natural with this incarnation. She knows facts about the Doctor but doesn't *know* him in the same way Clara does, and it's really refreshing. I loved the stuff about how she would dispose of the Doctor if she wanted to invade the world. "A bullet between the eyes...twelve times if necessary". She's a big fan.
• It's a natural extension and expansion of Clara's link with Bonnie to get her to text without knowing it. A reversal also of what happens in our world - where people walk along texting without seeing what's in front of them.
• Maybe it's my lack of understanding but the threat from these Zygon radicals - which apparently are a splinter group (and a small and thinly spread one at that) - seems to move up and down the scale. I can accept them wanting to disrupt the peace treaty by creating chaos and obtaining the means to expose every Zygon on Earth to the human population. This would spread fear and panic and probably start a race war of some kind. But I struggle a little with reconciling it with the events of last week in New Mexico and the Middle East. That was very muddled beyond the obvious War on Terror / ISIS / immigrants  / refugees parallels. This is a much clearer plan.
• In just one scene where she theorises how Clara could still be alive and communicating with the Doctor, Osgood shows why she's such a marvellous character and why fans have taken her to their hearts. She has hope even when the Doctor doesn't. However did the Doctor slip up when he referred to Clara in the past tense?

• A nicely done shot of real Clara as Bonnie walks past the mirror. Mirrors have a huge role in horror fiction and films - Dracula is invisible in them, David sees his decomposing friend in one in  "An American Werewolf In London", the Candyman will appear and kill you if you say his name five times while staring into one and of course Marty tears the flesh off his face after he sees a cut in the original (and best) "Poltergeist". This is a reversal (an 'inversion' if you will) of the normal trope, in that the good character is the one behind the mirrored surface.
• So the First Doctor naturally was the one hiding the safe. I never imagined that it would be that easy for the Zygons to find the answer to their plans in the safe house. The Osgoods are far too clever (they may have had some help...) to make it so obvious.  Bonnie really is an angry young thing isn't she? 
• Again Capaldi delivers follow up quips to his "Doctor Disco" and "poncing about" lines from last week and yet I didn't wince. Why? Is it because he is playing it small and quiet rather than large and pantomime-like?  I hope that's it. Otherwise maybe I have just gotten used to it - or I've been replaced by a Zygon and I don't know it.
• The blank faced policemen were very odd, much like the teenagers from earlier. It's almost as if the rest of the world apart from our core group are on pause. I'm starting to think that something is up with time.
• Zygella is so much a better name for her than Bonnie.
• Oh I get it now. This Doctor makes really crap jokes when he is worried, or hasn't got a plan, or is scared, or thinking. He has comedic verbal diarrhea. Let's hope he can get some cream for that.
• Hmmm. I'm really not sure about "You know I'm over 2,000 years old. I'm old enough to be your Messiah". I'm not religious at all, but even I can see that some people might take exception to that line. Okay it's delivered to a Zygon so it's probably referencing the Zy-God, but...
• They can move! But those policeman are ambling up the road as if they don't have a care in the world. Are they meant to be very slow Zygon doubles?
• The Doctor is obviously a Grand Master in the blinking Olympics. Never has so much information been communicated so quickly. Bonnie doesn't know what part of her face to cover first.
• A clever bluff from the Doctor. "Don't let her into your memories". and "Don't tell her where the Osgood box is" means exactly the opposite.
• Wow - that's a manic smile if I've ever seen one. I'm not sure if it's happy or scary.

• The battle of wills between Clara and Bonnie is a fascinating use of one actress playing two roles. It's almost like the Doctor vs. Morbius except this time they are fighting over who controls a Zygon body. The verbal sparring is excellent. However, it does make you wonder if the Zygons ever went to a planet to invade and found themselves totally subsumed by the personalities of those they were copying.
•  Clara admits that she is a consumate liar. She's being doing it pretty much ever since she arrived (certainly her relationship with the Twelfth Doctor was built on lies at the start). I have a feeling though that someone very close to her has been lying about something much bigger...
• The heartbeat ploy only makes sense if a Zygon duplicates a person right down to their internal organ structure. I'm not sure if that's another revision to what we knew about Zygons but I'm willing to let it slide.
• "London. What a dump". The Doctor obviously has a love / hate relationship with London. Probably like most of the people who live or work there (myself included).This scene is another example where the lines the Doctor says are subtle and self-deprecating enough that they don't sound forced. I can only assume that the co-writer credit means that Harness came up with the basic plot and Moffat either wrote or re-wrote the main script and all of the dialogue. Maybe he is the only one who can make it work (for me at least).

