Knock Knock

"Are you looking for somewhere to live?"

Writer: Mike Bartlett
Format: TV
Broadcast: 6th May 2017
Series: 10.04

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Bill

Synopsis

Bill is moving in with some friends, and they've found the perfect house! So what if it's strangely cheap to rent, and the Landlord is a little creepy? The wind blows, the floorboards creak, and the Doctor thinks something is very wrong. What lurks in the strange tower at the heart of the building - and why can't they find any way to enter it...?

Verdict

Knock Knock was an excellent episode of Doctor Who and Series 10 really is coming along rather nicely now! It definitely does feel like we're in the middle of the series now which is a good sign and Bill is absolutely familiar as the new companion. She continued to be absolutely wonderful and I don't even mind that we're seeing her life outside of the TARDIS, something I was quite against when Clara was the companion. I think the reason for that is because the Doctor is also spending a lot of his time on Earth in the same time period with the guarding of the Vault. More on that later. I thought the story was brilliant and I think I actually had quite a lot of personal connections with the episode given my current education status. The setting was in a student shared house which was great and as I currently am living in a student shared home in Bath, I could relate quite a bit. The idea of there being an explanation for why the floorboards in our homes creak was scary and I think Doctor Who works best when there's a fear factor involved, especially one in which the viewers recognise as an everyday occurrence. Creaking floorboards is something that just happens and we accept that but Mike Bartlett lives up to the DWM preview in giving us an episode full of spooks. I really liked Bill's arrival into her new home and the way Paul was into her, only for him to find out she was gay, was terrific. I thought Peter Capaldi was on top form again as the Twelfth Doctor and the more I see of his incarnation the more I love it. The Doctor's reaction to Bill claiming he was her grandfather was fantastic and I loved the comments in DWM about the Doctor being called grandfather once again. I thought all of the students as Bill's housemates were good and it is a shame that the comment about Harry being the grandson of Harry Sullivan didn't make the cut. That would have been a lovely nod to the past but that didn't really matter. I liked how Bill was trying to convince herself that there was nothing weird about her new home and with that came good references to The Pilot, Smile and Thin Ice. Of course, she turned out to be wrong and just as she wished him gone, Bill was calling for the Doctor's help. He hadn't left, he hadn't even planned on doing so, and once the house apparently became alive he was set. Doors were closing flaps were drawing. The house was becoming an entrapment and Felicity managed to get out, but the creaking tree didn't provide her with a better alternative. Bill and Shireen finding Pavel halfway into becoming part of the wood was a disturbing image and the revelation regarding the music was well-timed. The Landlord was an excellent character who was superbly played by David Suchet and the reveal regarding the truth about Eliza was most unexpected! That's usually a good thing and that was the case here. She looked rather creepy and not exactly healthy in her wooden state and the flashback to what was presumably the 50s and how this whole situation came to be was very good. The explanation regarding the alien insects made sense and I liked how it was resolved. It was a surprisingly emotional ending and I don't envy Bill and her housemates being back looking for a house. It's a killer of a process. Nardole had another cameo regarding the Vault and I must admit I'll be surprised if the prisoner doesn't turn out to be the Master. The piano playing was a little surprising but I'm now looking forward to the reveal! Overall though, a terrific episode!

Rating: 9/10