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 This story sees the return of the Zygons, who were last seen in "The Day of The Doctor". It also sees the return of Osgood, who last appeared in "Dark Water/Death in Heaven" during an invasion of Earth by an army of Cybermen led by Missy - the new female incarnation of The Master.
This story served as a sequel to events set up in the 50th Anniversary Special "The Day of The Doctor" having a beginning sequence dedicated to the relative plot point of this story.
This story continued the thematic concept of The Doctor apparently facing death, with the end of the first episode setting up yet another opportunity for The Doctor to reflect on his mortality.
This two-part story was written by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat. Peter Harness previously wrote "Kill the Moon". He also wrote for Wallander and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
This story was produced by Peter Bennett and directed by Daniel Nettheim – who has previously directed episodes of Line of Duty, Glue and Whitechapel. Although this is Daniel Nettheim's first work on Doctor Who in 2010 he directed four episodes of K9 - the British/Australian television series that featured an updated version of K9 - The Doctor's robot dog.
Having being killed by Missy in last season’s finale "Dark Water/Death in Heaven" The Doctor’s biggest fan and UNIT scientist Osgood, played by Ingrid Oliver, has been brought back.
It has been revealed that when Ingrid Oliver read the script for "Dark Water/Death in Heaven" she was ‘gutted’ to find her character was to be killed by Missy! At that point she did not know that Steven Moffat intended her return. In fact he deliberately wrote the scene in "The Day of The Doctor" where Osgood and her Zygon ‘sister’ bond, intending it to be a central element of a future adventure with the shape-shifting aliens.
Steven Moffat, Lead Writer and Executive Producer, stated that ‘Osgood is back, fresh from her recent murder at the end of last series. We recently confirmed that Osgood was definitely dead and not returning - but in a show about time travel, anything can happen. The brilliant Ingrid Oliver is back in action. This time though, can The Doctor trust his number one fan?’
Speaking on set, Ingrid Oliver commented on her reappearance ‘As every actor who’s worked on Doctor Who will tell you, there’s always the secret hope you'll get the call asking you to come back. To actually receive that call is both unexpected and brilliant. The word ‘honour’ gets banded about a lot, but it really is, it’s an honour. Especially because I was so sure Osgood was a goner after the last series!’
Also joining the guest cast is Jemma Redgrave, who once again plays UNIT's Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.
The BAFTA award-winning Rebecca Front joins also joins the guest cast. This is Rebecca Front’s first appearance in Doctor Who. She is well-known for playing regular roles in Inspector Lewis and more recently the BBC Four sitcom Up the Women. In the BBC’s Death Comes to Pemberley she took the role of Mrs Bennet, mother of Lydia Wickham, played by Jenna Coleman. She also previously starred alongside Peter Capaldi in the BBC's political comedy series The Thick of It. She also appeared in two of Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio stories: "The Mind's Eye", as Major Takol, and "The Jupiter Conjunction", as Patricia Walton.
Aidan Cook, who plays a Zygon in this story, will be a familiar name to Doctor Who fans. He has appeared in a number of previous stories including "The Rings of Akhaten", "The Time of The Doctor" and "The Day of The Doctor" which saw his first stint as a Zygon! He also played the part of the Crooked Man in "Hide" and played the titular "Mummy on the Orient Express".
Peter Capaldi is on record as saying that he ‘loved’ Bonnie and thought Jenna Coleman played this role brilliantly.
The read through for the first episode, "The Zygon Invasion", took place on the 29th April 2015 and filming started on the 5th May and included studio shoots plus location work in Wales and (for the New Mexico scenes).
There really is a place called Truth or Consequences in Sierra County, New Mexico, USA and, as Bonnie indicates, it was named after a NBC radio program in 1950. Originally called Hot Springs, the city is a popular tourist resort and is known locally as T or C. Incidentally, the country ‘Turmezistan’ is entirely fictional!
The Doctor resumes the position of the 'President of the World' and uses the airplane afforded by that position. Both were previously mentioned in "Dark Water/Death in Heaven". However, when he introduces himself as the President of the World, he is told, 'yes, we know who you are'. This is a continuation of a running joke, from earlier in the revised show, when Prime Minister Harriet Jones was regularly told this after introducing herself. This occurred multiple times in both "The Christmas Invasion" and in "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End".
