**Spoilers** Series 9, Episode 8 - "The Zygon Inversion"

pixelburp

Well with last weeks debatable on-the-nose parallels with migrants and the hot topic of integration, I wonder if the second part will continue that theme, or if it'll be all dropped in favour of the more immediate threat. Either way, I hope it's a bit better than last weeks as I found it all a bit too flat by half.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LMOcIDTSU

Penn

Well that was just a damn lot better!

NyOmnishambles

Penn wrote: »

Well that was just a damn lot better!

Huge improvement over last week

They gave Capaldi a great load of dialogue to churn through, I though he got across the horror of war making decisions brilliantly

And who doesn't love Evil Clara

flazio

Yeah, pretty good. And that Big rant about the Osgood boxes, only Capaldi could pull that one off.

The_Valeyard

I enjoyed it



Loved the Doctors speech / rant.

tritium

Goog episode. Can't help but feel a foreboding around that 'longest month of my life' line to Clara at the end, doesn't seem like good things are in store for her. Can't help wondering too about the ongoing hybrid thing.

T-Bird

Pagh, hate stupid left out details. Glasses different at end and TARDIS looked like it came from IKEA :P. No comment on series itself, dont like it...

the_barfly1

Jaysus. I got "the feels" quite bad during the big speech towards the end. I'm blaming it on the beer.
Really brilliant episode (after a hape of pints, at least).

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Bugger me! That was excellent.

I really didn't like last week's episode so I wasn't expecting much this week. How wrong I was.

I know they have to try to balance the more mature elements of the show with the flashy fun bits but I do much prefer these kinds of episodes, with scenes that last for more than a few seconds and are essentially just people talking to one another.

tritium wrote: »

Can't help but feel a foreboding around that 'longest month of my life' line to Clara at the end, doesn't seem like good things are in store for her. .

I've been a nervous wreck every week since I realised we were half way through the series a few episodes ago. They haven't exactly been subtle about it either so I keep expecting her to just drop dead at any second. Last series they had her a bit conflicted about travelling with the Doctor so it seemed likely she would decide to leave, but this series she's showing no signs of that. It won't end well

NyOmnishambles wrote: »

And who doesn't love Evil Clara

I thought she was brilliant, so cold compared to regular Clara, and even at the end when she was a little emotional she didn't have the big Puss in Boots eyes that Clara usually has. Nice to see a little more of what Coleman is capable of doing. I'd love a whole series of Evil Clara... maybe if her post Who career doesn't take off?

Also, I found it pretty hilarious that she probably spent most of her filming time for that episode talking to herself.... literally if she was actually watching herself on the telly.

Wibbs

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I've been a nervous wreck every week since I realised we were half way through the series a few episodes ago. They haven't exactly been subtle about it either so I keep expecting her to just drop dead at any second.

Yeah TmE, but doesn't one of her direct descendants exist in the future, so where does he come from if she ends up meeting with a sticky demise?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Wibbs wrote: »

Yeah TmE, but doesn't one of her direct descendants exist in the future, so where does he come from if she ends up meeting with a sticky demise?

I don't know about that one.

I assume you mean the astronaut guy?

That may have been written when Clara was originally supposed to leave last series, there was some speculation from little bits and pieces that she was pregnant when Danny died... the fact she decided to stay on, and then leave, and then stay again.... and now leave... may have made that future guy irrelevant now... I don't know.

Wibbs

Timey wimey

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Wibbs wrote: »

Timey wimey

Wibbly wobbly.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

bluewolf wrote: »

Cardiff isn't that big a city, bound to get a few location repeats.

I was fairly sure that location was the one from last year where the flat guys were killing people?

Wibbs

I thought that looked very familiar!

the_barfly1

Watched it again, still excellent. Some fantastic pieces of dialogue in this episode (apart from the amazing speech by Doctor Disco towards the end, of course). One that stood out for me was when the Doc told Bonnie that she was starting to think like him, and nobody should ever have to think like him. I'm guessing this in reference to what Clara has become this season, quite Doctorish in ways. The Zygon, after all, is a carbon copy of Clara. I think the Doctor can see that Clara has been travelling with him for far too long and is struggling to bite the bullet and cut her loose, which may lead to her death.
Also intrigued at "longest month of my life", perhaps something has happened off-screen that has yet to be revealed?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

the_barfly1 wrote: »

Also intrigued at "longest month of my life", perhaps something has happened off-screen that has yet to be revealed?

