Series 9, Episode 7 | Part 1 of 2 | First broadcast: 31 October 2015 | Writer: Peter Harness | Director: Daniel Nettheim
Cast
- Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor
- Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald / Bonnie
- Ingrid Oliver as Osgood
- Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart
- Rebecca Front as Colonel Walsh
- Jaye Griffiths as Jac
- Gretchen Egolf as Norlander
Summary
Two years after twenty million shapeshifting Zygons settled peacefully on Earth in disguise under a treaty forged in “The Day of the Doctor,” a radicalized splinter faction seizes control of Zygon High Command, kidnaps UNIT scientist Osgood, and declares its intent to abandon hiding and wage open war on humanity. The Doctor, using his emergency status as President of Earth, flies to the fictional nation of Turmezistan to rescue Osgood as the rebels ambush UNIT soldiers disguised as their own friends and family, while in New Mexico, UNIT commander Kate Stewart discovers an entire town emptied by the Zygons, save for a sheriff who is herself a Zygon in disguise. Back in London, an underground Zygon splinter cell abducts Clara Oswald and replaces her with a duplicate named Bonnie, and by episode’s end, as Bonnie coldly informs the Doctor of the deaths of his allies, she fires a missile directly at his plane, leaving his fate in question going into the second half of the story.
Interesting Facts
- This is the first Zygon story since their debut in the 1975 classic serial “Terror of the Zygons,” and was personally conceived by showrunner Steven Moffat, who worked closely with writer Peter Harness to craft a “paranoid global conspiracy thriller” touching on radicalization, immigration, and terrorism.
- The story significantly expands Ingrid Oliver’s recurring character Osgood, revealing that two versions (one human, one Zygon) existed since “The Day of the Doctor,” with one having been killed in the previous series’ “Death in Heaven.”
- Jenna Coleman spends most of the episode playing Bonnie, a Zygon impersonating Clara, a twist praised by critics as a well-executed reveal, though some felt it exposed how thin Clara’s own characterization had become by this point.
- Filming took place across numerous real Welsh locations doubling for New Mexico and the fictional Turmezistan, including MoD Caerwent (also used in “Before the Flood”) and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands standing in for the American town of Truth or Consequences.
- The episode is the first half of a two-part story concluding in “The Zygon Inversion,” and both episodes were later adapted into a single novelisation by Peter Harness in 2023.
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