Terror of the Zygons Part Four

The one where the Loch Ness Monster swims up the Thames...

The Duke of Forgill is apparently Chieftain of the Antlers Association, which is not some sort of Masonic-style secret membership club for noblemen of the Scottish Highlands as you might expect, but actually a private bar in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (it's true, Google it!). The Duke is a man of many facets, obviously. Sarah's research also unearths the fact the Duke is trustee of the Golden Haggis Lucky Dip (whatever that is) and president of the Scottish Energy Commission. It's worth knowing, that is...

The Zygon ship makes its merry way down south, headed for London where the monsters can create havoc and thus take over the world (somehow). The Zygons use a jamming device to switch off every piece of radar equipment in the UK so that their ship can pass unnoticed as it flies from Scotland to Brentford. The Zygons are very keen on not being seen, whether it's their spaceship or the Skarasen crossing Tullock Moor (I still don't understand why the Skarasen needed to cross the moor for all those centuries).

The Zygon spaceship is a lovely design, but I think it's a shame the exterior doesn't match the interior at all. From the outside, it could be anybody's spaceship, but Zygon technology is so organic that you'd expect their spaceships to look organic also (rather like the Axon ship). So while there's nothing wrong with the way the ship looks (the modelwork is very impressive), the fact it doesn't look like Zygon tech is something of a boo-boo for me.

The scene where Broton visits the Doctor in his cell is great fun, with Tom Baker placing his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout. The Doctor refuses to take Broton seriously and continually tries to get a rise out of the pompous warlord. I crack up every time Broton waddles in and Tom grins: "Social call?" (the key to this moment's comic genius is the length of time it takes the door to slide open and Broton to walk silently into the cell before Tom speaks!). This is a common tool used by many Doctors, to try and undermine and undercut the situation and the adversary by basically taking the piss. Troughton did it often too, but Tom is the master of mockery. When Broton says he wants to transform Earth into the new Zygon planet, the Doctor teases: "Isn't it a bit large for just about six of you?"

Of course, by mocking Broton this way, the Doctor gets him to reveal more, and we learn that an entire fleet of Zygon refugees is on its way to Earth ready to colonise it. The fleet will take centuries to arrive, in which time Broton will have "restructured" Earth to suit Zygon living conditions. He plans to get rid of the polar ice caps and raise the planet's average temperature by several degrees, which is ironic as that's pretty much what mankind is doing to Earth anyway.

The Doctor manages to get a signal out for UNIT to pick up, which looks very painful (Tom was always good at portraying agony, unlike his predecessor, who always seemed to look comical when in pain). I love Broton's line: "He underestimated the power of organic crystallography." How John Woodnutt managed to deliver that without bursting out laughing is a miracle!

Staging an escape, the Doctor rescues the real Duke, Sister Lamont and Caber, who seem to accept their crazy situations very quickly. When the Caber breaks the door mechanism by snapping off a tendril, the entire wall shudders, but this isn't as fatal a production value as you might think. After all, the Zygon ship and its tech is organic, so maybe the entire wall is a fleshy mass which reacts when damaged?

The Zygons have a huge - and readily accessible - self-destructor device, which is handy for those times when you really need to blow up your own spaceship. Rather like Davros and his Big Red Button in Genesis of the Daleks, this is an unforgivable contrivance on writer Robert Banks Stewart's part, allowing the Doctor to destroy all but one of the Zygons with violent ease. It's not a very creative or imaginative resolution, even if the exploding model is suitably impressive.

The Doctor is reunited with his friends in the quarry (and Harry has found time to change his clothes at last, into naval uniform!), and put two and two together to work out that Broton must be attending the Fourth International Energy Conference in London, because the Duke - the real Duke - is president of the Scottish Energy Commission. See, I told you that was worth knowing. Broton's plan is to get the Skarasen to destroy Stanbridge House, where the conference is being held, attended by VIPs from all over the world, including the UK Prime Minister.

