“This
one they call the Doctor is a threat to us. Already he has found out too much.
He must be destroyed.”
Responding
to the message from The Brigadier from the space/time telegraph he left him The
Doctor, Harry and Sarah find them in present day Scotland. Apparently something is destroying oil rigs
off the coast of Scotland and causing alarm as these rigs are huge and
supposedly unsinkable. The Doctor examines some of the wreckage that
has washed ashore and found one particular piece of steel interesting. After using some plaster and making a mold
The Doctor shows The Brigadier that the mold is of a giant tooth. What makes it impressive is that whatever is
the owner of the tooth is strong enough to eat through steel as if it was
paper.
There
are strange things going on around the inn that UNIT is using as a base when
Harry finds one of the oil riggers workers have come on shore they are both
shot at, killing the worker and grazing Harry on the head. Sarah does some investigating in the town and
then informs The Doctor that Harry has been shot and goes and sees if he is ok
at the infirmary at the Oil Company’s buildings. While there Harry starts to regain consciousness
and Sarah goes and calls The Doctor. Sarah is telling him what Harry has been
mumbling when she is attacked by an alien creature. It is a Zygon and they want to turn the Earth
into a new home world for them to replace theirs which it was destroyed. So it’s up to The Doctor and UNIT to prevent
this from happening and to find a way of stopping the Zygons and the Skarasen.
Terror
of the Zygons is considered by many fans to be one of those all-time classic
Doctor Who stories. There has been a
love affair with The Zygons and they constantly are on top of the polls for a
return in the new series. After watching
Terror of the Zygons and seeing how little that they do it makes me wonder why
the fans would want them back. But you
have to admit they look pretty cool and do have a unique power of changing
their appearance to look like us while using the person they kidnap as a
pattern.
The
story is pretty solid and very entertaining.
There is not a lot of action in it but just enough to keep it from being
sterile in that department. What I like
best about Terror of the Zygons is that it is a classic monster story and it
has a bit of the charm from the Third Doctors era. By that I mean it is a UNIT story and it so
could have fit in the Pertwee era.
Nicholas Courtney and John Levene both return as Sgt Benton and of course
The Brigadier in what would be the last time they would be together on Doctor
Who.
What
I liked about Terror of the Zygons, besides that it was a pretty good monster
story was that it had a scary atmosphere to it. It did have a scary feel and
that was a trademark of the Holmes and Hinchcliffe era. I loved how they incorporated the Loch Ness
Monster into the story using the Skarasen as the famous monster. I liked how
The Zygons were always two steps ahead of The Doctor and had that camera in the
eye of the deer. I thought the way the
Doctor had to deduce what was going on felt like a mystery story with a science
fiction twist to it. I love that aspect
of it as it gives Doctor Who a Sherlock Holmes feel to it.
I
do like The Zygons and the fact they can change their appearance. That gives Terror of the Zygons a feel of
paranoia because you do not know who could be a Zygon. I do like the Zygon spaceship. It looks all slimy and the controls look like
huge mushrooms. It is pretty neat and
for once they spent some money on a spaceship set to make it look different.
Terror
of the Zygons has gone down in Doctor Who’s history as an all-time
classic. I like this story but not really for the
Zygons as they don’t really do much except look cool and walk outside in human
form. The story is notable as it is the
last time Harry travels in the TARDIS as he stays on Earth at the end. He does
return in The Android Invasion but he is no longer a traveling companion. Terror of the Zygons is the last true UNIT story
and I wished they made more but the show was waning away from that era. Terror of the Zygons got season 13 started
off on the right track and in fact started off a really good season of stories.
Grade
A
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