I was wondering about that too.

Was it just supposed to show how important Clara is to the Doctor, even the briefest of time thinking she was dead felt like much longer?

Or has Clara actually died and the Doctor has been travelling back to times before she died to have adventures with her?

Or.... after they decided not to press the buttons and Kate said you can't wipe our minds again the Doctor said something like "that's what you said the first 15 times..."

Was that just a throwaway line or was it meant to imply he'd tried to talk them out of it a few times already but one of them pressed the button each time? Or was it just in reference to the multiple times he wiped her memory in setting up the ceasefire in the first place?

Antar Bolaeisk

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Was that just a throwaway line or was it meant to imply he'd tried to talk them out of it a few times already but one of them pressed the button each time? Or was it just in reference to the multiple times he wiped her memory in setting up the ceasefire in the first place?

Or it really was the first time and he was just messing with them

flazio

You pick up on that but not on the cavewith the lift being the Torchwood firing range, The Doctors Daughter birth place and the place where Sherlock confronted the Chinese circus and rescues Watsons girlfriend.

ixoy

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Or has Clara actually died and the Doctor has been travelling back to times before she died to have adventures with her?

This is what I've thought since the second episode of this season. When the Doctor saw Clara trapped in the Dalek he said something like "Oh Clara" with a world of sorrow in his voice.
Then suddenly we've cut to a perfectly happy Clara, out of the Dalek with no word of how she got out. I'm guessing she didn't.

Oh that exactly the kind of thing they'd do

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

ixoy wrote: »

This is what I've thought since the second episode of this season. When the Doctor saw Clara trapped in the Dalek he said something like "Oh Clara" with a world of sorrow in his voice.
Then suddenly we've cut to a perfectly happy Clara, out of the Dalek with no word of how she got out. I'm guessing she didn't.

Awww man! I thought my theory couldn't work because I couldn't think of a time where she might have actually died. I forgot about the Dalek bit.

There was also a theory about Clara's first appearance where she was inside a Dalek but didn't know it and how that might be tied in to the Dalek episode this year and how she leaves.

Wibbs

Yeah, maybe she gets stuck in the Dalek and much later on ends up meeting his previous incarnation making soufflés with non existent eggs.

Tzar Chasm

Another river song loop, where the first time she meets the doctor is her death

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Wibbs wrote: »

Yeah, maybe she gets stuck in the Dalek and much later on ends up meeting his previous incarnation making soufflés with non existent eggs.

Is it harder to make soufflé with non existent eggs or none existent arms?

Or an Amy Pond thing where she was actually one of those blob things for ages and the real one was locked up
Not that I'm saying clara is but you know the same idea

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I just hope whatever they do with Clara it's not overly complicated and confusing. I still don't understand what happened to Amy and Rory. I don't really care what happened to them. .... but it definitely didn't make sense.

I think they lived happily ever after in a book

FunLover18

Anyone else notice helmet in the room behind the doctor when he was making that big speech? Looked like the same kind of helmet used to save Masie Williams right? I can't help but feel they wanted us to notice

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

FunLover18 wrote: »

Anyone else notice helmet in the room behind the doctor when he was making that big speech? Looked like the same kind of helmet used to save Masie Williams right? I can't help but feel they wanted us to notice

Yeah... I noticed that.

It could just be that Clara, who seems to have some sort of working relationship with UNIT, brings stuff back there after they've been on adventures?

You have a theory?

FunLover18

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote:

You have a theory?

Unfortunately not but it just seemed TOO obvious to be an Easter egg. It was really shoved in our faces.

SueBoom

Christ, Coleman was excellent in this episode. Outstanding.

will56

Anyone else prefer when Doctor who takes a more serious tone like the past couple of episodes and less Monster of the week ?

I think Capaldi and Coleman are so much better when they have dialogue and writing like this episode to work with. Even my wife was commenting on Clara and Zygella/Bonny being very different characters - not just Coleman doing her hair differently

Loved the Doctor's speech about war !