•  Osgood actually seems more confident than the Doctor as they enter the shopping centre. Capaldi has a great look of apprehension and worry on his face. No wonder - the stench of death smells like electric barbeques apparently. 
• It's a testament to Jenna Coleman's acting skill that not only is she playing two versions of her character (one a cold calculating alien shapeshifter with no moral code) but when filming these scenes she by necessity must have had no-one else to act against. There have been a few occasions this series where Clara has been sidelined ("The Woman Who Lived" being the obvious culprit).  She is certainly front and centre in this episode and proves why it was worth her staying on for another year.
• Clara says that pushing the button in the Osgood box will unmask every Zygon on the planet (which is exactly what Bonnie wants) but I know that's not true. You see, I've figured out what the box is. Or was. Or rather I worked it out before the episode revealed it during my first watch, if that makes sense. I'll explain later.
• Clara raises the same valid point that I made last week. Twenty million Zygons is a lot, but it's nothing against the seething masses of seven billion humans. The problem is, unveiling twenty million at once is more than enough to cause hysteria. Given some segments of the populations propensity for hating anything that isn't like them, a crusade against the aliens wouldn't be far behind.
• I think Bonnie is being a bit optimistic thinking that every Zygon would be on her side of the fence. But she doesn't care. She'll make everyone think like her, by force if necessary.
• Even in a dream state Clara has the upper hand.
• It's not true of course - the Doctor is simply trying to distract Osgood - but...Basil? An interesting choice. I guess there is a touch of the Mr Fawlty about the Twelfth Doctor. Or maybe he was thinking about Basil Rathbone (famous for playing Sherlock Holmes). Strangely it's another Greek connection, originating from the name Vasilios, and means 'royal' or 'kingly'. In Arabic, 'Basel' means brave, fearless or intrepid. Other famous Basils? Loads of Byzantine emperors, a few generals, bishops, politicians and scientists. Plus not forgetting Basil Brush the children's puppet fox (Boom ! Boom!), Basil Hallward, the artist that paints the portrait of Dorian Gray, and Basil Exposition from "Austin Powers". Yeah Baby !
• Petronella on the other hand originates in Latin but is most commonly used by the Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians.Saint Petronilla is traditionally identified as the daughter of Saint Peter by the Roman Catholic Church. It's a beautiful name but there are very few famous people that were given it. I can't imagine anyone would use the nickname of 'Nelly', so let's just stick to Osgood. 
• The Doctor does seem obsessed with determining if this Osgood is human or Zygon doesn't he? It's almost as if he's been reading the fan forums. By this point I personally really don't care. She is Osgood. That's all that matters.
• If I'm understanding this right, then the Zygon that Bonnie changed was responsible for the "barbeque" remains that the Doctor and Osgood found as the entered the shopping centre. It's interesting (and convenient) that the Doctor is resistant to the Zygon electrical shock. Maybe it's because he is so full of potential regeneration energy that his body naturally "earths" the charge.
• That's the real Kate Lethbridge-Stewart isn't it? Of course it is. I think we can could all see that one coming.
• "I just wanted to live here. This is my home. I can't go back now." We're back to the real-world parallels. The citizens that get caught in the crossfire. I think the story would have worked as well with the themes left as an undercurrent and people taking away their own interpretations, especially when the poor Zygon would rather kill himself. I'm all for using SF to touch on the pointlessness of war and the innocent victims affected by it, but I'm not sure this was the right way to do it in a kids TV show.
• Okay, even if it's not the real Kate (and the Doctor doesn't seem 100% sure himself at this point), it gets him where he wants to be and he can figure out a plan later. that's a typically Doctor-y thing to do.
• Bonnie keeps giving those sly glances over her shoulder back at Clara in the pod - and directly to the audience. It's like she is saying "isn't this all such deliciously evil fun?" She's the classic femme fatale.

