So it's a great relief to me that The Zygon Inversion is probably the first sequel this episode that actually stands up and delivers on the promise of it's preceding instalment.
Interestingly enough, this sense of relief is itself comprised of two parts. Firstly of course there's the relief that I feel as a fan of the show who was really worrying that the whole production had lost the plot completely. It's nice to know they can still deliver a decent story when they really try. And secondly there's the relief that the whole thing really wasn't as horribly racist as it could have been.
Lest we forget.
So, I suppose we better discuss the racial overtones first. I mentioned this last week, but if you're going to use such an obvious metaphor as Zygons = Brown People you really should try and have at least one friendly one to balance things out. Especially if a key plot point is that most of them are actually quite nice and just want to be left alone. What we get however is actually a lot better.
No, really. According to google image search, THIS is a Zygon.
We're given a terrified victim Zygon, caught between the plots and machinations of the bad Zygons and the fear and hatred those actions provoke in the human population. That's some proper commentary right there. I can't say I really agree with the decision to make him commit suicide in order to avoid being killed though. I know he's distressed, but that's some interesting logic. Still, it's all reinforcing the allegory that the main damage done by terrorists is to the very people they seem to think they represent.
If this all seems a bit serious business, well.... Yeah. This is a serious business episode. Whilst Doctor Who does not, as a rule, really get into this sort of thing very often it has been known. Really the only reason it strikes us as suprising today is because we're so far removed from the events that were being commented on in the past.
No, see THESE miners are in SPACE. Totally unrelated.
Won't it be nice when we can look back on this story with the same detachment? Let's just hope it doesn't take 30 years.
Anyway, pressing on. The crux of the episode is Osgoods Box. Because since it wasn't enough just hint that poor Petrenella will be spending an eternity of fan fiction tentacle raping herself, we have to also make opening her box and pushing the right button a key plot device.
VAGINAS.
Anyway, this is all actually quite interesting for reasons unrelated to pornography. Because it's here that we actually get to the titular inversion. I was working under the assumption that the nerve gas mentioned in the first episode was going to turn out to be somewhat metaphorical in it's effect. Not literally turning anyone inside out, but maybe taking away a Zygons ability to change shape or something. What I wasn't expecting was the whole thing to be an inversion of the standard formula of the show itself.
In terms of varying broadness an awful lot of Doctor Who, and ESPECIALLY modern Doctor Who can be described as buggering about for a bit, followed by a mad scramble for the button that will either fix or destroy everything. Literally or metaphorically, both in terms of the physical existence of the button and the precise nature of it's effects.
But what if we just mixed ALL the medicines together? There's no way that could possibly have any horrible side effects!
What's fun in this episode is that the Doctor has set up precisely this situation, and everybody buys into it because that's just how things seem to work where the Doctor is involved. UNIT, Zygons, and perhaps most importantly THE AUDIENCE. We just buy straight into the existence of these deadly boxes because that's what we've been conditioned to do by so many other stories, even though when you stop to think about it the Doctor setting up a button that kills millions seems more than a little odd. But we're carried through that obvious moment of doubt by two things. Firstly there's the sadly inconstant characterisation of the twelfth Doctor up to this point. If he can pull that bullshit in The Girl Who Died then who knows? But most importantly we have Peter Capaldi finally having the opportunity to actually put in some real characterisation. He actually gets to take all that poorly defined anger and do something with it, giving us a good, properly Doctorish speech about how, at the end of the day, war and violence FUCKING SUCKS.
This is EXACTLY the sort of thing Doctor Who should be about. What makes this particular episode work is the fact that it hinges around redeeming the apparent villain rather taking the standard route of just killing them off. I especially like the fact that the Doctor takes time to point out how hopelessly ill defined the rebel Zygons goals actually are. One thing I've never really understood about terrorist activities is how exactly they're supposed to do anything other than piss people off. You're never going to convince someone to join your side by killing all their mates.
The only thing they could have improved on here would perhaps have been in having Evil Clara being the actual one in command of the bad Zygons. Might have been nice to get in that it's the old and hateful sending out the young and gullible to do the dirty work in these sort of situations. But I don't suppose there was really the room, especially since that may well require a commando raid to kill off said twisted old bastards and that would rather undermine the whole tone.
So... yeah. Back to decent sci-fi with a strong humanist outlook. Great stuff, I'm impressed. You can tell, because I haven't even had time to complain about Clara and her specialness. Most of it actually works reasonably well. The whole dream world thing is technically something she's dealt with before, so that get's a pass. Indeed, it's even possible that had this story occurred earlier I may even have warmed up to the character a little. Although to be fair that may just be because she's isn't really in this one much. I'm not really sure about her suddenly getting credit for the resolution of the Time War in The Day OF The Doctor though, but then it has been a while since I watched it, and I can't say I particularly cared for that bit anyway.
Still, that's just me. All in all this was pretty damn good. Hopefully they can maintain this level of quality for the remaining stories.
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