ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This is a story that before re-watching I struggled to remember
much about. Watching it again it has a lot of really good stuff but is a bit
overlong and has a number of plotlines that seem unnecessary to tell the main
narrative.
After the Zygons arrived in the events of the 30th
Anniversary story and an enforced ceasefire was created by the Doctors, humans
and Zygons were existing side by side because no one was sure who was of which
species. The Doctor entrusted Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) a device dubbed the Osgood
Box which will reveal who is Zygon and who is human. Either Osgood or her Zygon
copy was killed and the other left UNIT only to be captured by a breakaway
Zygon group who want independence. Before her capture she signalled the Doctor
that the Treaty was falling apart.
In the London part of the splinter Zygon group, Clara is
captured by Bonnie – the Zygon leader – who knocks her out and takes her body
print.
The Doctor meanwhile rescues Osgood and they are concerned
to learn from a Zygon that they consider the invasion to have succeeded.
Bonnie, having lead a revolt that left a bunch of UNIT scientists dead takes a
rocket launcher and fires it at the plane the Doctor and Osgood are travelling
in. But Clara has some control over Bonnie and she has pre-warned the Doctor.
The Doctor and Osgood parachute from the plane before the missile hits and the
Doctor works out that Clara is being held in London.
Bonnie learns that the Osgood Box is at the Tower of London.
Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) rescues the Doctor and Osgood and they meet up
with Bonnie at the Tower. It turns out the Doctor provided two Osgood Boxes –
which are different colours but otherwise identical. Bonnie prepares to press a
button on the blue box that will either reveal the Zygons or make their human
forms permanent, Kate prepares to press a button on the red box which will
either destroy all the Zygons or every human in London.
The Doctor gives an impassioned speech to stop both Bonnie
and Kate from pressing their buttons which succeeds and they give up the boxes
– which turn out to be nothing but empty boxes. The Doctor wipes Kate’s
memories to preserve the Treaty and Bonnie agrees that the Zygon splinter group
will live in harmony.
The biggest thing in this story is without a doubt the
magnificent speech given by Peter Capaldi’s Doctor against fighting a war which
is in so many ways the defining moment for the Twelfth Doctor, the moment when
he blossomed how everyone expected him to and all that promise of an actor of
Capaldi’s calibre arrived.
Elsewhere in the story it is great to see more of Osgood,
despite her having been apparently killed by Missy the previous season. It’s a
shame this is still the last we’ve seen of Osgood who is a great character and
well acted. Jemma Redgrave is on point as ever as Kate Stewart, and like her
father before her, she shows she is not afraid to stand up to the Doctor.
Jenna Coleman makes Bonnie suitably different from Clara to
show which is which without reverting to anything obvious.
In the end, though, this story takes a long time to tell a
pretty straightforward story with a lot of distractions along the way to bring
it to a two episode story and is rightly chiefly remembered for the moment
Peter Capaldi’s Doctor cemented his place as one of the best.
NEXT UP: SLEEP NO MORE
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2022