• "They like a good cave don't they?" Yup - and watching famous SF movies from 1986. It *is* a great set though.
• That communicator Kate is holding looks like an upside down scarab beetle. 
• See? Two Osgoods. Two boxes. Have you figured out what's inside yet?
• That's such a nice shot with Bonnie framed by the red and blue boxes and the neon pink lighting behind her.

• There is a Mire helmet on the shelf behind Bonnie. I wonder where UNIT got that from?
• Truth or Consequences. Just how far back did the Doctor plan this? What came first, the name of the town, the Zygon faction or the Osgood boxes? Could he have planted the name in the Zygon conciousness as a trail to lead to this point? It's very Seventh Doctor.
• Lucky that Zygon brains are in the same place as humans. It would have been awkward if Kate had really shot them in the fleshy pointy bit and missed their brains entirely.
• "Five rounds' rapid". A large segment of Who fandom just stood up and cheered. Truly the baton has been passed from father to daughter. Next thing you know she'll be wearing an eyepatch.
• Even Kate is getting in on the "which Osgood are you?" act. You would've thought that she would be one of the people that didn't care.
• Confirmation that Harry Sullivan created the Z-67 gas. I think we all have an instinctual fear of poison gas being used in warfare, after the horrors of WWI and WWII. It's a slow and painful way to die. Is Kate really that callous as to contemplate genocide?
• "Daddy knows best". That made me laugh.
• The Doctor's plan to keep the peace does seem a trifle complicated, requiring multiple Osgoods, memory wipes and boxes supposedly full of poison gas. Was this really the only way to get things to work? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply get the Zygons and humans to be excellent to each other?.
• So then we come to the key moment in the whole episode. That speech. Fifteen minutes of incredible acting from Capaldi that will come to define his tenure as the Doctor. Every actor who has played the role has had at least one of these. A point where the script and the actor are in such perfect synchronicity that you know you are watching something very very special. It's times like these that remind us all why we love this show so much, and how it can achieve wonderful things in the guise of a kids programme about a mad man in a box that flies through time and space. If anyone can save the day just through talking, it's the Doctor. He uses ever trick in the book, every emotional combination to make Kate and Bonnie understand what it is they are about to do. It's difficult to sum this whole scene up in a few words, such is the tour-de-force performance from Peter Capaldi. All I can do is pick out a few lines...
• "Make your mind up time" was a catchphrase used by host Hughie Green on the ITV talent show "Opportunity Knocks" in the 60s  and 70s. He was the Ant and Dec of his day.
• "The only way anyone can live in peace is if they are prepared to forgive".
• "Who's going to make the violins?"
• "How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one"
• "Fingers on buzzers! Are you feeling lucky?"
• "I mean that most sincerely". Another Hughie Green reference. It's the deadliest ever game of 'Deal or No Deal' (or 'Take Your Pick' if you are older).
• "This is a scale model of war".
• "Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind".
• "...after all you've done. I forgive you"
• "When I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever begin to count!". I have goosebumps.
• "No one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!". Oh Murray Gold I accuse you of some terrible travesties in the name of incidental music but occasionally you get it dead right. This is one of those moments.
• That look. That simple smile says more than a million words ever can.

