{"id":5618,"date":"2016-06-03T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=5618"},"modified":"2016-05-20T15:27:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:27:58","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-s09e07-the-zygon-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2016\/06\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s09e07-the-zygon-invasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S09E07 – The Zygon Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the seventh episode of the ninth series of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, a familiar enemy tries to conquer Earth. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For talk of xenophobia and immigration.<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, I never expected this, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so glad to have gotten it.<\/p>\n

The Zygons were already a creepy alien, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so much more terrifying here. The idea of a bodysnatcher or a creature who can hide amongst humanity is common in science fiction. Hell, I recently met the Founders on\u00c2\u00a0Deep Space Nine<\/i>, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m VERY AWARE OF HOW FRIGHTENING THIS TROPE IS. Yet \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Zygon Invasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d goes to an increasingly dark place by the final cliffhanger, so much so that it feels more grim than I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to for the show. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a bad thing; the show routinely leaves us feeling hopeless and tense with their two-parters, and this episode is no exception.<\/p>\n

But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an undeniable metaphorical commentary within this episode that touches on xenophobia. At times, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stinging indictment of the horrible ways that immigrants are treated in Britain, and it impressed me. However, like many metaphorical representations of real-life issues, it has an unfortunate implication that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really addressed. At heart, the peace treaty between the Zygons and humanity is one based on an acceptance that everyone deserves a place to live. The Zygons maintain their human appearance so that close to 20 million of them can exist on Earth without trouble.<\/p>\n

But what if you started feeling exhausted by constantly having to assimilate into the dominant culture? What if you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to celebrate aspects of your culture because it would frighten other people, or make it clear you were from somewhere else, or because it was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153isolating\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self-segregating\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? What if you had to disguise yourself so that you made it easier for other people to look at you? In that analogy, I can see a lot of the current immigration struggle! The Zygons are not allowed to be seen as are. They must constantly assimilate and live in another culture or risk\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what? Expulsion? Bodily harm? Death?<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I saw in Osgood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening monologue. Yes, there are always going to be violent people, radical people, within a group or a race or a culture. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that\u00c2\u00a0all<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0of them are that way. While much of this metaphor hits the issue squarely on the mark, it also falls apart once you acknowledge that the Zygons have\u00c2\u00a0literally<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0tried to invade the Earth like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what, four times now? Three at the very least? And now, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve successfully replaced a huge portion of the UK with copies. How many others have they killed? How many people will they eventually kill? So yeah, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the weird unintended consequence of this metaphor. Some people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c probably a lot of them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c believe that immigration\u00c2\u00a0is\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>invasion, that immigrants are stealing jobs and replacing them in the workforce, so making a literal manifestation of that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly helpful.<\/p>\n

So! Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also talk about CREEPY THINGS. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Zygon Invasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is constructed in a way to make us (read: me) think that this is very much a traditional\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0adventure in terms of plotting. I thought that perhaps this would be the first standalone episode of the season and that all three plotlines would converge, and Osgood, Kate, Clara, and the Doctor would all find a way to defeat their respective foes. However, at each turn, the Zygons reveal that they are a billion steps ahead of their adversaries. How long had they all been planning this coup? The truth is that they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even need that many radicalized Zygons to pull off what they did. (Which touches back on Osgood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s monologue.) They just needed enough to continually trick people.<\/p>\n

The church scene in Turmeszistan is a great example. Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also such an eerie and tragic sequence that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still blown away by it. With just ten or so Zygons, the splinter group was able to diffuse an entire group of soldiers without a single weapon fired. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why this is so insidious. Over the course of the last year, the Zygons slowly kidnapped people from London, hid them in pods underneath the city, and grew their populace. That means there were more workers, more Zygons willing to kidnap and replace others, more Zygons sympathetic to the splinter group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal.<\/p>\n

God, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen to all the Zygons who want nothing to do with this? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that\u00c2\u00a0another<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0faction will play a huge part in this. But what of Kate??? I hope that since we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see her die, that means she found a way out. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not terribly thrilled about Clara being replaced because it takes her character out of the action. She hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gotten much development this season, and she was completely absent in the last episode. As for the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 WELL, I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW HOW HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GONNA SURVIVE HIS PLANE BEING SHOT OUT OF THE SKY, BUT HERE WE GO.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Zygon Invasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"