There are fundamentally two major types of Doctor Who stories : 1 ) The Doctor protect the position quo from some outside disruption . 2 ) The Doctor finds a terrible status quo , and tump over it . But then there are outliers , where the “ status quo ” is in itself a lot more complicated .
right smart back when io9 launch in early 2008,we chart the per centum of “ Doctor upsets the status quo ” stories , year by class . Among other matter , we found that Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy were the Dr. most likely to overthrow regimes , and — not amazingly — the more time the Doctor spent on present - day Earth , the more concerned he was with preserving the existing decree .
But tonight ’s episode , “ The Zygon Invasion , ” is something a bit dissimilar . It ’s a story in which the “ position quo ” is really , really weird — even though it ostensibly select place in present - day Earth . And it ’s hard to tell what exactly would appoint a well-chosen solving of this site .
In fact , the position in “ Zygon Invasion ” is set off to face like a no - win situation , and it ’s basically of the Doctor ’s making .
Back in “ The Day of the Doctor , ” the day of remembrance special , the Doctor handled an impendent Zygon intrusion of Earth in the eye of portion out with his long - buried trauma from another no - win post : the Time War . The Doctor was reunite with two of his past self , admit the past Doctor who actually define off the weapon system that destroyed the Time Lords and the Daleks . handle the Zygon trouble was just sort of a distraction in the middle of undoing the Doctor ’s bragging error , but the resolution that the Doctors came up with was very much a tribute to lateral cerebration .
The Doctors force the human , and the Zygons impersonating them , to talk terms without know if they were Zygon or homo . ( At the time , we referred to this as a sort of Rawlsian “ veil of ignorance . ” ) The point was that there ’s always another way of life — hence the Doctor did n’t have to accept the necessity of committing genocide against his own people as well as the Daleks .
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Now , at last , we discover out just what those Rawlsian negotiations lead to … and it ’s pretty radical . Some 20 million Zygons came to live on Earth , mask as humans , and UNIT and the Zygon High Command have been policing this accord ever since .
This is sort of an unsustainable situation , because the moment anybody sees what the Zygons really attend like , paranoia will localise in . Anybody could be a shapechanging alien with a lethal stinger , and you wo n’t know until it ’s too late .
Pity the Gelth!
Back in the first season of the revamped show , the Doctor seriously considered inviting a whole army of the alien Gelth to come and reanimate stagnant humans in “ The Unquiet Dead . ” Rose was appal by the idea of infesting Victorian England with alien ghosts , because that ’s not what bechance in the history she knows — but the Doctor insist that it was all up for grabs , and everything can be changed . It was only when the Gelth turned out to be assholes that the Doctor changed his mind .
So now , the Doctor has engineer another situation that threaten to break the whole map of human history , in the name of justice and fairness .
The Zygons , settling among us , are middling like immigrants — a analog that ’s actually highlighted a few time in this instalment . And the Doctor seems to believe that just because Earth is “ our ” world does n’t have in mind we should n’t have to deal it if the need arises . It ’s sort of the opposite of the sort of story you normally get with the Silurians and Sea Devils , who actually did “ own ” this major planet before man appeared .
Anyway , the Zygon peace predictably breaks down — in the small township of Truth and Consquences , NM , a single Zygon child lose control of its chassis and is spotted , and this turns into an all - out scare . UNIT ’s Osgood is caught in the center of the violence and mayhem ( as image at the start of the episode ) and winds up being captivate by the Zygons . And when Kate Lethbridge - Stewart visits Truth and Consequences , she discover that tons of humans have been killed and put into dumpsters , with a Zygon sentry ( disguise as a human police officer ) mark her out as the next dupe .
And soon , this leads to a full - on Zygon uprising , with the younger Zygons ferment against their leaders , the Zygon High Command ( who look like a pair of schoolgirls ) and killing them . The Zygon insurrectionist want to show their true faces , instead of having to hide , and they ’re inciting all the Zygons who have assimilated into human fellowship to fall in them . Yup , they need to let Zygons be Zygons . ( Sorry , could n’t stand . )
And as Clara and Jac , another UNIT operative , look into , they discover that the Zygon scheme has advanced style more than anybody realizes . Over the past yr , the Zygons have been replacing all the humans in London , until the whole city is essentially Zygons . ( Does this mean the Danny Pink who was killed was a Zygon ? solid food for thought . ) And in fact , Clara herself is really a Zygon imposter , who leads Jac and a bunch of UNIT scout troop into a snare and nearly flim-flam them into killing the real Clara .
