Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Ingrid Oliver, Jemma Redgrave, Nicholas Asbury, Aiden Cook, Tom Wilton, Jack Parker, Nicholas Briggs.

If you want to defeat an enemy then talk their language, if you wish to save the world from destruction, then learn the art of co-existence, learn to have true and meaningful discourse.

For the world in which The Doctor inhabits is not one to be given up lightly. It is not a world of continued aggression, it is one where things can be achieved if people are willing to talk, willing to sacrifice something more than their humanity, something more powerful than the ability to change; it is not an invasion but a peace that can be sought and won.

The Zygon Inversion is a masterclass of writing, one that truly gets down to brass tacks of everything that is good about Doctor Who and Science Fiction in general, a true gem of an episode because it dealt with the anarchist in us all, the possible revolutionary that’s sits and gets angry at the injustice, the unfairness of it all. It asks with quiet thought, what happens when the revolution is over, what happens when the insurgency has finished, who becomes the next one to have their head cut off, sliced off by the guillotine as the next revolutionary flexes their fury and sense of rage.

The size of the cast may have shrunk considerably from The Zygon Invasion but what it did was to confine the thoughts of four people, to condense the appropriate actions of revolutionary, peace keeper, justice and the old guard down to their respective parts and by doing so allowed Peter Capaldi to give one of the truly most impassioned speeches in the history of the long running programme and give Ingrid Oliver as Osgood the chance to lay down her tremendous credentials as a future companion with absolute honour.

Peter Harness and Steven Moffat capture the emotions of what it is to feel injustice, of the sacred thoughts that are our own and have someone rifle through them without thought of where they are putting their feet and the mess they are making and in the subtle references to, perhaps missed by some, of Clara’s time in the Dalek both in this series and when Matt Smith’s Doctor met her so long ago.

This series has been a constant joy; it remains to be seen if it can continue the trend till Jenna Coleman’s emotional farewell.

Ian D. Hall