Producer: BBC
Writers: Peter Harness, Steven Moffat
Director: Daniel Nettheim
Featuring: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Ingrid Oliver, Jemma Redgrave
Release date: OUT NOW, BBC iPlayer
BBC
War. What is it good for?
It’s good for Doctor Who as the new episode The Zygon Inversion proves. If nothing else, it’s given us a new metaphor for war: the Osgood Box.
From a previous episode 800,000 shapeshifting Zygons are living on Earth as humans, their memories wiped. After a splinter group of Zygons intend to start a war their leader Bonnie, doubling for Clara (Jenna Coleman) fires a heat-seeing missile at the Doctor’s plane. They escape thanks to Clara who is mind-linked with Bonnie and influencing her actions. Now Bonnie wants access to the mysterious Osgood Box, which the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) created, for just such an emergency.
The box is named after Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), a UNIT scientist who together with her Zygon doppelganger police the ceasefire. Bonnie believes the box to contain a weapon. But what the box is, in the Doctor’s words, is “a scale model of war.” The container represents the ultimate choice: war or peace.
The Doctor spends 10 glorious minutes explaining to Bonnie, whom the doctor calls Zygonella, why she should choose peace. “This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” says. “You’re not superior to people who are cruel to you,” he tells Bonnie. “The only way anyone can live in peace is if they’re prepared to forgive.”
The Doctor’s point is people who want war don’t know what they actually want the war to achieve. “How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?”
Sometimes television transcends the medium, and the message here is eloquent and meaningful. It takes the idea of a just war and turns it on its head. It’s powerful stuff and this episode will go down as a highlight in the Doctor’s career.
Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker