In which the truce between Zygon refugees and humans is at risk of being shattered. The Zygons who had emerged from the paintings in the National Gallery's under-gallery had entered into a pact with UNIT, assisted by three incarnations of the Doctor. They would be permitted to make new lives for themselves on Earth in human form. The truce was to be overseen by two versions of UNIT's scientific adviser Petronella Osgood. No-one knew which was Zygon and which was human - if they were even of different species at all, as one of them had subsequently been killed by Missy.
Additionally, the Doctor had provided an object known as the Osgood Box, whose nature was unknown.
Now, a group of radicalised young Zygons is beginning to rebel against the strictures imposed upon them. They wish to live openly as Zygons, and are prepared to overturn the truce to achieve their aims.
The Doctor receives a message from Osgood warning that "Operation Double" is at risk. She was in the New Mexican town of Truth and Consequences, and has since gone missing.
The Doctor goes to meet the two Zygon leaders, who appear as a pair of young schoolgirls. He then sees them being abducted by the rebels, and goes to see Kate Stewart of UNIT.
She has received footage of Osgood being held captive by Zygon rebels in a remote village in Turmezistan.
On leaving her flat Clara encounters the son of her neighbours. He tells her that something is wrong with his mother and father, and she decides to speak to them. In his flat, she is assured that everything is fine.
She later joins the Doctor and Kate at what had been the Zygon command centre. Its controls have been removed. UNIT member Jac informs them that they have received footage of the two Zygon leaders being executed by the rebels.
Kate mentions to Clara that the Doctor had confiscated a gas, created by his former companion Harry Sullivan, which killed Zygons.
As Osgood went missing in the town of Truth and Consequences, Kate Stewart decides to start her investigations there, whilst the Doctor will travel to Turmezistan to meet Colonel Walsh and her troops.
Jac and Clara meanwhile investigate strange disappearances across London. One of these is in Clara's own block - the family of the young boy. They are seen getting into a lift on CCTV, but do not emerge on any floor. They discover that the lift has been adapted to go down to a subterranean level. Jac calls in UNIT troops.
In the tunnels beneath the city she is shocked to find a pod in which Clara is held in an unconscious state - realising too late that it is a Zygon duplicate who she has been accompanying all morning. Zygons attack and kill Jac and the UNIT soldiers.
In Turmezistan, the Doctor wishes to free Osgood without bloodshed. Colonel Walsh instead orders a drone strike, but the operator refuses to launch the attack after seeing family members emerge from the church building which appears to be the Zygon rebel HQ. All of the UNIT troops then see people they know emerge. The Doctor tries to warn that these are duplicates, but is ignored. All the soldiers are killed. The Doctor gets inside and finds Osgood and they escape, managing to bring a Zygon captive with them.
They go to the airport and embark on a UNIT aeroplane to head back to England.
In Truth and Consequences, Kate has met police officer Norlander, who explains about the strangers who attacked the town. On ascertaining that Kate is alone, Norlander reveals herself to be a Zygon.
On the aircraft, the captive explains that the invasion is well under way, and has been in progress for many months.
On a headland on the south coast, the Zygon duplicate of Clara is waiting for the UNIT aircraft to pass over. She uses the name Bonnie. She had earlier raided a UNIT house and taken some weapons, but has not managed to locate information about the Osgood Box.
As it passes overhead, she fires a ground-to-air rocket, aimed at the Doctor's aircraft...
The shot goes wide, as Clara has found that she can influence the Zygon which is mentally linked to her. A second rocket hits its target, and the aircraft plunges towards the sea. Unseen by Bonnie, the Doctor and Osgood are able to exit via parachute before it crashes, and land on the beach.
Bonnie heads for London where she forces a Zygon man named Etoine to reveal his true nature - ensuring that this is filmed.
The Doctor and Osgood see this footage and head for the area, locating the man hiding in a supermarket. Distraught at having his new life taken away, the exposed Zygon elects to kill himself.
Bonnie reverts to Zygon form as she wakes Clara to remonstrate with her. As well as trying to misdirect the rocket, Clara had also made her unconsciously send messages to the Doctor.
On leaving the supermarket the Doctor and Osgood are captured by Kate, who is leading a squad of Zygons.
Bonnie goes to the Black Archive beneath the Tower of London in search of the Osgood Box, and Kate brings the Doctor and Osgood there. Bonnie is shocked to be confronted by two boxes - one red, one blue.
Bonnie has brought a pair of Zygon guards with her, as well as the pod containing Clara. Kate reveals that she is not a Zygon duplicate. She killed the Norlander Zygon and assumed her role.
The Doctor explains they were called the Osgood Boxes because there are two of them. Each contains a pair of buttons - one marked "Truth" and the other "Consequences". One will destroy every Zygon on Earth, one will destroy this building, one will unmask unmask every Zygon, and the fourth will lock all Zygons in their human form. Kate takes one box and Bonnie the other, but the Doctor urges them to withdraw. Even if one side wins, the cycle of violence will continue as the winning side will simply find a new enemy to fight.
