I have been looking forward to this episode all week. I love seeing Osgood returning — in whatever form — and I have really been enjoying the UNIT episodes (hats off to Jemma Redgrave for sure). Welcome to “The Zygon Invasion”!

We start off with “Once upon a time, there were three doctors, two Osgoods, one peace treaty”, title screens which are interspersed with scenes from, “The Day of The Doctor”, the 50th Anniversary Special!

We see a video tape by the two Osgoods, which must have been filmed before one of the Osgoods died. They talk aboutOperation Double and The Zygon Treaty. There are 20 million Zygons hiding in secret on Earth! There was a failsafe for if either a single Zygon or human went rogue: “The Osgood Box”.

We hear briefly about The Nightmare Scenario — that sounds ominous! Osgood appears to be running for her life, hiding under a desk, and texting The Doctor. She is grabbed by a Zygon and zapped in the head.

The Doctor is in the TARDIS, riffing on “Amazing Grace” on his sweet guitar. New ringtone, anyone? He gets Osgood’s text: NIGHTMARE SCENARIO. Uh-oh.

The Doctor is in a park in London, sitting on a set of swings. He leaves a voicemail for Clara, explaining that he is deep undercover and staking out a dangerous race, as he stares down a group of children. He calls himself ‘Doctor Disco’ on the voicemail.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (I will always give her her full name, Brigadier) and Jac are trying to figure out what’s going on and what to do. They get incoming video of Osgood captured by Zygons, and their encryption has been hacked.

The Doctor is accosting two little girls, accusing them of being Zygon ‘blobs’. That’s exactly how you get under police supervision, old man. He tells them he knows there are ‘other blobby factions’ they don’t control. It turns out they actually ARE Zygons.

Courtesy of BBC

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart reports to The Doctor that the Zygons have stolen the location of every Zygon on Earth. The ceasefire has broken down. A Zygon smoke bomb goes off in the park, and Zygons come and grab the little girl Zygons.

Osgood is being forced to read out a statement, hostage-style, in a video. The Doctor leaves Clara another voicemail message. She finally gets a beep on her phone, and she has 127 missed calls from The Doctor. I think I’d drop everything if The Doctor had called me even twice. She begins to listen to the first voicemail, but she is interrupted by a little boy in her building who can’t find his parents. She goes looking for them, and the parents are acting weird and grabbing the boy.

Clara seems satisfied that the boy’s parents have him, and she leaves and calls The Doctor back. She’s mostly concerned with him calling himself ‘Doctor Disco’ in his message. The Doctor and  Clara end up arriving at a junior school and meet up with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Jac, who explain how and why the Zygons got to have such great numbers on Earth. They were allowed to grow in this area as long as they were peaceful. They are walking through the basement with torches — nothing could go wrong here!

They find the Zygon command panel, which is a weird Zygony blobby thing, and The Doctor begins to stroke it. He tells them that both Osgoods were Zygon and human at the same time — there is no way or no reason to distinguish between them. He is told that, regardless of which survived, she went mad with grief after the other’s death.

They get a live video with another control panel and the two little girls visible in the shot. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart calls them “Jemima and Claudette” — the Zygon High Command! They shift into Zygon form and are incinerated. There is a new Zygon High Command — it’s a revolution!

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Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is going to tell UNIT to bomb their command, but The Doctor suggests it will only radicalise the rest. I wonder where he’s gotten that idea — certainly not from history OR current events. They are going to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (which Clara knows about because she memorised Trivial Pursuit cards). The Doctor is going to travel by a big snazzy plane in his position as President of the World — I’m guessing this will be a plot point because the TARDIS is certainly faster and probably roomier.

Clara and Jac are going to swing by Clara’s apartment to grab some things before heading off. As they leave (Flat 64, if you ever wondered), they see the weird parents dragging a big bag out of the apartment and into the lift, but no one is there when the doors open downstairs. The panel is all squishy, and Clara decides to touch the Zygony bit behind it. The place starts shaking and flashing. Good idea, Clara.

The doors of the lift open underground in a bunch of piling. They hear a child shouting and see people dragging something — I imagine it is definitely those weird Zygony parents and their little boy.

In Turmezistan, a drone is being equipped with a missile, and a colonel is issuing a strike command. In walks the President of the World, Doctor Funkenstein. The drone operator can’t go through with the strike because the target appears to be a man and a little boy, waving on their doorstep. The colonel is NOT pleased.

