Review: The Zygon Who Fell to Earth

Paul Magrs's Doctor Who writing isn't exactly known for being too serious, let alone traditional. He's got a remarkable skill for blending the extremely mundane with the extremely bizarre, and making the resulting story enjoyable and compelling. When he was signed up to write The Zygon Who Fell to Earth, the next instalment in the second run of Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller stories, there was never really much chance of the story being a dark tale of horror, akin to the Zygons' sole onscreen appearance. However, this story doesn't quite have the sparkle you might expect.

As well as featuring a returning monster, this tale sees a character from the first season pop up, hot on the heels of the Headhunter and Karen's comeback in the previous episode. Oh yes, Aunty Pat is back! Following her appearance in Magrs's Horror of Glam Rock, Lynsey Hardwick returns, with a slightly larger role.

It's ten years after we last saw her, and Pat is settled in the Lake District, running a hotel with her partner, Trevor. The Doctor and Lucie are at the hotel, happy to see her but confused as to why they've encountered her again, but they soon find that there's more to Trevor - and his two mysterious friends, who have come to visit after years of absence - than meets the eye.

I'd assumed that Magrs would take an inventive, perhaps comic, approach to the Zygons in this story. After all, a writer who describes the inside of a Zygon spaceship as being "like the deliciously molten interior of lasagne" in the sleeve notes clearly has a gloriously unique perspective on said monsters. Despite some early humour in the first few scenes, though, it emerges that the aliens' plans are not only generic, but also a little boring. The core ideas of this story are disappointingly straightforward, and it feels as if Magrs's considerable talent has been wasted.

There are a few moments of fantastic comic flair, though, never more obvious than in the scenes featuring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Malcolm Stoddard as two Zygons. The former plays Mims, who enjoys a Smithers/Burns-style relationship with his superior, Urtak. Magrs handles the "unrequited alien love" plotline in just the right way, without making the comedy too heavy, and neither of the actors takes their characters seriously enough for these scenes to be awkward. Brooke-Taylor's performance in particular is charming and cute, making this sub-plot one of the episode's highlights.

As with Horror of Glam Rock, music becomes a plot element once again. This time, though, it feels slightly awkward, as if it's been added as an afterthought to an otherwise-unrelated story. The references to Trevor's musical past, and the new remix version of his record, sometimes feel quite forced. It's understandably that Big Finish want to capitalise on some of the things that made Glam Rock such a strong play, but music isn't as intrinsic to the plot in this story as it was before, and it might've been better if the musical element had been removed entirely.

There are some brilliant ideas towards the end of the story, but there isn't really enough time for them to develop, leaving us with a conclusion that's hugely unsatisfying. The Doctor does something which is (perhaps uncharacteristically) dark, and could threaten to damage his relationship with Lucie in the future, but it just happens without any sort of immediate follow-up, or any emphasis on quite how surprising his actions are. Trevor's survival, and ultimate fate, don't seem to make any sense, and some elaboration is required for his last scenes to be successful.

I was impressed with Sheridan Smith, who plays a Zygon imitation of Lucie, making her performance subtly different without needing to become camp or over-the-top, and Lynsey Hardwick, who made Aunty Pat's love for Trevor believable and genuinely touching. Paul McGann gets to play some more comedy, with a nice running joke involving Aunty Pat, and is as strong as usual.

Overall, though, this one's probably one to miss. It might work as a generic Zygon invasion, or as a story which revolves around music, or as a light-hearted comedy piece; but trying to combine all three is a bit over-ambitious, and leads to a relatively weak finished product.