Eugene Norman

Good episode.

The longest month. Very foreboding. If he kills or traps another companion I think he can't really justify taking on anymore.

Penn

ixoy wrote: »

This is what I've thought since the second episode of this season. When the Doctor saw Clara trapped in the Dalek he said something like "Oh Clara" with a world of sorrow in his voice.
Then suddenly we've cut to a perfectly happy Clara, out of the Dalek with no word of how she got out. I'm guessing she didn't.

I was thinking you might be right, but then at the start of that two-parter, the older black woman from UNIT is there. If she was killed in the Zygon attack, then it would have to take place after the Missy/Dalek episodes. But if Clara died in the Missy/Dalek episodes, then the Zygon attack would have had to have happened before the Missy/Dalek episodes, which doesn't account for the woman from UNIT still being alive in those episodes.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

will56 wrote: »

Anyone else prefer when Doctor who takes a more serious tone like the past couple of episodes and less Monster of the week ?

I think Capaldi and Coleman are so much better when they have dialogue and writing like this episode to work with. Even my wife was commenting on Clara and Zygella/Bonny being very different characters - not just Coleman doing her hair differently

Loved the Doctor's speech about war !

I think I've said it in every episode thread this year... possibly last year too.... but since you asked.... I love Capaldi and Coleman together and especially when they're given something meaty to work with. Everyone knows Capaldi is a brilliant actor but I think he really got to show it in this episode. I saw somewhere, possibly The Guardian, call that speech his defining moment as The Doctor. Coleman was excellent too and I still think it's a shame they wasted her for an entire series alongside Matt Smith. I was reading something yesterday about Capaldi sort of convincing her to stay on for this series because he didn't want her to leave so soon after he arrived. I'm glad it worked.... even if it means she now gets a rather unpleasant ending.

Penn wrote: »

I was thinking you might be right, but then at the start of that two-parter, the older black woman from UNIT is there. If she was killed in the Zygon attack, then it would have to take place after the Missy/Dalek episodes. But if Clara died in the Missy/Dalek episodes, then the Zygon attack would have had to have happened before the Missy/Dalek episodes, which doesn't account for the woman from UNIT still being alive in those episodes.

The other thing I'm thinking is if she is already dead then The Doctor should know when and how she dies therefore he shouldn't be worried about her all the time, and shouldn't have thought she was dead when Bonnie told him she was.

Unless.... these adventures hadn't happened up to the point she died and they're now bonus adventures meaning she could still die in them.... ?

EDIT: But now I'm also thinking about the scene where Missy and Clara find the Doctor in the first episode this series and they think he's about to die and she says something like "which one of us is about to die?":eek:

Angron

I ended up missing the start of the episode live, so out of curiosity how did the good Doctor avoid missile death on the plane?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Angron wrote: »

I ended up missing the start of the episode live, so out of curiosity how did the good Doctor avoid missile death on the plane?

Real Clara was trapped inside a kind of dream state thing where she was basically at home in her flat. She could see (through the TV) and hear some of the things that Bonnie was doing and realised she could influence what Bonnie did through sheer power of will. So basically she shook the telly a bit which made Bonnie miss with the first missile and then managed to stop her pulling the trigger long enough on the second missile to allow the Doctor and Osgood to parachute out of the plane.

I guess they left the crew and the captive Zygon to die...

Eugene Norman

Dr who normally follows the doctors timeline. With gaps. However it doesn't have to. In the middle of this adventure the doctor could have jumped into a tardis, met future Clara, got her killed and come back to finish up here. A real time traveller could do that all the time.

Probably not, though.

Penn

What's really weird is to think that technically, Clara has been his companion the longest out of anyone. She joined the Doctor when he was around 1200-something, and due to The Time Of The Doctor, he's now over 2000 years old. So you're talking at least 700 years as his "main companion".

tritium

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

The other thing I'm thinking is if she is already dead then The Doctor should know when and how she dies therefore he shouldn't be worried about her all the time, and shouldn't have thought she was dead when Bonnie told him she was.

