The Zygon Inversion
| 258b – "The Zygon Inversion" | |||||
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| Doctor Who episode | |||||
Promotional image for the episode
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Others
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| Production | |||||
| Directed by | Daniel Nettheim | ||||
| Written by |
Peter Harness Steven Moffat |
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| Script editor | David P Davis | ||||
| Produced by | Peter Bennett | ||||
| Executive producer(s) | Steven Moffat Brian Minchin |
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| Incidental music composer | Murray Gold | ||||
| Series | Series 9 | ||||
| Length | 2nd of 2-part story, 45 minutes | ||||
| Originally broadcast | 7 November 2015 | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer) | 94% |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Average Score) | 8.0 |
| The A.V. Club | A |
| Paste Magazine | 8.8 |
| SFX Magazine |   |
| TV Fanatic |  |
| IndieWire | A++ |
| IGN | 7.9 |
| New York Magazine | |
| Daily Telegraph | |
| Radio Times | |
"The Zygon Inversion" is the eighth episode of the ninth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 7 November 2015. It is written by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat and directed by Daniel Nettheim, and was originally titled "Inversion of the Zygons".
The episode is the second of a two-parter, the first being "The Zygon Invasion", in which a splinter cell of shapeshifting Zygons living among humans on Earth have declared their intention to go to war with the humans.
Bonnie, the leader of a small splinter group of shapeshifting Zygons that intend to start a war with the humans they live among, has taken Clara's form, keeping her body in a Zygon pod. Clara finds herself in a dream-based version of her flat, able to control Bonnie's actions to a small degree due to a telepathic connection between them. Clara is able to thwart Bonnie's first attempt to shoot down the Doctor's plane. However, a second rocket strikes and destroys the plane. Later, Bonnie finds a peaceful Zygon disguised as a human, and causes his body to revert to its Zygon nature in front of a shopping centre in the south of London. She uses Clara's mobile phone to record and upload the footage, starting a panic across news broadcasts. In the dream flat, Clara pauses the television, through which she sees what Bonnie sees, when the Doctor's plane is destroyed, and realises the Doctor and Osgood managed to parachute out of the plane to safety. They soon land on a beach.
Soon, the Doctor receives a text from Clara's phone saying 'I'm Awake'. Osgood deduces from this that Bonnie didn't know she sent the text, and the text was sent by Clara controlling Bonnie's hand. The Doctor video calls Bonnie and from winks she exhibits, recognises that Clara is able to give him small clues through Bonnie as to her pod's location. The Doctor and Osgood converge on the shopping centre, the same one where Bonnie's footage was taken, finding it empty save for the lone Zygon Bonnie revealed. Fearing that he might have started a war due to revealing himself, he opts to kill himself instead of being discovered. Bonnie meanwhile goes to UNIT's headquarters to try to find information on the Osgood Box, but learns that the Doctor has given that information to Clara. In interrogating Clara via their telepathic connection, Bonnie learns the Osgood Box is in the Black Archives under the Tower of London. As the Doctor and Osgood prepare to look for Clara, they are met by the Zygon that has disguised itself as Kate Stewart, and two guards, who capture him and take him to join Bonnie. As they near the Black Archives, Kate reveals that she is not a Zygon, having shot and killed the one that cornered her in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and falsified the report of her death to Bonnie. She kills their Zygon guards, and the Doctor expresses his frustration at her violent methods.
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