The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion
Nov. 16th, 2015 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatThe Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion seems to have been a bit of a marmite story. Some people have loved it and some people have hated it. We really enjoyed it, though it is hard to deny that it owes much of its DNA to the big dumb two parter I have frequently complained of in former seasons.
So to get the bits that didn't work so well out of the way. Like many a big dumb two parter, the story revolves around the invasion (even if this is an invasion from within*) of a classic Doctor Who monster and has at least one eye firmly fixed upon the delivery of action and spectacle as a driver for the story (mostly the spectacle is not too dumb, though the way a bunch of trained UNIT soldiers who are well aware their foe can duplicate their relatives, nevertheless manage not only to fall for the ruse but meekly follow figures who they are well aware could easily be dangerous enemies into an enclosed space is dumb even for a big dumb two parter). Many of the events probably happen simply in order to deliver an image and keep the action moving around. As a result the dots are not necessarily joined as well as they might be - in the The Zygon Invasion there is a strong hint that the death of one Osgood unhinged the other and may have precipitated events, this turns out to be largely irrelevant, arguably not even exploited enough to count as a red herring. The whole business with the two boxes is the kind of elaborate and stupid plan one expects more of a Doctor Who villain than the Doctor himself and it is never explained how the buttons in the box came to be labelled `Truth' and `Consequences' when we are earlier led to believe that the town's significance is a Zygon ploy more than anything else. Lastly, while it is a well-worn trope in this kind of genre TV that a heartfelt conversion to the cause of good not only absolves all sins, but also voids any need to apply the due process of law to investigate your actions, the magical thinking involved in this attitude seemed particularly obvious here, possibly because the story never attempted to make us sympathise with Bonnie's point of view. I'd argue that the lack of any real attempt to sympathetically present her viewpoint is also a weakness when asking us to believe that the Doctor has talked her around (even if he did have to try 15 times).
One the plus side, the structure of the first episode, focused as it is around the reveal of the true extent of the threat works pretty well as a slow build. We were definitely on the edge of our seats and eager for more as the credits rolled. The second episode is more uneven and I was tempted to list it in the minuses but it is structured around the Doctor's monologue to Bonnie and Kate Stewart and I suspect stands or falls on whether you bought into the monologue. To be honest I thought it was excellent, and a demonstration of a great deal of trust in Capaldi's acting - I'm not sure any other actor in the role has been given a sequence like it, where to an extent the show suspends even a nod at realism and allows straightforward dramatic speechifying. I was interested, given NLSS Child had complained of "too much talking about morals" the week before, whether she would have the same complaint here. She did not and I suspect it is all in the delivery. I liked the Osgood character too, which has evolved from something of a stock character (Moffat is fond of his Doctor fangirls) into someone with an agenda of her own and a quietly determined way of pursuing it which contrasts strongly with that other stock character of a "fiesty" women.
The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion also forms a nice coda to Day of the Doctor where the sudden abandonment of the Zygon plot line was probably the story's biggest flaw.
*With its subtext of how one deals with refugees you have settled in your communities whose younger generation radicalise into a fifth column one can't help wondering if it would have been transmitted at all had it been scheduled one two-part slot later in the season.
Despite some great moments though, and good ideas, this is too uneven to become a classic piece of Doctor Who. But it was a welcome break from the sombre tone of the stories around it, and gave a sense that the show was enjoying itself which it has often failed to do of late.
So to get the bits that didn't work so well out of the way. Like many a big dumb two parter, the story revolves around the invasion (even if this is an invasion from within*) of a classic Doctor Who monster and has at least one eye firmly fixed upon the delivery of action and spectacle as a driver for the story (mostly the spectacle is not too dumb, though the way a bunch of trained UNIT soldiers who are well aware their foe can duplicate their relatives, nevertheless manage not only to fall for the ruse but meekly follow figures who they are well aware could easily be dangerous enemies into an enclosed space is dumb even for a big dumb two parter). Many of the events probably happen simply in order to deliver an image and keep the action moving around. As a result the dots are not necessarily joined as well as they might be - in the The Zygon Invasion there is a strong hint that the death of one Osgood unhinged the other and may have precipitated events, this turns out to be largely irrelevant, arguably not even exploited enough to count as a red herring. The whole business with the two boxes is the kind of elaborate and stupid plan one expects more of a Doctor Who villain than the Doctor himself and it is never explained how the buttons in the box came to be labelled `Truth' and `Consequences' when we are earlier led to believe that the town's significance is a Zygon ploy more than anything else. Lastly, while it is a well-worn trope in this kind of genre TV that a heartfelt conversion to the cause of good not only absolves all sins, but also voids any need to apply the due process of law to investigate your actions, the magical thinking involved in this attitude seemed particularly obvious here, possibly because the story never attempted to make us sympathise with Bonnie's point of view. I'd argue that the lack of any real attempt to sympathetically present her viewpoint is also a weakness when asking us to believe that the Doctor has talked her around (even if he did have to try 15 times).
One the plus side, the structure of the first episode, focused as it is around the reveal of the true extent of the threat works pretty well as a slow build. We were definitely on the edge of our seats and eager for more as the credits rolled. The second episode is more uneven and I was tempted to list it in the minuses but it is structured around the Doctor's monologue to Bonnie and Kate Stewart and I suspect stands or falls on whether you bought into the monologue. To be honest I thought it was excellent, and a demonstration of a great deal of trust in Capaldi's acting - I'm not sure any other actor in the role has been given a sequence like it, where to an extent the show suspends even a nod at realism and allows straightforward dramatic speechifying. I was interested, given NLSS Child had complained of "too much talking about morals" the week before, whether she would have the same complaint here. She did not and I suspect it is all in the delivery. I liked the Osgood character too, which has evolved from something of a stock character (Moffat is fond of his Doctor fangirls) into someone with an agenda of her own and a quietly determined way of pursuing it which contrasts strongly with that other stock character of a "fiesty" women.
The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion also forms a nice coda to Day of the Doctor where the sudden abandonment of the Zygon plot line was probably the story's biggest flaw.
*With its subtext of how one deals with refugees you have settled in your communities whose younger generation radicalise into a fifth column one can't help wondering if it would have been transmitted at all had it been scheduled one two-part slot later in the season.
Despite some great moments though, and good ideas, this is too uneven to become a classic piece of Doctor Who. But it was a welcome break from the sombre tone of the stories around it, and gave a sense that the show was enjoying itself which it has often failed to do of late.
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Date: 2015-11-18 02:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-11-18 02:57 pm (UTC)I think the comparison to The Hungry Earth/In Cold Blood is both valid and interesting, so I don't have any problem with