The Zygon Invasion (TV story)

The Zygon Invasion
Doctor:	Twelfth Doctor
Featuring:	Osgood, Kate, Clara, Jac
Main enemy:	Zygons, Bonnie
Main setting:	London, England, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and Turmezistan, 21st century
Key crew
Writer:	Peter Harness
Director:	Daniel Nettheim
Producer:	Peter Bennett
Release details
Story number:	257a
Premiere broadcast:	31 October 2015
Premiere network:	BBC One
Format:	1x45 minute episode
Doctor Who television stories
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Production order
← Previous	The Woman Who Lived
Next →	TBA

The Zygon Invasion was the seventh episode of the ninth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.

It served as a sequel to events set up in the 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor, having a beginning sequence dedicated to the relative plot point of this story.

It is effectively the second "companion-lite" story in a row as Clara is revealed to have been kidnapped and replaced with a Zygon duplicate called Bonnie.

It also continued the thematic concept of the Doctor apparently facing death, with the end of the episode setting up yet another opportunity for the Doctor to reflect on his mortality.

Synopsis

A long time ago, the Doctor made a deal in the Tower of London. 20 million Zygons walk among us, in human form, living undetected in peace and harmony. But cracks are showing in this delicate peace. Humans and Zygons are disappearing. In city apartment blocks, lifts are going missing, and far below the streets of Britain, alien pods are growing in secret caverns. To top it all off, UNIT's scientific advisor, Osgood, sends a desperate message to the Doctor - but since Osgood is long dead, how is that even possible?

The Doctor, Clara and UNIT must scatter across the world in a desperate bid to set her free. But in a world of shape-shifting aliens, who can you trust? And can the world be saved before it's too late?

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
• Clara - Jenna Coleman
• Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
• Kate - Jemma Redgrave
• Jac - Jaye Griffiths
• Claudette - Cleopatra Dickens
• Jemina - Sasha Dickens
• Walsh - Rebecca Front
• Little Boy - Abhishek Singh
• Little Boy's Mum - Samila Kularatne
• Hitchley - Todd Kramer
• Lisa - Jill Winternitz
• Norlander - Gretchen Egolf
• Hitchley's Mom - Karen Mann
• Walsh's Son - James Bailey
• Zygons - Aidan Cook, Tom Wilton

Uncredited cast

• Bonnie - Jenna Coleman
• Voice of the Zygons - Nicholas Briggs

Crew

to be added

References

• Drakeman Junior School is located in Dulwich.
• Jac was able to hack CCTV from Scotland Yard.

The Doctor

• A portrait of the First Doctor hangs in the Unit Safe House in South London.
• The Doctor starts calls himself both "Doctor Disco" and "Doctor Funkenstein."
• The Doctor plays Amazing Grace on his guitar.
• The Doctor refers to Jemima and Claudette as "Monster High" and "Cinderella."
• When the Doctor introduces himself as "The President of Earth," a UNIT official answers with "Yes, we know who you are," as happened regularly to UK Prime Minister Harriet Jones.

Clara

• Clara's voicemail greeting says she's either on the tube or in outer space.
• The Zygon duplicate of Clara says she heard about the TV series Truth or Consequences on the game Trivial Pursuit.

Osgood

• A poster in Osgood's office says that the White House has appointed an alien ambassador.
• The Doctor gave the Osgoods an Osgood Box that was only to be used in the Nightmare Scenario and if Operation Double was broken.
• Osgood has the TARDIS's phone number. She uses a question mark as its contact photo.

Zygons

• After the Human-Zygon peace treaty, seen in TV: The Day of the Doctor, 20 million Zygons were relocated around the United Kingdom. It quickly became clear that these Zygons had seized control of the UK and had slowly spread across the entire globe.
• The Zygons have training camps.
• The Zygons use pods to contain humans.
• Places the Zygons have invaded include the Mexico border, North Asia, West Africa and Australia.

Story notes

• The Radio Times programme listing was accompanied by a small colour shot of Osgood and the Doctor, with the accompanying caption "Doctor Who / 8.15 p.m. Osgood is snatched by aliens, prompting a round-the-world rescue mission".
• The "Clara" in most of this episode is a Zygon duplicate, making this the second consecutive episode in which Clara has a brief appearance.
• Peter Capaldi and Rebecca Front previously worked together on The Thick of It.

Ratings

• BBC One: 3.87m

Filming location

• Fuerteventura ("New Mexico" scenes)

Production errors

• The time on Clara's mobile phone is 12-something as she arrives at her apartment building and starts to listen to her voicemail from the Doctor. It's then 10-something as she calls the Doctor after she finds the little boy's parents (and is now Bonnie).

Continuity

• The human/Zygon treaty is referenced (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Since then, a version of Osgood has died. (TV: Death in Heaven)
• Kate mentions a previous attempt at invasion by the Zygons which occurred in the 1970s or 1980s. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
  • Kate still confuses the UNIT timelines. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• The Doctor mentioned that he snogged a Zygon once (as the Tenth Doctor). (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

The mythical boxers appear briefly. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

• The Doctor and Kate talk about there always having been two Osgoods ever since the ceasefire. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• Kate wants to bomb areas of the Earth, and the Doctor asks if that's always the solution. She almost detonated a nuclear bomb beneath London when she first encountered the Zygons. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• The Doctor plays his electric guitar. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice, Before the Flood, The Woman Who Lived)
• Osgood continues her tendency to wear clothing suggestive of outfits worn by the Doctor. (TV: The Day of the Doctor (TV story), Death in Heaven) In this case, she wears question marks on her shirt lapels. She also reminds the Doctor that he used to wear question marks on his clothes (TV: The Leisure Hive through Survival)
• The Doctor says he never stopped wearing question marks as he wears question mark underpants. His eighth incarnation wore question mark boxer shorts, thus suggesting his war, ninth, tenth, and eleventh incarnations also did. (PROSE: Seeing I, COMIC: The Glorious Dead)
• A weapon called the Z-67, confiscated by the Doctor, was invented by Harry Sullivan shortly after he stopped travelling with the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
• Clara is once again shown has having authority with UNIT up to and including being able to command UNIT soldiers to use deadly force. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
• Clara is kidnapped by the Zygons and replaced with a Zygon duplicate called Bonnie. This is the fourth occasion that a companion or assistant of the Doctor has been copied by a Zygon: Kate Stewart and Osgood were both copied (TV:The Day of the Doctor), as was Harry Sullivan (TV:Terror of the Zygons) and Lucie Miller in The Zygon Who Fell to Earth.
• The Doctor wears his sonic sunglasses. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar, Under the Lake/Before the Flood, The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived)
• The Doctor resumes his title of President of Earth, and requests use of his presidential plane just so he can "ponce around". (TV: Death in Heaven, COMIC: The Hyperion Empire)
• Clara's flat (or, at least, the building) is seen. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, Listen, Dark Water, COMIC: The Fractures)
• Harry Sullivan was mentioned as having worked at Porton Down. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
• Hybrids are mentioned, referring to the Zygon dopplegangers. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar, The Girl Who Died)

Home video releases

DVD releases

to be added

Blu-ray releases

to be added

External links

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