The Black Cadre have a plan – one that will take a century to execute…

The best ideas are often the simplest, and hardest to articulate ones. This set, from the point of view of a century-long Zygon incursion the Doctor is only tangentially aware of, is both simple in idea and brilliant in execution.

Jonathan S. Powell’s direction ties three wildly different stories together, finding a tone that unites all three. That tone is both deeply compassionate and far darker than you might expect. The Black Cadre’s plan goes sideways almost immediately and as they regroup and find themselves forced to build a beachhead on Earth, they begin to disappear into their roles.

‘1901: The Unknowing Mirror’ by Jonathan Barnes gets things off to a flying start. Adventurer Herbert Scott (Jonathan Rigby) and his reluctant sidekick Father Felix Cromwell (Jonathan Forbes) find themselves faced with a case of apparent possession. Edith Walker (Patricia Allison) has visions of the impossible, and while her abusive father (Pip Torrens) wants none of it, Scott and Cromwell sense a mystery worth investigating.

The key to this story’s success is the complexity of everyone involved. Scott is played with just this side of Holmes-ian venom by Rigby and there’s an interesting set of implications to the troubled nature of his relationship with Cromwell. On one hand it could be the collision between a man of faith and someone who embodies Aleister Crowley’s ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’ On the other there’s a romantic tension to these scenes which feels all the more intense for Cromwell’s profession and the time period of the story. There’s also a tangible, separate sense of threat to Scott. His persistent verbal abuse of his housekeeper Mrs Maloney (Lisa Palfrey on top form) tells us there’s a dark side to the man. Palfrey and Allison are the breakouts here, both playing characters deeply underestimated by their world and both finding ways to use or circumvent that. It’s essentially four conflicting agenda locked in a room, the complexities of espionage, women’s rights, adoption, adolescence, faith, science and magic colliding and leading to an ending which lingers long after the story finishes.

That ending echoes the ending of ‘1935: The Miracle of Pendour Cove’ by Lauen Mooney and Stewart Pringle. Mooney and Pringle excel at character and history-driven horror and if you haven’t listened to ‘The Gray Mare’ or ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ from the Torchwood range they’re a great place to start listening. This story is Mooney and Pringle at their best, following Cornish fisherman Freddie Trewella (James Northcote), grieving over the loss of his past life. Working with, and abused by his preacher father Vernon (Jonathan Keeble doing thunderously good work), Freddie meets and bonds with Vovoren (Charlie Russell), a mysterious young woman with extraordinary talents.

Mooney and Pringle use Freddie’s grief, Vovoren’s youth and Vernon’s bigotry to tell a story about the joy we find in the spaces where we can be ourselves. It’s a weighty subject for a story about shapeshifters and Russell does excellent work as a woman interrogating not just who she’s expected to be but who she truly is. Northcote too is excellent as a complicated man made simple by his grief and the third act here is chillingly executed by everyone. It’s one of those stories that once you see it coming you realise can only ever end one way. Compelling, tragic, horrific and hopeful, it sets up the collision between the Zygons and humanity that’s the foundation of the third story here.

‘1957: Double Agent’ by Trevor Baxendale both puts a bow on the set and sets up the second act of  the story. Baxendale’s script is the only one to feature the Doctor in the set, and there’s a tangible sense of relief to his appearance that’s remarkable and deliberate. This isn’t meant as a slight to the Doctor-less stories in any way, they’re both excellent. ‘Double Agent’ builds on that excellent foundation to explore what happens when some of the most instinctively brilliant spies in the galaxy find themselves on a planet in the grip of the Cold War. This time we’re on the island hinted at in previous stories and get to see inside the Black Cadre’s operations. The Doctor is there at the behest of the Time Lords, Agent Caldwell (Joshua Manning) as a spy. Their ideologies collide instantly, only fleetingly united in the face of the Zygon threat. The situation is complicated by Caldwell’s contact Professor Vennix (Nicholas Briggs) and Harriet (Beth Lily), a young local woman visiting the island.

This is both a traditional Doctor Who story and a morality play. Jorost, one of the Zygons (it’s more fun finding out the actor yourself) has bonded with their target and found themselves close to the sort of inter-species co-operation the Capaldi era explored so well. Their superiors are less enthusiastic and that collision of personal morals and tradecraft echoes the clash between the Doctor and Caldwell. It’s focused still further by Manning’s wonderfully pitched turn as a not-Quite Bond and Michael Troughton’s superb work as the Second Doctor at their lowest possible ebb. Everyone’s lost in the mists, doing their best. Even the Zygons.

Verdict: Zygon Century embraces the opportunity to provide a new perspective. The result is a trilogy of stories that are intensely confident, individualistic and morally complex. This is, for me, exactly what spin-offs should be doing and few of them are doing it better than Zygon Century. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

Click here to order from Big Finish