1. Zygon Century: Infiltration

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Zygon Century

Available January 2025

Written by Jonathan Barnes Lauren Mooney Stewart Pringle Trevor Baxendale

Starring Patricia Allison Charlie Russell

This release contains adult material and may not be suitable for younger listeners.

From US $25.13

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About
Backstage
Cast
Production Credits

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!

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?

**Please note: The Miracle of Pendour Cove contains depictions of domestic violence which we strongly advise is not suitable for younger listeners**

Recorded on: 6 and 8 February, and 22 April 2024

Recorded at: The Soundhouse

Producer Jonathan S Powell explained: "Zygon Century is a hugely exciting sandbox to play in. The Zygons are such endlessly fascinating creations: shape-changers, unusually vulnerable to bullets and, despite their unnatural appearance, capable of the same humanity as we are. Which means there are so many wonderful stories to tell.

"As an anthology series, each writer-led episode has its own unique genre, style and story, tackling a different year of our century-long Zygon invasion. But just what are the Zygons planning for humanity that will take them 100 years?"

Writer and series script editor Jonathan Barnes said: "For this script [1901: The Unknowing Mirror], I wanted to go back - without apology - to my comfort zone, which is late Victorian, early Edwardian England, London in particular, and that world of occult detectives.

"There's a dash of Conan Doyle in there, but also a much greater flavour of weird fiction. I was influenced in particular by Arthur Machen's fantastic novella The Great God Pan, in which various investigators end up uncovering the edge of a cosmic horror."

Barnes said: [1935: The Miracle of Pendour Cove] "Right from the start, I wanted as big a range of voices and styles as possible, and I’m a big fan of the work of Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney.

"I asked them to pitch a story set in the 1920s or 1930s, and they came back within almost 48 hours to pitch a Cornish folktale with a dash of Hans Christian Andersen, but very much grounded in the Cornwall of this Earth in the 1930s. In the annals of Doctor Who spin-offs, this is a truly unique piece of storytelling."

Barnes said: [1957: Double Agent] "For this third one, I knew we needed something tougher, more hard-edged, so I thought, let's bring us into the Cold War era, with an Ian Fleming pastiche – one that has that quite cold, hard quality, not of the James Bond movies, but of the original novels.

"The Zygons' shapeshifting ability is a great fit for this paranoid thriller, in which the British secret service is infested by traitors and nobody is what they seem."