Doctor Who - KNOCK KNOCK (S10E4) Review: Who’s There? Nothing much.

Apparently I'm in the minority on this one...

(This week's review isn't what I'd consider wonderfully specific as I’ve only seen the episode once and it was roughly a week ago. But I’m committing to trying to review this entire Series, so let’s get on with it)

Woodlice that eat people. A new writer. David Suchet. Knock Knock is the first episode of the series that not only isn’t functioning as a training episode for Bill but is also being billed as the first explicitly scary episode of the run so far. It contains oodles of promise and some occasionally freaky imagery, but ultimately I can’t help but feel as though Knock Knock is a lot about not very much, bogged down with an unlikeable supporting cast and fairly uninteresting scares. I seem to be in the minority on this one so if you enjoyed it then that’s great, but I said I was going to waffle about all of Series 10’s episodes and waffle I shall.

SPOILERS INSIDE

Knock Knock finds Bill and a bunch of people we’ve not met before attempting to find a place to rent. Finding the task a difficult one, they come across David Suchet’s ‘The Landlord’ (his name is never given) who offers them a place to stay on the cheap. Obviously they accept. The Doctor moves Bill into the new house but can’t help but notice the very obvious creepiness of both the Landlord and the house itself. Of course, it turns out the house (more specifically, the wood. More specifically swarms of woodlice) is eating people and so Bill and her friends, who have apparently never seen a horror movie, stumble through the episode like lummox’ whilst the Doctor actually tries to sort things out. Truth be told, aside from the Doctor finding the belongings of past inhabitants, everyone just sort of keeps going through the haunted house until Bill, the Doctor and Shireen arrive at the top of a locked tower room, where they find The Landlord’s quite literally wooden daughter. Except she’s not his daughter but his mum. Then the Doctor has a talk with her and the woodlice eat her and the Landlord.

Okay, I know if you describe anything in that manner you can make it sound a bit naff so that description is probably a little unfair. In essence the episode is harkening back to a very classic haunted house style of story – the kind that Doctor Who hasn’t really attempted since Hide.

Knock Knock’s strongest asset by far is David Suchet, who really keys into the sympathetic aspects of his character to deliver what is probably one of Doctor Who’s best guest actor turns. Really the only thing keeping Suchet back from topping Anthony Head’s turn in School Reunion (yes it’s not as subtle, but Head is so utterly entertaining) is the occasional line that sits a bit uncomfortably with the character’s demeanor. But Suchet is so good he largely overcomes that, particularly with the Landlord’s death, which is beautifully played and quite touching.

Elsewhere, Knock Knock’s best features are the occasional bit of disarming imagery and the final scene. Whilst I don’t think the episode is as scary as it wants to be (I’m getting to that), the odd scene or two did take me by surprise – particularly the image of Pavlov partially disappeared into the wall. The final scene concerns the vault and has the Doctor deliver Mexican food whilst the inhabitant plays the piano. It’s interesting and weird and feels like it was written by an entirely different writer (which it probably was). It also doesn’t have anything really to do with the rest of the plot but I liked it so I thought I’d bring it up.

So there’s some good stuff to be found in Knock Knock. It’s a shame, then, that I struggled to gel with the rest of what the episode had to offer.

Chief amongst the episode’s problems is that Knock Knock really struggles to make its supporting cast particularly likeable, both due to them being awkward portrayals of students and from making them a bunch of lummoxes. Whilst I can sort of understand the reason for making each supporting character really rubbish at being sensible, given the horror-house vibe the episode is going for, but it doesn’t make for desperately likeable people. It also clashes with the more modern ‘self-awareness’ that the Series has been pushing so far (with Bill constantly questioning parts of the show that are usually taken for granted and her comments about sci-fi and whatnot) to have characters not able to recognise or react realistically to the kind of horror elements in the episode.

Really, at the end of it, though, I can’t shake the feeling that Knock Knock feels a little empty. I wasn’t quite sure what the episode was trying to say with its continual talk of parentage (I’m open to anyone else’s take on this element) and the episode doesn’t really do much for the Doctor and Bill except to have her cringe a bit at the Doctor hanging around her friends, which seems a little disappointing after the previous episodes did such a good job with advancing the dynamic of the show. It feels particularly ‘filler’-y, which is not a bad thing in and of itself as Doctor Who’s ‘filler’ can deliver some powerhouse episodes for the show (Blink is basically the ultimate filler episode), but with the problems previously mentioned, I can’t help but feel that Knock Knock sinks with a bit of a thud.

Verdict:

★★

Quite a few people seem to like this episode so if there’s something I’m missing here, let me know.

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