The Zygons are coming for the Earth with a 100 year plan.
While only appearing in one Tom Baker story, the fantastically designed Zygons made a lasting impact on Doctor Who. So much that they returned for the show’s 50th Anniversary special – apparently because they are David Tennant’s favourite monster!
While the shape changers went on to enjoy a two-parter in Peter Capaldi’s second season, it’s fair to say that the species still has plenty of potential to explore. Now, Doctor Who audio producers Big Finish plan to do just that as they launch a new audio drama anthology series: Zygon Century.
The Zygons have come to claim the Earth, and this time they’re playing the long game. For the Black Cadre have a plan, a plan that will take exactly one hundred years to come to fruition. Prepare yourselves… the Zygon Century has begun!
The first box set in the run is out now, and subtitled Inflitration.
It begins with a turn of the century occult horror, starring Patricia Allison (Sex Education) and Pip Torrens (Renegade Nell). Then there’s a folk tale with a very unusual mermaid, starring James Northcote (The Last Kingdom) and Charlie Russell (The Play That Goes Wrong).
The final tale in the set is an an Ian Fleming-inspired action-adventure guest-starring Michael Troughton as the Second Doctor, trapped on an island overrun with Zygons and monstrous Skarasen.
The three stories in Zygon Century: Infiltration are:
‘1901: The Unknowing Mirror’ by Jonathan Barnes
In Edwardian London, that scandalous investigator of occult phenomena, Mr Herbert Scott, and his associate, Father Felix Cromwell, are confronted by a case of possession.
A young woman, suffering from unusually vivid dreams, seems also to exhibit signs of a completely separate personality. Another being is speaking through her, a being which claims not to be from Earth at all, a being which calls itself… Zygon.
‘1935: The Miracle of Pendour Cove’ by Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle
Freddie Trewella has found a mermaid, beautiful and strange, washed ashore in a Cornish bay. He names her Vorvoren, and she comforts him in his harsh life of servitude to a zealot father.
As they grow together, Vorvoren shows Freddie her secret power, to change her appearance into anything she desires. But Freddie has secrets of his own, terrible secrets, and soon Vorvoren’s great adventure among the humans becomes a nightmarish fight for survival…
‘1957: Double Agent’ by Trevor Baxendale
In an England gripped by Cold War paranoia, wounded MI5 operative Caldwell is itching to rejoin the fray abroad.
So why are the service sending him to a remote Cornish island? Can the future of the world really be at stake? Will he be able to complete his mission without falling foul of the hideous monsters stalking the caves? And who exactly is the island’s other new arrival: an operative of quite a different kind, known only as the Doctor?
The box set cast also includes Jonathan Rigby, Jonathan Forbes, Lisa Palfrey, Joanna Monro, Kymberley Cochrane, Jonathan Keeble, Tom Kiteley, Joshua Manning, Nicholas Pegg, Beth Lilly, and Roger Ringrose.
Producer Jonathan S. Powell said:
“In this first set, we’ve been treated to a claustrophobic dawn of the twentieth century horror, a Cornish folk romance turned sinister, and a Fleming-inspired spy caper featuring the Second Doctor! But, of course, there’s a grander overarching plot in play and, as the century wears on, we’ll begin to understand exactly what these Zygons have planned for humanity…”
The Worlds of Doctor Who – Zygon Century: Infiltration is out now. It’s available as a collector’s edition CD box set (+ download) or on download only, exclusively from Big Finish.