Rate and Discuss: The Zygon Invasion

[Rob McCow]

Rah!

[SiHart]

Awesome. One of the best. Clever, allegorical and scary. Proper good Doctor Who!

[egdcltd]

Was that an oblique reference to Harry Sullivan I caught?

[SiHart]

I believe so. Ties in with Harry Sullivan's War!

[Dino]

Ah, so it's my turn to be out of sync with the rest of the forum this week then!
Well, it was a great idea. Just let down by some criminally bad performances. I mean, really "That was the best take they got?".
And I don't really go for "Well let's see you do better!"* arguments because I'm not an actor!
But there was just more it got wrong than it got right. The Zygons were great. There was a great sense of menace. But it just fell down all over the place.
Episode 2 might turn things around, but it's got it's work cut out for it!
I haven't voted yet. I'm hovering around 5. Maybe if I watch it again it'll either improve or all the problems I had with it will be magnified.
I still love this forum though! It at least allows dissenting voices unlike the big huge Doctor Who forum that shares the same initials as the old name for this country.
I have enjoyed this series more than last years. But this one just didn't work for me sadly.

*= Which to be fair, none of you have said. That's why I like this forum!

[Nyder]

So he wears question mark underpants now..... that really made oi laff in what was otherwise a scary, creepy, behind-the-sofa type story. And thoroughly enjoyable too


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[Andrew Curnow]

Nice to see Hartnell on the UNIT safe house - another missing adventure perhaps?

[Andrew Curnow]

I enjoyed it a great deal, but it felt oddly un-Whoy to me. Not (as I've already mentioned on Facebook, in case anybody starts getting deja vu halfway through this sentence) in an (IMHO) bad, Seeds of Doom-y, 'has this guy ever even seen Doctor Who?' kind of way, just in the 'feel' of it. Unusually few laughs for 'Nu-Who', and the 'X Files'-style place name captions also, as well as the various foreign locales, all gave it a different tone.

What did strike me, slightly unfortunately, is that we seem to be reaching the point where Wales has run out of locations! So we got the tunnels from Flatline, and what looked very like Rose's stairs, as well as the playground from Army of Ghosts (I think).

That's a minor quibble though, and it was a very tense episode - hopefully part two will be as good, and unusually for modern-day Who, it looks like it's going to be a straightforward two-parter. That is to say, 'there's a missile heading for the plane' is a good, old-fashioned cliffhanger, it's not a gamechanger to make part two radically different to part one.

Whether Kate is really dead, and whatever Jaye Griffiths character is called, and which Osgood is which, I don't know. Exciting stuff though (but I agree with the very sensible Mr Hart's comment on Twitter, that the new Zygons don't look quite as good as the old - I think it's because it's more obviously an actor in the face mask.)

[Alex]

Thought that was a very solid episode, with quite an epic scale, but it was let down by a few dodgy performances, with Rebecca Front being a tad one note and disappointing, and a slightly saggy middle section. There was a lot to enjoy though, and I especially liked the ISIS / Political commentary. 7/10.

[Perry Vale]

It continues to get worse, 4/10 from me. To be honest it was probably no surprise, as it picked up on the (IMO) worst aspect of the anniversary special.

An uninvolving and over the top plot. Rebecca Front, one of my favourite actresses was very poor here. Surprisingly so, as she's worked so much with Capaldi before. The Clara-swapping was clumsily telegraphed loud and clear, and had no impact when revealed.

I just don't care about any of the characters, Kate LS or Osgood. Or Clara, now.

Can't really think of anything to praise, and can't see the second part being able to redeem itself in my affections.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I gave a 6/10. Hmm - wierd feeling about this. It was so bluntly an ISIS parable, it felt a bit "meh". I guess I like my moral lessons to be a bit more subtle.

But mainly it suffered from being an obvious two-parter, where they were just trying to keep the plot plodding until the big reveal.

On a more fun note - this has been the umpteenth story in the new series where Unit has taken seriously heavy casualties. In Stolen Earth and this story, they seem to be virtually wiped out (the UK division). They must have a seriously good Human Resources team.

[I now want to have a go at doing some UNIT recruiting / health and safety posters].

[Si Hunt]

Just awful. It started off with an obscure bit of continuity followed by a confusing bit of exposition, leaving me without a clue what it was about (and I'm a fan!). Two Osgoods, one died but it's okay because both were "hybrids" (or something) WHAT?

We then had some walking down Exposition Boulevard telling us all about an invasion that had just happened - this is a two parter! Why can't we see all this?! It's not like they haven't got the time. The rest of the episode was equally confusing and involving. More stupid electric guitar and we're now at the point where we can't walk into a building without a picture of William Hartnell hanging on the wall. The show is up it's own arse!

It may have suffered from us having just watched Spectre which was oddly similar but about £4 billion more expensive. But one other difference was that Spectre put us into a story and then let it unfold so we could follow it - Doctor Who was just all over the place.

It's frankly no wonder DW did poorly in the ratings - and this time we can't blame the rugby or the weather. The X-Factor is acknowledged to be a failing prospect, and trailed strictly by 4m viewers - and Doctor Who couldn't even beat that. It's basically the third option of choice on a Saturday night. Out of, to be fair, three main choices.

