Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 7 review - The Zygon Invasion

Well, who would’ve thought arranging a peace treaty between humans and Zygons would end in disaster

Ah, yeah…

If I’m honest, Day of the Doctor had some really nice moments to it but it failed in several regards, it barely celebrated the 50^th anniversary of Doctor Who and was more a celebration of the new show, with a few cameos, particularly from Tom Baker thrown in. The Zygon plot was just f*cking boring. David Tennant not knowing which one’s a Zygon wasn’t funny. And the resolution was good only for it continuing the time war threads of the episode.

But the Zygon invasion. A faction of the Zygons not wanting to live peacefully in disguise as humans have begun making threats to the world and killing those Zygons that would stand against them. The Doctor, UNIT and Clara must find a way of stopping them without creating a martyr to their cause. Their actual agenda isn’t a bad one, drawing parallels to immigration (legal and illegal) and terrorism but we’ll see how it plays out

The leads were quickly split up in this episode (for better or for worse), the Doctor went to try and negotiate peace with the Zygons and rescue Osgood (the one that didn’t die in Death in Heaven) who may or may not be a Zygon herself. This part particularly established the reasons the Zygons are threatening. They can take any form, including those of people you care about the most. We see how the military are duped so easily by their emotional attachments to people and how the Zygons use that.

Kate Lethbridge Stewart (I guess they’ve made her the modern show’s Brigadier, fair enough) heads to try and arrange peace with the Zygons. She finds herself facing the consequences of her actions as she sees the hordes of people these Zygons have murdered, only to find herself trapped as her ambassador is herself a Zygon. I kinda called this early on, what police woman would stay in a city without anyone else in it? Unfortunately, it’s kinda boring as that’s really it.

Clara meanwhile is investigating the disappearance of children in London. Again it’s kind of easy to call her being a Zygon. I’ve said in the past few episodes it’s become apparent she’s becoming more like the Doctor but here her speed to action gave her away (her asking for re-enforcements when she first arrived) again, the scenes are kind of boring because there’s no real action to it

A message to Steven Moffat. Continuity: You don’t pick and choose from your own show. If you’re going to reference past events like you did in this episode, you can’t ignore past events like you have in previous ones (for example the TARDIS force-field suddenly occurring)

Oh, this was written by the same writer as Kill the Moon, I’m deducting 1 point because of how much Kill the Moon sucked (yes, I know this is a different episode but KILL THE MOON SUCKED and I gave it way too high a rating)

Rating 6/10

For more reviews click here

Images used in this review are from Doctor Who and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.