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Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Zygon Inversion

The second part of this alien incursion in modern day Earth that parallels current events and exposes our worst fears. We talked about Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion last week. Now it's time for the Inversion… aired a couple of hours ago on BBC1. Your spoilerage may vary.

1. They Live

No she is not in hell. But Clara has been trapped in a fake reality before – just this time there's no souffle. The newspaper gobbledygook spoke to me though, when I have difficulty sleeping I spin newspaper headlines in my head at speed before stopping them and see what I can read. The more I can read, the closer I am to slipping into dreamtime. It's a useful tool to tackle your subconscious, even when, in Clara's case. you are your subconscious. A sub-subconscious maybe? And yes, they live, both Clara and Kate. But didn't that toothpaste look a little like a certain movie, also about aliens assuming human form through hypnosis rather than shape shifting?

2. Real Estate

It's the British council estates and council blocks that are seen as hotbeds of trouble ahead of immigration riots or upset. But there's no need for the Doctor to be quite so snobbish about it. He's a little more Etonian I guess, than compared with the Ninth Doctor who couldn't get enough of them when Rose Tyler used to live in one

3. Flying The Flag

James Bond and Doctor Who have been compared over the decades as very different sides to the quintessential British hero. But it's nice to know he shares the same taste in parachutes with Roger Moore…

Shame there weren't parachutes for everyone else on that plane, including the pilots. Or even the naughty Zygon come to that…

4. Basil The Doctor

"Don't mention the Time War. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it."

5. Five References, Rapid

Aside from the obvious one that got a round of applause from me, of course.

"A very special day for me" – that was the Doctor's fiftieth birthday, of course.

"Imbecile's gas" – well he did once say that "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile" and he did go and invent that gas, so…

"I made it up from the initials",  that was Susan's line.

Zygella Osgood gets the Eight Doctor's clobber (the broken specs tells them apart)

And did you notice the alien helmet from The Girl Who Died in the Black Archive? Just to the side… maybe Ashildr/Me will want it back…

6. Point That Finger Somewhere Else Please

Some Zygons yearn to be able to live openly, distinct and different. This one longs to be integrated, the Zygon norm apparently, blending and merging with his surroundings. And for each, death is the only alternative. You know, it would have been nice to have heard from more Zygons lie that rather than this put upon one… that's the thing about the media, they always concentrate on the fundamental rather than the moderate voice… and by moderate I clearly am talking about a guy committing suicide I know.

7. He's Not The Messiah He's A Very Naughty Boy

Second Python reference of the night, but two thousand years old, old enough to be a messiah… that's what he told us, as a gag, at the beginning. But by the end he's preaching a gospel of forgiveness as a way to live, so that you aren't just left with the wasteland of revenge. You know, at some point, someone is going to write a story in which the Doctor goes back to first century Judea, gets in trouble with the local authorities and ends up nailed to his own TARDIS after getting the chameleon circuits to work.

8. Deal Or No Deal

You know, if Noel Edmonds made such long and impassioned pleas about the importance of  forgiveness rather than some kind of cosmic destiny, I might watch that show a little more. As in, at all.

But, as with Wargames, the only way to win is not to play. Whereas with Deal Or No Deal, the only way to win is not to watch.

9. Self Identification

Me is just Me. The Osgoods are just Osgoods. But both are hybrids. But both identify as nothing more, even though they are so much more. And The Doctor is just… the Doctor. Is there any way he could actually be the hybrid that Davros talked about? Back to being half-human? No companion for the Doctor in Osgood though. Neither of her.

Say, you know, if they can influence the movement of each other's fingers… no, no, let's leave that be shall we?

10. The Longest… Month?

So all our speculation about this episode was utterly wrong, as it pretty much always is, save for a few more UNIT soldier being Zygons. But that line, again, ties into the other theory that Bleeding Cool has been propagating for a few weeks now that we are seeing Clara's story out of order, the Doctor has already experienced her final death and he is running up and down the timeline for a few more adventures with her. He knows she can't die before then, and so is even more puzzled week to week when she keeps appearing to die… and this is his Confession. Well, the "longest month" does seem to underline that theory.

Bonus Thought

Can anyone identify the Doctor's SMS alert sound?

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