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

For the first time in a very long time, they've got me wanting to come back next week. I do agree with Mssrs. Hart and Curnow about the masks - once or twice the actor's face was seen turning before the skull - but a tense story nonetheless. Because of the Zygons ' pretending to be the soldiers' families going on a bit I'll still give it 8/10.

[SiHart]

Well this one has certainly divided opinion

[Antony Cox]

I like the Zygons as a concept, but I was completely bored throughout this episode - not good!

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

I rather liked this episode overall.
I'm not a fan of NuWho UNIT; I've never really felt any connection with them. I'm not sure why; it may be that they are too large and well equipped with all the latest technology and whizzy computers. Perhaps the UNIT of old was too, but I always got the impression that they were a smaller outfit who drafted in the regular army to boost their numbers when required! I don't like Kate LS as a character as in my honest opinion I don't see that she has much character!
Having said that I though UNIT were ok this week.
I'm not sure that I understood the hybrid stuff either; I just assumed it was a way of saying that the two Osgoods had bonded and considered themselves to be both human and Zygon (as neither of them knew what they were as such)?!?!
The Zygons were better served here than in the 50th anniversary special (did I imagine it or are the voices closer to the originals now compared to the anniversary special)?
I agree the new series Zygons don't look as good as the originals. I think where they have tried to bulk them up they've inadvertently made them appear more cuddly! It's a it like when they remade Basil Brush a few years back (where Basil's face was fatter and more cute looking as opposed to the thinner more gaunt looking original). I think the original thinner, pointier Zygons look far more frightening.
Capaldi still continues to impress me and his Doctor is more agreeable this year. I don't think we've had a bad episode yet this series (although I agree with Mr Hunt's comments in an earlier thread about them wasting a second chance to do something interesting with all those Daleks!!!
Let's see what happens next week.

[Rob McCow]

I enjoyed it but...

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is the dullest character there has ever been. She sucks the life out of every scene she's in. She's tough, she's bitter, she's boring. Is she trying to be the lead character from Prime Suspect?

Her scenes in Truth or Consequences felt to me like the episode hitting a solid brick wall. Let's have four and a half hours of the most boring woman alive pottering about an empty village, shall we? Then she runs into someone who is so obviously a Zygon, it might as well have been the big blobby monster version wearing a wig and trousers.

Please can Missy push her out of an airplane next week?

[Nyder]

I agree with you Steve - it's hard to get excited when Kate is onscreen!

[Si Hunt]

The good news is, soon she can bore us on audio! With even less exciting scripts.

Si.

[Darren]

5 out of 10

Quite plodding and tedious. The guitar is now beyond tiresome. I didn't like the sledgehammer IS allegory at all. Clara was incredibly annoying. The scene at the church was waayyyyy too long, and why didn't the UNIT Leader run back around the front and open fire on the Zygons instead of letting her team succumb to their fate?
I don't understand "President of the World". He isn't running the worlds resources. Why not just Executive UNIT Leader?
What exactly were they trying to say about Osgood? And why was she wearing the Seventh Doctor's clothes?

[Si Hunt]

Because she's a fan of the Doctor.

I've watched it again. It's been bothering me all week because although there have been episodes I've disliked before, I've never quite felt as uninvolved as I did last week. Watching it again improved it's standing a bit - I think if I'd known they were going for a 'terrorism' take (I didn't read the DWM preview), a sort of surburban thriller, it might have made more sense. But the pacing and explanation was still all over the place. Clara and Jac discover the lift goes down into some caves, and emerge to explore. Next scene, they're back in UNIT control. Next scene, they're back in the caves discovering the Clara cocoon. The flitting about the globe is a bit confusing - I'm sure there are two foreign locations, but they both look a bit similar. The Doctor doesn't actually do much in this episode. We go from a shot of the Zygon guarding Osgood crushed by rocks, and it looks like he's dead. Next scene, they are wheeling a Zygon aboard the presidential plane and I didn't really get it was supposed to be the same one. I can get the UNIT soldier couldn't shoot someone who looks like his Mum, but I didn't buy that he would not only fail to shoot her, but lead his men into the house after her 'at ease', to their deaths. Why didn't he just retreat? And why do humans gets turned into what looks like a pile of moss when they die. What actually IS this?

I would also have had the truce situation set up by, for once, a simple exposition scene. A montage of clips was just confusing, especially as it wasn't exactly clear the first time. Also the peace would fail if just ONE Zygon "went rogue", we were told, and if that happened war would break out. So wasn't there just a small chance, wasn't it in fact, inevitable, that this would happen sooner or later? It's not as if they were a particularly peaceful species anyway, as were were told, as the previous two appearances have shown them trying to take over the Earth. And if the Zygon UNDERCOVER treaty involved them being allowed to assume the duplicate of someone nearby, why didn't everyone on Earth notice that their neighbour/teacher/parent had suddenly acquired a body double?

Okay, those are many questions, but I think above all this is a story which NEEDED to be told simply. The storytelling was just very difficult to follow.

Si.

[Jon Masters]

My review of this one is in the other episodes thread, but I'd just like to add here that I assume the whole immigrant- refugee - Muslim - ISIS allegory was written by a 10 year old who hadn't learnt the meaning of subtlety