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Kate Lethbridge-Stewart drives up in Truth or Consequences as a tumbleweed rolls by. She sees a sign that reads “No Dogs” but has been defaced to read “No British Dogs”. We see Zygon revolution symbols, and she’s going in, gun cocked. She’s in the same (sheriff’s, we now know) office where Osgood hid. As she looks around, another gun is raised at her, and the sheriff is trying to figure out whether she’s human or Zygon, friend or foe, alone or with backup.

The colonel who ordered the drone strike is arguing with The Doctor about paranoia vs legitimate fear. She says that the Zygon village might be a training camp, but they never see more than one or two at a time to be able to tell.

Clara and Jac are watching videos of lifts malfunctioning at UNIT HQ. The lift videos show people dragging in bundles and then disappearing underground.

The sheriff explains to Kate Lethbridge-Stewart that the Brits came without being asked. One of the undercover Zygons turned into a ‘reptile’ on Main Street, and they started attacking. She saw Osgood ‘before’, but everyone is gone now.

Back in Turmezistan, The Doctor, the colonel, and a troop of soldiers are at the Zygon-occupied village. The Doctor shows them a picture of Osgood, as this is a rescue mission. The soldiers have a church surrounded. A woman walks out, appearing to be the lead soldier’s mother. She keeps stepping forward, but he is asking her questions only his mum would know. She doesn’t know the answers, but he can’t be sure whether it’s because she’s a Zygon or just has a poor memory because of the stressful circumstances. More people walk out of the church, but he can’t shoot them. It could be his mum. She says she has proof inside, and he and the rest of the soldiers follow her, but there is soon gunshots. All the soldiers have been executed. Brutal.

The Doctor sees a strategy board in the church, and, as he starts to examine it, he hears the faint voice of Osgood asking for help. He finds a trap door leading to an underground passage. She said the Zygons are training in this town and are heading back to the UK. If he’s there, they have him out of the way. Even though he was told he had 10 minutes before the bombing would begin, they’ve started the attack, and a threatening Zygon is crushed under falling rubble.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and her sheriff friend find a bunch of Zygon carnage in New Mexico, and Clara and Jac are back under Clara’s building. Clara says that Jac thinks the world is ending because everyone middle-aged always thinks the world is ending.

The Doctor is back on his snazzy plane with a prisoner Zygon and Osgood. Osgood asks why The Doctor doesn’t wear question marks anymore — he says he has question mark underwear. He wants to know which Osgood she is, but she won’t answer. She and her ‘sister’ were the peace — A HYBRID of both human and Zygon, ahem — but he knows she is human because a Zygon needs to get the original alive to refresh the facade. She says that is the old rule — Zygons only need the original alive if they are still looking for information. Once they have the answers, they don’t need the human anymore.

Courtesy of BBC America

Clara and Jac find a new Zygon hive, and Clara thinks it might just be the end of the world after all.

Prisoner Zygon is growling and hissing at The Doctor. The Zygon asks if he is the President of the World because, conveniently, they want the world.

A load of soldiers stomp into the underground hive. Clara orders them to destroy the pods before they hatch. She rips off the cover of the nearest pod, and her own face is within it. She says they are growing duplicates, but Jac points out that that’s NOT how Zygons work. It’s an ambush! The pods have the humans, which means Clara is a Zygon! She smirks, ordering the ‘traitors’ destroyed, and we hear screaming. We see that she was attacked when she found the little boy’s parents and was replaced by a Zygon called ‘Bonnie’.

Courtesy of BBC

Prisoner Zygon is threatening to take over, saying they are already there. The Doctor delivers his Quip of the Week: “Don’t bother invading the UK; they’ll just think you’re trying to steal their benefits” — ow!

The sheriff starts talking about how someone once saw a child Zygon who hadn’t yet learned to protect its body print. She uses ‘we’ at the wrong time, but she’s sure now that Kate Lethbridge-Stewart has no backup coming. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart answers her comm, saying that UNIT has been neutralised in the US, and Bonnie/Clara is glad to hear it. She reports in that UNIT has been neutralised — more or less — in the UK.

Bonnie is phoning The Doctor on his snazzy plane. The Prisoner Zygon says that his plane will never land. Bonnie has a missile launcher and tells him that Clara is dead, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is dead, and all of UNIT is dead. She shoots the missile, smiles, and we hear a big thud.

To be continued …

Did anyone else notice that almost every single named character (except The Doctor, of course) in this episode is female — and it was still action-packed and suspenseful? Does it really not matter which Osgood is still alive? Are the humans in the pods alive or dead? Again, we have the possibility of a dead Clara — how many is that now this series? And is The Doctor regretting ditching the TARDIS for his Presidential plane yet?