I'm still not sure how this moves Broton's plans for world domination any further on, but it'll surely create a good amount of chaos. There's a pretty disturbing confrontation between the Doctor and Broton in the basement of Stanbridge House, with the Zygon warlord attacking the Time Lord with some ferocity. The gulping, burping, retching roar that Broton makes as he attacks the Doctor is really strange and unsettling, but he is ultimately felled by a UNIT bullet, dying with a defiant: "The Skarasen will destroy you all!"

The effect of the Skarasen popping his head up out of the Thames to terrorise central London is less than convincing, but it'll do. The addition of the sound of people screaming and ambulances wailing adds some drama to the otherwise somewhat comical visuals, but it would have been better to see some of the public panic caused by the appearance of the 50ft sea monster. As it is, the puppet slinks back into the water having chewed his signalling device, and slopes off back to Loch Ness. But why does the Doctor think it's OK to let the Skarasen carry on living freely in the waters of Loch Ness? Yes, it's the source of the centuries-old legend, but that doesn't mean it's safe to let it carry on living there. What will it eat? After all, it's a carnivorous alien cyborg, surely it cannot be left alone?

And surely the Zygon threat isn't over yet? Broton said that a fleet of Zygons was on its way to colonise Earth. Yes, they'll take centuries to arrive, but the Doctor seems to forget that this threat is not going away. In something like the year 2375, a bunch of very angry Zygons is going to rock up in orbit and start the colonisation all over again. Chance of a sequel?

It's all wrapped up rather too easily, and not at all satisfyingly. It's like Banks Stewart couldn't think of an adequate way to get rid of the Skarasen and the Zygon fleet plot threads, so just ignored them, hoping we would too. It's a bit sloppy.

Bizarrely, the Doctor, Sarah, the Brigadier and Harry all catch a train back up to Scotland to retrieve the TARDIS, which seems rather unnecessary, especially when you realise Harry has no intention of staying with the Doctor on his travels. Harry's departure is abrupt and unexpected, although it makes sense that he doesn't want to become a permanent member of the TARDIS crew. That was never his ambition in the first place. His adventures with the Doctor and Sarah were all a consequence of that first trip to Nerva, and this is the first time he's made it back to "present-day" Earth since then.

On the one hand, you could assume that we'll see Harry again quite regularly as part of the new UNIT family. Every time the Doctor returns to Earth and visits the Brig, we'll see Harry again. But the reality is, this is Harry's last regular appearance as a Doctor Who companion (although there's a further cameo to come), and I'm going to miss him terribly. Harry Sullivan was something of an unwilling adventurer, but he was lovable and loyal when required, and Ian Marter gave him so much character. Harry was a silly, old-fashioned, simple fellow, but he was brave and honest and true, a square-jawed Boy's Own hero who was faithful to his "old girl" Sarah and their crazy time-travelling mentor.

So I will miss Harry. It's a shame he never came back, and it's a real tragedy that Marter died so young (on his 42nd birthday, in 1986). If he was still alive today, he'd be 75 years old, but imagine the possibilities over the years... He could well have turned up in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Now, wouldn't that have been just lovely?

Terror of the Zygons is an atmospheric serial with a horror film vibe throughout (thanks to the masterful direction and music), but it is let down by a slowly crumbling central premise that doesn't quite hang together. The initial oil rig strand is dropped in favour of a completely random trip to London to destroy an energy conference, but if it had all stayed up in spooky Scotland, and Banks Stewart had kept the narrative tighter and more distilled, it would have been a much greater success. While it does tail off a little bit in episodes 3 and 4, the story still boasts some of my very favourite Doctor Who of all time - Zygon Harry in the barn, the terrifying episode 1 cliffhanger, glaring Sister Lamont - and I shall never tire of it.

First broadcast: September 20th, 1975

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The weird noises Broton makes when he attacks the Doctor are unsettling, like a crazed serial killer from a grimy 1970s slasher flick.
The Bad: Ignoring the fact the Skarasen and the Zygon fleet are still at large is disappointingly sloppy.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 9 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 05

NEXT TIME: Planet of Evil...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/06/terror-of-zygons.html

Terror of the Zygons is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Terror-Zygons-DVD/dp/B00BPCNO00