His words reach their target and both pull back. Bonnie orders the truce restored. The Doctor explains that the boxes were empty, and once again he has employed the Archive's memory wiping gas.
Later, Bonnie has now adopted the likeness of Osgood, so that the two can fully observe the truce. The Doctor wonders if both might now be Zygons, but neither will say...
Terror of the Zygons was one of the most popular stories of the classic era, featuring the dream team of Tom Baker, Lis Sladen and Ian Marter as the Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Harry. Whilst the Skarasen model was disappointing, the Zygon costumes - the work of Oscar winning designer James Acheson - were highly regarded. Fans had been clamouring for a return for years. One of these fans was David Tennant. Finally, Steven Moffat brought them back for the 50th Anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor. They were supposed to be the main villains for this story, but it never felt like that - attention being drawn towards the Daleks and the last day of the Time War. The story had ended with the Zygons and UNIT establishing a truce that would allow 20 million Zygon refugees to remain on Earth.
One of the Zygons had taken on Osgood's form, and Osgood had been seen to be killed later in Death in Heaven. However, we did not know if this was the human Osgood or the Zygon replica. (Moffat claimed in an interview that it was the human Osgood who died, as the Zygon one would have been harder to kill, but this may simply have been a lie).
All this left room for a sequel. Moffat had actually conceived the idea for this story before he wrote the 50th Anniversary story, so in some ways that was a prequel to this.
The main inspiration is all too obvious. The Islamic State were very much in the news at the time, and many countries such as the UK were seeing the radicalisation of young Muslims, some of whom flocked to join ISIS or remained at home and contemplated terrorist plots. Hostages were being executed - often on camera - and training camps were being set up in friendly countries.
The story also picked up on concerns about immigration and the conflict of integration versus maintaining your own culture within a foreign community.
All of this is reflected in this story, which has as its basis the radicalisation of some younger Zygons, who execute their leaders, who they accuse of abandoning their core values, on camera, and who have taken over a settlement in another country to establish a base.
UNIT elect to attack using drones, which were also in the news as the latest form of remote warfare.
The idea of the Zygon pods containing duplicates or the real person was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which had been an inspiration for the original Zygon story in 1975. That movie had itself been inspired by fears of foreign infiltration, in the form of Communism, during the Cold War.
The New Mexico police officer Norlander is Gretchen Egolf.
Rebecca Front, best known for comedy roles as well as being Inspector Lewis' boss, is Colonel Walsh.
(This character was originally going to be General Bambera - the promoted officer from Battlefield).
The Zygon man who is forced to transform - Etoine - is played by Nicholas Asbury.
The human forms of the Zygon commanders are played by twin girls - Cleopatra and Sasha Dickens.
This series' story arc has revolved around something known as the Hybrid. In this story the reference is to Osgood, who may be human, Zygon or both.
The initial drafts had lots more references to recent stories - including an appearance by schoolgirl Courtney Woods, who would now be a freedom fighter. There would have been a whole baby-farming sub-plot in New Mexico involving a character named Blinovitch. Harness had previously attempted to have Courtney eventually marry Blinovitch (creator of the famous Limitation Theory) in his Kill The Moon.
Overall, a globe-trotting political thriller of a story, which will be best remembered for the Twelfth Doctor's remarkable speech about the futility of war in the second instalment - one of Capaldi's defining moments.
Things you might like to know:
- Up until quite late in the day, the episode titles were going to be of the more traditional structure "Invasion of the Zygons" and "Inversion of the Zygons".
- Truth or Consequences is a real town in the US state of New Mexico, not far from Roswell. In March 1950 it renamed itself from Hot Springs in response to a challenge by the host of the TV quiz show Truth or Consequences. Ralph Edwards claimed that he would present an edition of the show from any town which changed its name to that of the programme.
- Director Daniel Nettheim had previously worked on the Australian K9 series.
- His uncle was the actor David Nettheim, who had played Fedorin in that earlier globe-trotting political thriller - The Enemy of the World.
- The Doctor's Union Jack parachute was a deliberate nod to the pre-credits segment of the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
- The village in the fictitious Turmezistan was an army training site near Sennybridge, which had previously been seen as the Trenzalore township of Christmas in The Time of the Doctor. In the initial drafts the action would have taken place in Azerbaijan.
- The Truth or Consequences scenes were filmed in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, at the same time as scenes for The Magician's Apprentice and for Hell Bent.
- In Mawdryn Undead, the Brigadier had mentioned that Harry Sullivan was doing top secret things at Porton Down, the UK government research labs in Wiltshire. This was the inspiration for "Sullivan's Gas" which reportedly killed Zygons.
- When the twin girls are abducted, the Doctor starts to run after the van then pulls up short, turning back to camera with a grim look on his face. This wasn't actually acting - he had damaged his knee, which would require surgery.
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