C+Q - The Zygon Inversion (2015)
This episode is excellent. Obviously. Let's talk about the speech.
The speech is satisfying for a number of reasons. Reason number 1: if you think for a second that the events of The Day of the Doctor in any way invalidate the Doctor's post-war character development, this scene proves you wrong. Just because he didn't actually push the button during the Time War doesn't mean he wasn't absolutely going to do it until Ten and Eleven stopped him, and it's for this reason that the retroactive introduction of the War Doctor is one of the best moves Steven Moffat has ever made. Moffat didn't invalidate RTD's Time War arc in The Day of the Doctor. In fact, he did the opposite; he made the Time War permanent. The War Doctor now and always will be an incarnation of the Doctor. No matter now whimsical or light-hearted he gets, no matter how many times he regenerates, the Doctor will always have been John Hurt. There will always be a version of the Doctor who was moments away from committing double genocide. By introducing the War Doctor, Steven Moffat has made it impossible for any future writer to ever reverse the effects of the Time War, because it's part of the character now. The war is lodged firmly in the Doctor's DNA as much as William Hartnell or Tom Baker or David Tennant is. And if you ever need proof of that, watch this speech.
Reason number 2: It shows Peter Capaldi just being damn good as the Doctor. Plain and simple, he's phenomenal. I'm struggling to think of another Doctor actor with this amount of sheer skill in the part, aside from maybe Eccleston. After all the enthusiasm I felt when he was initially cast and the subsequent fallout from some parts of fandom who complained his portrayal was too dark and serious, it's immensely satisfying to know that my faith was justified. That's not to say that you personally aren't allowed to hate Capaldi's performance (one more time from the top: OPINIONS ARE SUBJECTIVE AND ANYTHING YOU READ IN ANY OF MY REVIEWS THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU BELIVE I THINK OTHERWISE IS EITHER HYPERBOLE OR A JOKE!!!) but I always thought his casting was a stroke of genius and it's nice to see that genius in action.
Reason number 3: it's the big finale this whole two-parter has been building up to and instead of a big set piece, the entire conflict is resolved with words. There's no action scene or CGI explosion. Instead, it's a classic example of the Doctor talking his way out of a tricky situation. This is, at its heart, the reason why I fell in love with Doctor Who and the reason why I continue to watch it while many others bailed out of the Moffat era a long time ago (see the above bracket for more information). Simply put, after some bad moments in Series 6 and 7, I think Doctor Who is back in business and it feels so satisfying to say that. Doctor Who, right now, is fucking great.
In fact the only real negative thing I have to say about this two parter is that Kate Stewart and Osgood still haven't been developed at all. Steven Moffat, as much as I love him, has a real problem when it comes to fleshing out the supporting cast. The Paternoster Gang for example kept being brought back again and again but we never learned anything new about them. At the very least I expected Kate and Osgood to get a bit more of a distinct personality by the end of this adventure given that it was two whole episodes. I'm not asking for anything major, just some small details about them, a few key personality traits, and one or two little sentences of backstory to make them feel more like people. The only new information we got is that Osgood's first name is Petronella, which is fine but not enough to justify bringing the character back and giving her the main companion role in Clara's absence. She definitely has good chemistry with Capaldi but I can't help but feel like Clara should've had those moments, especially in her last ever series. Also, am I the only person who doesn't want Osgood to be a companion? She's not a terrible character, she's just completely unremarkable. Her only defining trait is that she's an in-universe Doctor Who fan, and that would get on my nerves if she was in every episode, idolising the Doctor and dressing like him all the time. We need companions like Clara who are independent and have a life outside the TARDIS instead of someone to stand around and tell the Doctor how great he is. Osgood is an okay character but she's not companion material. In other news, why does the Doctor keep asking her if she's Zygon or human? It was okay at first but by the end he just comes across as an asshole for thinking it even matters.
Other than that, this review is basically going to devolve into a list of great moments from the episode. The guy committing suicide is something the episode needed. I mean, I know it was an alien who zapped himself into dust, but thematically, tonally, and...you know...factually, it was a suicide. I'm glad this was included in the episode because for the final speech to work we needed to have seen at least one Zygon who just wanted to live in peace and was put at risk by Bonnie's uprising. You might argue that Osgood also shows that Zygons can be good too, but for me that doesn't really work because Osgood is always in human form and her species is ambiguous. As sci-fi fans, we're all hardwired to think that the more human a creature looks, the friendlier and more civilized it must be, which is why for this episode to work it needed to show us a sympathetic Zygon character who looked like an alien. This two parter really fleshes out the Zygons and makes them more than just another uniformly warlike alien race. I'm hoping we get a lot more Zygon episodes in the future as they certainly have potential and they'd break up the monotony of Daleks and Cybermen every year.
As much as I want to see more interaction between the Doctor and Clara before she goes, I will admit that Jenna Coleman gets possibly the best material she's had all year in this episode. The weird psychological mind flat she wakes up in is really well done, as are her conversations with Bonnie. It's been so great to watch Clara's slow development from The Bells of Saint John to now as she's turned into as capable an adventurer as the Doctor. Looking at the ways she handled Skaldak the Ice Warrior in Series 7, the Half-Faced Man in Series 8, and now Bonnie in Series 9 shows a clear progression in her character that's been both beautifully written and beautifully performed over the years. I'll be genuinely sad to see Clara go given how much potential her arc still has.
Series 9 has been a blast so far. We've had five incredible episodes (The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar, Under the Lake, The Zygon Invasion, and The Zygon Inversion), two good episodes (The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived), and only one meh episode (Before the Flood). My only real criticism of the series as a whole is that Clara and the Doctor haven't really had enough time together. Then again I can't really complain when both Clara and the Doctor's solo scenes are so entertaining to watch. Here's hoping the last four episodes can bring everything to a fitting conclusion...
Next: Sleep No More