The Doctor and a UNIT commander go to Turmezistan , where the Zygons have taken over an entire settlement and turn it into a base of operations . There , they pick up the Zygons have get a lot skilful at mindfuckery — they can actually pluck the image of your have a go at it one out of your heading , and become that someone , without ever ask their existent torso to make a copy from . This is how they thwart first an airstrike and then a full ground violation — because nobody is willing to spud animal who await just like family extremity and loved ones .
The Doctor manages to rescue Osgood from Turmezistan , but is unable to lay aside UNIT soldiery from being slaughered . And when he vaporize back to England in his “ President of the Earth ” jet , with Osgood and a Zygon captive , Zygon!Clara exhibit up with a rocket rocket launcher and shoots the plane down .
So again , it ’s really intemperate to imagine a happy conclusion for this one . One possible outcome is the 20 million Zygons being mow down , leaving the human raceway felicitous and untouched . Another outcome could be the Zygons getting resettled somewhere else , or forced to “ forget ” that they ’re Zygons permanently and irrevocably . But it ’s hard to see how this can end in some way that does n’t involve turbulence and hurt , because this story is parcel out with tricky issues of in-migration , colonization , and most of all absorption . The Zygons have tried and failed to assimilate into human cultivation , and now it ’s all - out warfare .
A few important contingent :
What’s in the Osgood Box?
At the start of the sequence , Osgood and her Zygon duplicate speak together on a telecasting , and they show off something the Doctor left them , called the “ Osgood Box . ” This is some kind of safeguard , in case the peace with the Zygons breaks down . But what ’s in the box ?
The two Osgoods are a live embodiment of this peace between human and Zygons . One is human and one is Zygon , but nobody knows which is which — and they refuse to say . They ’re almost like “ hybrids , ” as the Doctor points out — bring back the belief that the Doctor is destine to create some kind of hybrid of two warrior races that will create a Brobdingnagian catastrophe , as mentioned by Davros in the season undoer .
But alas , one of the two Osgoods was murdered by Missy in last year ’s season finale , so there ’s only one left and she ’s decease off the cryptic close somewhat . She fled building block and went await for response in New Mexico , which is where she was captured by the Zygons .
The notion that Osgood is half - human and half - Zygon is an interesting one , but it ’s also interesting that she can only maintain this equivocalness while appearing completely human .
The Doctor read he look up to her , but that he believe the sole remaining Osgood is the human one — because she would n’t be able-bodied to maintain her Osgood form without access to the original pattern . That ’s when Osgood claims the Zygons have advance their abilities , and can now assume someone ’s conformation without access to their real body . ( And yet , the Zygons are keeping Clara alert , even though they tell Doctor that she ’s bushed . )
Harry Sullivan is an Imbecile!
Back in the one and only Zygon account on classic Dr. Who , the Doctor ’s sometime companion Harry Sullivan gets capture and duplicated by the Zygons . This apparently leaves him with a bit of a vendetta , because in this sequence we discover out that Harry has done some experiments and created a lethal gas that stimulate Zygons to turn inside out . UNIT was keeping this gasoline stored , just in case … but someone with a TARDIS split up in and stole all of it . ( We assume it ’s the Doctor , but what if it was Missy ? )
In any case , the deadly anti - Zygon gas is mentioned often enough that it ’s probably die to turn out to be important . It could even be inside the Osgood Box .
But no matter what , the Fourth Doctor has been prove ripe yet again :
What’s going on with Clara?
Yeah , yeah , she ’s been replaced by a Zygon . That encounter about one - third of the way through the episode , after she realizes her neighbors have been replace by Zygons and determine them nabbing their still - human child . But something else is going on with Clara .
But her demeanour when she ’s apparently regular human Clara , is just odd . The Doctor observe calling her with increasing story of worry in his voice , and she fluff him off . At one point , she has 127 pretermit calls from “ Doctor Disco . ” ( by and by , the Doctor decides to call himself “ Doctor Funkenstein . ” I O.K. . )
There ’s no account of what Clara ’s been up to , or why Clara — who had previously been a full adventure junkie who could n’t wait to hear from the Doctor — was ignore his calls . Could it have something to do with Ashildr , aka Lady Me , whom the Doctor saw stalking Clara last workweek ? That could be interesting .
After all , nothing would show Ashildr ’s pointedness about the Doctor ’s disposition to “ specify ” problems and then evaporate , more than this berth , in which the Doctor engineered a whole alien infiltration and then vanish . Right ?
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