Unless he's taken her out if her timeline and his concern is partially that she'll die earlier than she should and possible consequences of that....

They've been building up the relationship between the two so much of late that it could make for a pretty harrowing episode when Coleman eventually goes.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

tritium wrote: »

Unless he's taken her out if her timeline and his concern is partially that she'll die earlier than she should and possible consequences of that....

They've been building up the relationship between the two so much of late that it could make for a pretty harrowing episode when Coleman eventually goes.

I think it's funny that the spent all of the episodes she did with Smith trying to instill this idea that Clara was the most important person in the Doctor's life by way of her jumping in his time stream.... or whatever that was... and yet she still just felt like a plot point.
Last series and this series though they've managed to build their relationship to a point where it's believable that she's the most important person in the Doctor's life simply by being Clara.

But yes, basically, it's going to be harrowing, I'm sure.

pixelburp

Wow, that was much better than last weeks, and was capped off by possibly the strongest, most stirring and tragic speech by Capaldi's Doctor - perhaps even any of the 'new' Doctors - to date. Crazy to think that the finale basically consisted of the 12th Doctor emoting and persuading the enemy to think of the consequences and lay down their arms (touching on ideas that those who start the revolution almost never get to live in the promised land). If only real life worked that way, or we had someone that persuasive eh? Again, I can't help but think Doctor Who has become a show that's trying to wriggle out of its own constraints as a colourful, family-oriented adventure

My only quibble was the Osgood mystery: narratively it's cute & mysterious n' all, but the continuation of the whole 'which one are they?' just highlights how the whole Zygon subterfuge can't be that complete that a heatscan/DNA/something wouldn't figure out which one's which. I know that'd be pretty invasive, but I'm fairly confident the Doctor has outed imposters before by dint of his 'magical' powers, so I don't buy the notion that he's in the dark.

As for the obvious foreboding over Clara: I think at this stage it's being laid on so thick, signposted so heavily, I expect an 11th hour reversal of some tragic fate (possibly in the 2nd last episode's cliffhanger?), with the Doctor pulling another Pompei/Waters of Mars and re-writing history so Clara gets to live

therabbittest

I feel like this series so far has been consistently not ****, but not amazing either. I've enjoyed everything for the most part, but this was the first one of the series that had me really and properly excited because of how brilliant it was.

Magical stuff

pixelburp

One small, incredibly nerdy point this particular old-school fan enjoyed was the 12th Doc referring to the Zygon gas as 'The imbecile's gas'. The imbecile in question being its inventor, one Harry Sullivan. The doctor had already formed this judgement many, many years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgLgE0Ok3LI

Penn

pixelburp wrote: »

My only quibble was the Osgood mystery: narratively it's cute & mysterious n' all, but the continuation of the whole 'which one are they?' just highlights how the whole Zygon subterfuge can't be that complete that a heatscan/DNA/something wouldn't figure out which one's which. I know that'd be pretty invasive, but I'm fairly confident the Doctor has outed imposters before by dint of his 'magical' powers, so I don't buy the notion that he's in the dark.

I thought that's what it was leading to, where at the very end The Doctor would reveal he knew all along which Osgood was which, he was just testing Osgood to see if she'd still keep it secret even from him.

Busi_Girl08

pixelburp wrote: »

As for the obvious foreboding over Clara: I think at this stage it's being laid on so thick, signposted so heavily, I expect an 11th hour reversal of some tragic fate (possibly in the 2nd last episode's cliffhanger?), with the Doctor pulling another Pompei/Waters of Mars and re-writing history so Clara gets to live

My biggest fear going by this theory is that she will get a Donna-style ending.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Busi_Girl08 wrote: »

My biggest fear going by this theory is that she will get a Donna-style ending.

What happened to Donna?

Busi_Girl08

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

What happened to Donna?

After she absorbed all the Doctor's knowledge he wiped her mind of any memory of him and anything to do with him, all the things she did with him, and left her back to her very mundane life.

Probably one of the most tragic endings for a companion.

I just hope that Moffat won't go down that road with Clara, wipe her memory/change timeline, etc. It will just be very cop-outy.

Also I just can't go through that pain again.

Angron

At least she won the lotto though.