Fridge / Doctor Who S35 E8 "The Zygon Inversion"

• The Doctor says that Kate's knowledge of the boxes being empty has been wiped from her memory fifteen times before. This could mean there were fifteen other, separate times when rebel Zygons (or humans) got as far as the Black Archive. Or, it could mean that they had gone through this confrontation fifteen times, with one side or the other pressing their button and discovering the trick, before the Doctor finally found the right words to convince both Bonnie and Kate to stand down and make peace. Since Bonnie is left with her memories, one could assume 15th time was the charm.
  • Alternatively, he may have left Bonnie with her memories so that she would not just go through the same thing again.
• A lot of people noticed that the Osgood box is just the prop for The Moment, repainted. An attempt to save money by the BBC? Or maybe The Doctor reminding himself exactly what's at stake? It's not a coincidence that it looks like The Moment since he created the boxes right after resolving that situation. Or possibly before - the peace treaty was close to being agreed by the time the Doctor resolved the Moment. Perhaps the Moment chose to look like the Osgood boxes to remind the Doctor that he, too, could Take a Third Option?
• When talking to Bonnie and listing the consequences of war, the Doctor uses the image of children burning. It tells a lot about the horrors of the Time War that this was the first image that came to his mind. Also, the Tenth Doctor gave the Eleventh a What the Hell, Hero? when Eleven said he forgot how many children were on Gallifrey at the time. Twelve is not going to forget, ever.
• The Doctor speaks of children believing that what they've done is unforgivable. Children run away from home because they think their parents will hate them or think they're horrible because of what they've done. When the Doctor ran away from Gallifrey, he was extremely young compared to his current maturity. Did the Doctor believe that he couldn't go home because he'd done something too bad to be forgiven?
  • For that matter, at the end of "Hell Bent" a few episodes later he can now return to Gallifrey any time he wants, but chooses not to return there or to Karn to mend his fences with the Time Lords and/or Ohila over his Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds actions in that story — even though he was Driven to Madness by the former's treachery and thus not fully himself at the time. Does he think those acts were unforgivable, or that the Time Lords and Ohila are incapable of forgiving people the way he can?
• Bonnie's name has already been listed under Tom the Dark Lord and Fluffy the Terrible due to how odd it is for the Big Bad to have such a sweet-sounding name, and that Zygella, Petronella or even Clara sound way more sinister. However this is a subtle jab at extremists, especially those who are "home-grown." Bonnie claims to be a Zygon nationalist, but is so used to living in the UK that she fails to notice how "un-Zygon" her own name is. This shows how little she understands the culture she professes her allegiance to, just like many radicalised young people in real life don't realise exactly what they are signing up for.
• Clara's being able to psychically manipulate Bonnie may come off as an Ass Pull, but the fact is that this is the first time we've seen this intense of a human-Zygon psychic link. It may be that other, sufficiently strong-willed humans could do the same given the chance.
• This episode is the first to openly acknowledge that (believing he was guilty of) killing all of the Time Lords and Daleks was not the only bad thing the Doctor felt guilt for in the Time War. The focus has always been on the double genocide, and when the Doctors learn there's a third option they're practically giddy with joy, but this episode shows the scars and PTSD still run deep. The closest we've come before was Ten telling the Saxon Master of all the horrors at the end of the Time War (the Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties, etc.) but there was no hint then that the Doctor was anything but a witness to these horrors. Here, the Doctor says "I did worse things than you could ever imagine! And when I close my eyes, I hear more screams than anyone could ever begin to count!" They may have prevented the worst atrocity, but the Doctor of War clearly did some pretty horrible things before that, and the Doctor may not show it as overtly now, but his PTSD still has him hearing screams when he closes his eyes, still has him trying desperately to atone for war crimes unimaginable.