Peter Harness' previous story, Kill the Moon featured an action packed opening that became a character piece about choices and their consequences. The Zygon Inversion provides a similar situation. Everyone gathers in the Black Archive to make a choice that can begin or end the war.
The resolution to last week's cliffhangers are neat, if fairly unimpressive. The Doctor and Osgood escape the exploding plane but we get no hint as to what happened to the other survivors. Kate Stewart's 'five rounds rapid' moment is a nice callback to her father, but it feels like a betrayal of her background of putting science over everything else. I really don't know what the point of the character is.
The Zygons plan to start a war is advanced this week as Bonnie seeks out the new character, Etoine,
a Zygon who is happy with staying in hiding. Bonnie reverts Etoine to his normal form. It's a good example of the normal people who become victims of extremist movements. It is hard not to feel sorry for him and his suicide is a sad moment in the episode.
As Bonnie, the Zygon leader, Jenna gets a lot to do this week. She proves to be a talented actor in making Bonnie feel different to Clara. In the scenes where the two interface minds you don't have to work hard to tell which is which, even with the hair differences. In many ways Jenna is more interesting as Bonnie than as the average companion Clara.
Of course, the real meat of the story is in the Black Archive. The Osgood box is revealled to be two boxes each one with two buttons that may end or start the war. All of the devices that were mentioned last week such as the Zygon gas are brought back as a means. Bonnie and Kate are brought together to make the decision. It's a nice contrast to the two Kates in Day of the Doctor. Any remaining doubters that Peter Capaldi is one of the best Doctors is proved wrong here. At the beginning of the episode he is amusing as the pun making hero, then we get to his brilliant speech in the Black Archive. He plays it earnestly and imploringly. The Doctor's decision to forgive Bonnie is necessary. If he kills her then she becomes a martyr to the cause. The Doctor's forgiveness allows Bonnie to disarm the movement.
The end result is nicely ambiguous. The Doctor reveals that it has happened fifteen times before. Like any peace it is fragile but nonetheless important to make it work.
Fittingly the episode ends with Bonnie taking on the role of the absent Osgood. Whether or not they are human and Zygon or both Zygon is an interesting mystery but the answer doesn't really matter. They are both Osgood. People must put aside their prejudices.
The end result is nicely ambiguous. The Doctor reveals that it has happened fifteen times before. Like any peace it is fragile but nonetheless important to make it work.
Fittingly the episode ends with Bonnie taking on the role of the absent Osgood. Whether or not they are human and Zygon or both Zygon is an interesting mystery but the answer doesn't really matter. They are both Osgood. People must put aside their prejudices.
Ingrid Oliver continues to play Osgood well. The character may not be companion material, as some have suggested, but she is good in the role. I can't see if there's any point bringing her back beyond this, but she is welcome to do so.
The episode has a good visual look. The dark red Zygon chamber is good and the drab greyness of the council flats give the piece a feeling of being grounded in reality. This makes it better than most Series 9 episodes which were fairly fanciful.
After the fairly average Kill the Moon, Peter Harness has proven that he deserves to come back for more episodes. Doctor Who has covered many different genes across its 52 year history, but the general public always seem to favour the alien invasions. The danger of relying on this genre is that it can be xenophobic at times. A lot of Patrick Troughton stories were. Fortunately, the Zygon Invasion is a good reminder of what the Doctor and the show itself, should stand for.
9/10
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