‘Doctor Who’ season 9, episode 8 review: ‘The Zygon Inversion’ puts The Doctor as peacemaker

Was “The Zygon Inversion” the best episode of “Doctor Who” season 9? Maybe we don’t have enough distance to say this one way or another right now, but it had so much of what we would want in a classic episode of this show. Not only that, but it succeeded in bringing in many new elements, as well.

One thing that we really did like about this in particular was how it gave us a greater sense of politics than we tend to see, given that The Doctor had to find a way to create a new semblance of peace between humankind and the Zygons. He cannot simply remain in a situation where he can just blow everyone up or create time vortexes to solve all of the problems with the world. It allowed him to flex another muscle, and in general Peter Capaldi was so commanding in this. Many Doctors have separate strengths, but we’re not sure if anyone else could have been the odd-yet-powerful figure in resolving the crisis that he was.

Also worth noting were the dual performances of Jenna Coleman. Bonnie was brilliant to watch! We’re still not enormous fans of UNIT, but getting to see Jenna take on different roles helped to compensate for whatever feeling we had regarding some of the supporting characters this time. We instead were left with questions of identity, politics, and whether or not any treaty can remain fair and prosperous for some time.

Serious questions aside, we were entertained. Sometimes, you cannot ask for much else. Grade: A-.

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