Knock Knock

You’ve signed the contract, and now it’s time to pay.

The Landlord

Synopsis

Why do floorboards creak? When a sinister landlord shows Bill and her friends the perfect houseshare, they have no idea what lies ahead… knock knock, who’s there?

Review

Knock Knock sees the show have a huge guest star in the shape of David Suchet. Suchet is probably best known for playing Hercule Poirot in the United Kingdom.

Knock Knock plays around with haunted house horror tropes quite effectively. The cold open featuring Pavel’s seeming demise is really effective way of introducing the mystery of the house, with the tower that no one can access. There’s also the whole plot point that the Landlord has been doing this every twenty years, taking six people and absorbing them into the house to ensure his daughter’s survival. Then there’s the twist that Eliza is in fact, the Landlord’s mother rather than his daughter does work quite well. Of course, with Doctor Who being a family programme, the show cannot go full horror and steps back when it comes to killing off any of Bill’s housemates, instead restoring them all. That does rob the story somewhat of some heft, and does cause the story to suffer in hindsight, but there are some really effective scares here. The scrabbling at the walls and the appearance of the insect-like Dryads are unsettling. There’s definitely a visceral fear evoked when they swarm.Writer Mike Bartlett balances the horror with comedy, which is largely provided by the Doctor posing as Bill’s grandfather, and her new housemates worshipping him as a legendary lecturer at the university. Speaking of university, the experience of trying to find a student house is not too far off what is shown in the cold open – dealing with estate agents trying to upsell some dire properties. Some things never change!

If you could save the one who brought you into this world, wouldn’t you? Your silence is a confirmation.

The Landlord

David Suchet feels like a real coup for the show. He’s certainly an actor of a similar calibre of Derek Jacobi, where you almost double take when you hear the casting news. Suchet does manage to steal the show out from under Peter Capaldi, and Bill Anderson’s direction helps him almost sneak into every scene. His sudden turn from seemingly benevolent man to hard and stern when he is asked about the tower is truly sinister and cold. Even when he is revealed to have been untruthful about Eliza, who is in fact his mother rather than his daughter, the moment he regresses back to a child does really work. In lesser hands, this moment might fall flat, but Suchet ensures that it does not. The reveal of Eliza is also effective; the idea of a wooden lady is also something that could go drastically wrong, but kudos has to go to the production team for making this effective on screen.

The rest of the guest cast are largely fine, if a bit underdeveloped. It may have helped if we had met Shireen briefly in The Pilot, or bumped in to some of the others in the Doctor’s lectures. As it stands, they are one-off characters and that makes it all the more surprising that the story doesn’t kill any of them off. If they’d kept in the line from Harry about the Fourth Doctor’s companion, Harry Sullivan, being his grandfather, maybe that might have landed a resonant punch. Even then, that may not have worked for those who were unfamiliar with the classic series. That being said, the voice performance of Mariah Gale does make Eliza feel more alive at the end of the story.

Okay, now’s the time for the plan.

That was it. No plan, info-dump, then busk it.

Well, start busking!

Bill Potts and the Twelfth Doctor

The Doctor is broadly there for comic relief at the start of the story, helping Bill move her stuff and generally embarrassing her. Peter Capaldi is superb at this bit, convinced he doesn’t look old enough to be her grandfather and revealing her music taste (Little Mix) to her bemused housemates. As the story progresses, and the Doctor encounters the mysterious Landlord, Capaldi gets to flex his more dramatic muscles and he and Suchet bounce off each other really well. In the scene where the Doctor has learnt the truth about the nature of the house, both actors are brilliant.

The relationship between the Doctor and Bill is a rather good one, helped by Capaldi and Pearl Mackie’s chemistry. Mackie spends some time apart from him in this story, following a separate thread with Shireen, from finding Pavel stuck in the wall to making their own way to the tower. Bill shows what she has learnt from her three adventures with the Doctor to date and navigating the creepy house with an air of confidence. Shireen is, I suppose the demonstration of her growth in that sense.

Verdict: Knock Knock is a solid run-about Doctor Who story, with some flaws, but an enjoyable time. 7/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi (The Doctor), Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts), Matt Lucas (Nardole), David Suchet (The Landlord), Mariah Gale (Eliza), Mandeep Dhillon (Shireen), Alice Hewkin (Felicity), Ben Presley (Paul), Colin Ryan (Harry), Bart Suavek (Pavel), Sam Benjamin (Estate Agent) & Tate Pitchie-Cooper (Young Landlord).

Writer: Mike Bartlett

Director: Bill Anderson

Producer: Nikki Wilson

Composer: Murray Gold

Original Broadcast Date: 6 May 2017

Behind the Scenes

• This story had the working title of The Haunted Hub.
• Writer Mike Bartlett revealed that Harry was intended to be the grandson of Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan.
• The house used for 11 Cardinal House is the same as the one used for Wester Drumlins in Blink. In both stories, the house is referred to as being a Scooby Doo-style house.

Cast Notes

• Sam Benjamin has also appeared in the Big Finish plays The Ghost of Margaret, Ghosts and The Unzal Incursion.

Best Moment

When Bill and Shireen find Pavel in the wall.

Best Quote

If you could save the one who brought you into this world, wouldn’t you? Your silence is a confirmation.

The Landlord

Previous Twelfth Doctor review: Thin Ice

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