The line ‘I snogged a Zygon once...’ The Doctor is referring to the events of "The Day of The Doctor" in which he shared a kiss with a Zygon who had assumed the features of Queen Elizabeth I.
A portrait of the First Doctor can be seed displayed by the stairs in the Unit Safe House in South London. It opened to reveal a safe.
The Doctor plays his electric guitar again. He is heard playing the opening to the hymn Amazing Grace (see "The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar", "Under the Lake/Before the Flood" and "The Woman Who Lived").
As well as identifying himself as 'Doctor Disco' The Doctor also calls himself 'Doctor Funkenstein' after a song of the same name by the band Parliament.
The Doctor jokes to Osgood that his real name is Basil and that he is over 2000 years old and so old enough to be the Messiah. The Doctor also jokes around with Bonnie, using puns, calling himself ‘Doctor Pun-tastic’.
The Doctor wears his sonic sunglasses again ("The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar", "Under the Lake/Before the Flood", "The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived").
When Osgood's glasses are broken The Doctor lends her his sonic sunglasses. When doing so he reveals that they keep a browser history – warning Osgood not to look at it.
Osgood's comment that killing The Doctor would require her to shoot him twelve times is both a reference to his limited regeneration cycle (see "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Time of The Doctor") and an indication that The Doctor still possesses a full cycle of regenerations after the events of "The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar".
This story is effectively the second companion-lite story in a row as Clara is revealed to have been kidnapped and replaced with a Zygon duplicate called Bonnie. Therefore Clara only appears at the very beginning of the first episode and during the second.
Clara Oswald claims to have memorised obscure facts to help her win at Trivial Pursuit. She also explains, from her knowledge of this popular trivia quiz board game, how the town of Truth or Consequences got its name from the television game show Truth or Consequences.
As she did in "The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar" Clara is once again shown having authority with UNIT up to and including being able to command UNIT soldiers to use deadly force.
When Clara investigates what’s happened to Sandeep, she goes into his parents’ flat and stands in a room, believing she’s talking to the boy’s father. Just before Bonnie takes her form, a couple of visual clues eerily hint at what is to come... We see Clara reflected in a full-length mirror, meaning that for a moment we glimpse two of her and on the wall to her right there is a solitary mask - indicating something that will disguise a face.
This is the fifth occasion that a companion or assistant has been copied by a Zygon. Kate Stewart and Osgood were both copied in "The Day of The Doctor". As was Harry Sullivan in "Terror of the Zygons" and Lucie Miller in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth").
Clara's flat (or, at least, the building) is seen again (see also "The Time of The Doctor", "Listen" and "Dark Water/Death in Heaven"). She no longer appears to be living in the same building as seen in "Last Christmas".
Clara's voicemail greeting says she's either on the tube or in outer space.
A weapon, that can kill Zygons called Z67, is mentioned. Also named ‘Sullivan’s Gas’ this name suggests a link to the Fourth Doctor’s companion, Harry Sullivan who stopped travelling with the Fourth Doctor (see "Terror of the Zygons"). ‘One of our staff was a naval surgeon...’ Kate Lethbridge-Stewart states when discussing the UNIT member who developed Z67, adding that the medic ‘Worked at Porton Down...’. This further strengthens the Harry Sullivan connection as he was a naval surgeon and in the 1983 Fifth Doctor story "Mawdryn Undead", The Brigadier told The Doctor that Harry had been seconded to NATO and was doing something ‘very hush hush’ at the chemical and biological weapons facility at Porton Down.
The Doctor also refers to Harry Sullivan as ‘the imbecile’ - a reference to the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Revenge of the Cybermen" - where The Doctor shouted ‘Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!’ after Harry Sullivan triggered a rockslide and then tried to remove a Cyberbomb from The Doctor without first deactivating the booby trap.
This story saw the return of Osgood, curiously after her death in the Season Thirty Four (New Series 8) finale "Dark Water/Death in Heaven", with this story revealing that before Missy's Cyberman invasion, Osgood and her Zygon duplicate had become so identical to each other that they refused to say which was the Zygon and which was the human, so making it unknown which Osgood had been killed by Missy.
