Tom Salinsky

Another hugely promising opening episode. Could it be that we were finally about to… invert the trend?

Rather than being a story of two halves like basically everything else so far this season, Peter Harness’s script for part two (like The Woman Who Lived, co-written with the show-runner) keeps up the momentum inherited from the opener, only letting up just before the end in a scene which many are already calling a highlight of the revived series. And I agree!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The opening scenes with Jenna Coleman in a bafflingly generic flat are very Steven Moffat (think Last Christmas or Forest of the Dead) but none the worse for that, and it’s a great way of keeping Clara “alive” and active while Bonnie gets all the best lines. The Doctor’s escape from the plane is absurd, but no more absurd than the Bond film that the Doctor’s Union Jack parachute is surely a nod to – and the Doctor and Kate Stewart are reunited.

Obviously Kate’s resurrection is a bit of a cheat too, but the lovely wink to the fans helps this potentially bitter pill slip down beautifully – the Harry Sullivan references were great as well. Along the way, the Zygons use some social media to spread fear and uncertainty among humans and invaders alike, in a scene which was maybe the only one to strike a wrong note. The make-up job seemed to keep coming and going and I struggled to care about the plight of this guy we’d barely even met.

But anyway, we’re all set for the grand show-down. It’s entirely appropriate that the Doctor impersonates Hughie Green early in the proceedings. This is the world’s deadliest game-show and the careful pacing which allows this scene to play out for (I haven’t timed it, sorry) something like 6-7 minutes is just one of the many things to admire about the writing and production of this fantastic two-parter.

I rewatched Day of the Doctor recently and pretty much stand by my review, although it seemed a little less frantic on second viewing. Clearly the Zygon accord and the methods by which it was achieved warranted a little more time however, and to be able to unpack all the intricacies of this peace-keeping was marvellous.

Pitting Kate Stewart against Bonnie and also the Doctor is particularly interesting. Daughter of a solider, but UNIT’s scientific advisor – inheriting the Doctor’s role, not her old dad’s – which side will she fall on? It seems more interesting somehow that she should continue to believe that offence is the best defence, but equally that leaves a rather sour taste in the mouth when I think of noble Nick Courtney. It’s a bit humiliating that she ends the scene collapsed and brain-wiped, but that’s better I think than the lie of her becoming a peace-loving hippie or the unpleasantness of portraying her as a warmongering psychopath.

Bonnie and Clara form a fantastic pair here, with Jenna Coleman doing her best-ever work in the series, and the details of the two boxes with their two buttons manage to be a genuinely interesting and credible bluff (as opposed to something which seems cool at first but then turns out to be utter nonsense – Doctor Who has always had a weakness for these).

But this would count for nothing if it was a mere logic problem, and exercise in game theory, a crossword puzzle. Having a mystery to solve elevates proceedings, keeping all the players off-balance as well as keeping the audience guessing, but the point – the real point – is that maintaining a peace means that those with the power to wage war have to actually want peace, really want it. The Doctor doesn’t need to outsmart Bonnie and her gang of murderous blobby things. He needs to change their minds. And Peter Capaldi relishes every glorious word of this magnificent scene. There have been quite a few climactic scenes like this is Doctor Who from Tom Baker’s impassioned appeal to Magnus Greel, to Sylvester McCoy’s infamous “CND speech” in Battlefield but this one might just be the best of them all.

Finally, Bonnie is reborn as Osgood 3.0 in a coda which strikes a suitably hopeful note, while never forgetting just how fucking difficult this kind of peace is to create and to maintain. It’s lovely stuff throughout, making hugely effective use of the series recent and more distant past, while creating a ripped-from-the-headlines adventure which doesn’t feel like it will date. Daniel Nettheim directs with the vigour the series is now known for and the rest of the production team is on top form.

So, as we pass the half-way point, this is the first cast-iron classic of Series Nine. I have no hesitation in awarding this episode and the two-parter as a whole five stars. Peter Harness for show-runner? He’s run Wallander. Just sayin…