• Bonnie realises the truth. The secret of the Osgood box is that there is no secret. No weapon. No gas. Only a choice.
• "It's hell. No-one should have to think like that. And no-one will."
• And finally - "Gotcha".
• You know, I genuinely think that this is the first time in all his episodes to date that I really truly "get" Capaldi's Doctor. Or perhaps I mean that his portrayal has felt "right" for me. Strip away all the grumpiness and the bad jokes and the misjudged attempts at tomfoolery and *this* is what his Doctor is. What he should be. I want a Doctor who is fearless and caring and emotional and crazy and wonderful, not someone going through a mid life crisis. I'm not expecting every episode or every line to be this powerful, but at last I really care about this version of the Doctor.
• This has a lot of echoes of "The Day of the Doctor". A talky resolution between the two sides in the UNIT Black Archive which results in everyone being made to forget. Even the Osgood boxes mimic the look of 'The Moment' because that was the Doctor's own choice not to kill an entire race.
• That comment about "...you've said that the last 15 times" is concerning though. Is that the number of 'repeats' they have had to go through today to get to this point (with Kate or Bonnie pushing the button and the Doctor having to reset things) or does it mean that the ceasefire has failed fifteen times before? If the latter is the case then surely there would have been no need for Osgood or Clara or the Doctor to even get worried about things because they would know how it would always turn out. In one sentence that would undercut any reason for the events in the last two episodes.  I'm choosing to believe it's the first option.
• Sadly, does it mean that by erasing Kate's memory and not Bonnie's the humans won't learn anything from this incident? Peace may be maintained but the Doctor will have to keep maintaining it. Next time it could be a human that sets things off.
• Even though the Doctor may have saved Gallifrey, it's obvious that the whole incident still haunts him. I'm glad that this hasn't been brushed under the carpet. But I think there were a few other people that helped as well as Clara!
• Just like that the Zygon revolution is over? If we examine the real world incidents that this story is trying to reflect, then it's extremely unlikely that one person saying "it's okay we are all friends now" would stop other radicals within the group carrying on the "fight". Maybe Zygon society has a much stricter and more rigid chain of command. However, did all those humans and Zygons die for no reason other than to get Bonnie to the Osgood box? This does tie up loose ends but at the expense of narrative logic.
• "Totally And Radically Driving In Space". Now that got a laugh from me, plus it's a *very* obscure link back to the "Dimension" or "Dimensions" arguement. So is he now Doctor Basil Funkenstein, space detective? I doubt a show with that title would have lasted fifty plus years.
• As much as we would all love Osgood to become the Doctor's full-time companion, I think it's right that she turns him down. The character works best in limited appearances. But I'm happy for her to come back soon.
• "Don't let him die or anything". That's a bit of an odd thing to say. Could be Osgood trying to be flippant, could be something more...

• That's an interesting twist. Osgood may not reveal which one she is, but with the arrival of "Bonnie" as a second Petronella I think we can work it out for ourselves. But she's right, we shouldn't care about the answer. Osgood lives. It further backs up my theory that the "15 times" were all on the same day - with the last one being where Bonnie's memory is not wiped.
• "I'm a very big fan". That was lovely.
• Now the arc plot rears it's head again. Does "longest month of my life" mean that that Doctor was off doing something else as well in between this adventure? Trying to change time perhaps? "I'll be the judge of time" certainly sounds prophetic and that look he gives Clara - she is *so* doomed. This episode might have been all about consequences but the repercussions are still to come.

Conclusion:

It's a rare thing when the second episode of a two parter is better than the first. It's not a stone-cold classic, nor is it "the best episode of Doctor Who ever" - there are a few niggles and the ending of the war is just a little bit too easy - but it's lifted very high by that speech. That's going to cast a long shadow over Capaldi's tenure as the Doctor. I genuinely hope that the writers will learn from this and see that he produces his best work when he is playing it straight, not playing the fool. I'd love for him to get another shot at a monologue as good as this one was. Humour has its place of course, but interestingly as it's the same actor delivering the jokes why did I hate them last week and like (or at least was able to ignore) them this week? It has to be the writing and Moffat proved yet again how good he really is.

There were a few unanswered questions - Is there really a Z-67 gas or did the Doctor make that up too? Why were the kids on the estate and the policemen so wooden and unresponsive? What came first, truth or consequences? But none of these really matter. This was an episode that managed to surprise me with how good it was - the power of the performances, the gentleness of the music (for once) and the tight focus on just a few people standing around a couple of empty boxes in a room to avert a war...