Following on from her appearances in "The Day of The Doctor" and "Dark Water/Death in Heaven", both Osgoods are shown wearing costume elements of The Doctor's earlier incarnations. In addition to the Fourth Doctor's scarf, one Osgood is shown with a bow tie similar to that worn by the Eleventh Doctor, while the other wears a question mark-decorated tank top similar to that worn by the Seventh Doctor. Both have shirts with question marks on the collar points, a common element of the Fourth Doctor (from "The Leisure Hive" onwards), the Fifth Doctor and the Sixth Doctor. Osgood asks The Doctor why he does not use the question mark motif anymore, to which he replies that he still does - on his underpants. Osgood is also seen wearing a brown duffle coat, very similar to one worn by The Doctor in "The Curse of Fenric".
Osgood is not the first character to imitate The Doctor’s sartorial appearance. Harry Sullivan wore the Fourth Doctor’s scarf in "Terror of the Zygons" and Romana sported a long scarf and a very ‘Doctorish’ coat in "Destiny of the Daleks".
The Doctor suggests that Osgood is a hybrid between a Zygon and human so continuing the theme of hybrids mentioned in the previous three stores of this season - "The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar", "The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived".
Osgood has the TARDIS's phone number. She uses a question mark as its contact photo.
It revealed that Osgood's first name is Petronella, but did not elaborate if the human Osgood or Zygon double was still alive, instead having Bonnie fill the vacancy in the form of a replacement double for the one of the two who had been killed by Missy in "Dark Water/Death in Heaven".
As he departs, The Doctor tells the Osgoods that ‘I'm a very big fan’. This is the same thing Osgood said to the Eleventh Doctor in "The Day of The Doctor".
This story is the Zygons’ third full adventure. These shape-changing aliens first appeared in the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Terror of the Zygons" - which also featured Kate’s father - The Brigadier. The Zygons next showed up, 28 years after their first appearance, in "The Day of The Doctor". They were glimpsed in flashback during "Logopolis" and "Mawdryn Undead" and they were mentioned in several stories including "Remembrance of the Daleks" and more recently "The Power of Three".
It is revealed that after the Human-Zygon peace treaty (seen in "The Day of The Doctor") 20 million Zygons were relocated around the United Kingdom. It quickly became clear that these Zygons had seized control of the United Kingdom and had slowly spread across the entire globe. Places the Zygons have invaded include the Mexico border, North Asia, West Africa and Australia.
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart reveals that she dealt with the Zygon in New Mexico with ‘Five rounds rapid! ’. The line was first used by her father, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, in the 1971 Third Doctor story "The Dæmons". In that story The Brigadier instructs a UNIT solider to open fire on Bok, specifying ‘Chap with wings, there: five rounds rapid!’. The expression ‘Five rounds rapid!’ became so identified with The Brigadier that the actor who played him, Nicholas Courtney, took it as the title for his 1998 autobiography.
This story saw a new way of Zygon-transformation for the first time, showing the immense pain of a lengthy forced transformation from human-form into Zygon-form.
Bonnie is asked by The Doctor about the ‘brave new world’ her revolution will create, citing William Shakespeare's play The Tempest: ‘O brave new world, that has such people in it’.
When Bonnie threatens Clara she urges Bonnie to kill her by saying ‘go on, then’. She previously did the same with the Half-Face Man, a trick she in turn learned from Courtney Woods in "Deep Breath".
The strong subtext in this story, concerning contemporary immigration and terrorism, has been noted by many commentators and reviewers, and was widely discussed on social media.
Events from the "Terror of the Zygons" are brought up in this story. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart mentions this previous Zygon attack taking place in either the 1970s or 1980s, referring to the UNIT dating controversy regarding in which decade the Third Doctor and the Fourth Doctor UNIT stories actually took place.
When Kate Lethbridge-Stewart examines documentation around the cases concerning ‘Brits’ in T or C, locations on the paperwork include ‘Made Up Crescent’ and ‘Fictional Close’!
The Doctor refers to the two schoolgirls, Jemima and Claudette, as 'Monster High' and 'Cinderella'.
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