Knock Knock

Yes, Dryads. I can't just call them lice now can I?

The fourth story in Series 10 appears to be going back to the haunted house fear fest. It looks fairly interesting from the trailers but that's not saying much since trailers are designed to do that. The big question will be whether this goes the Hide route (scary and then fizzle at the end) or try and stick with the scares all the way to the end (a la Horror of Fang Rock).

Plot Summary

Bill meets with five new friends and together they look for a place to live together. After several unsuccessful attempts with an agent, they are approached by an old man who is looking for tenants for his property. He takes them to an old estate house right out of a gothic horror script. They look it over and immediately agree to move in. One of the boys, Pavel, moves in that evening as his lease has run out. He settles in for the night, listening to music on a record player when he is attacked in his room, causing the record to scratch and be stuck on one small section.

The Doctor assists Bill in moving her things via the TARDIS. They deposit them in her room but the Doctor is on his guard as something is not quite right. Bill shoos him but he sneaks into the basement to explore.

That evening, a few of the people are becoming a bit unnerved by some of the shortcomings of the house, including sounds in the walls and a lack of cell phone reception. Hearing a noise, they go to investigate and find the Doctor emerging from a basement elevator. The landlord appears and he acknowledges their concerns, promising to address them in the morning. The Doctor however corners him and asks him who the Prime Minister is. The landlord begs off without answering the Doctor, his only break in mood to warn them against going in the tower. He then leaves but not before setting a tuning fork against the walls.

Bill tries to shoo the Doctor off again but he refuses. He lightens the mood by stealing Bill's phone and starting her playlist. Two of the tenants, Felicity and Harry, begin to dance around and have fun with the Doctor while Bill, Paul and Shireen take some of the last of their things upstairs. Paul teases the girls slightly but upon entering his room and closing the door, is consumed by the house.

Unnerved by the sounds from Paul's room and the less than reassuring knocks made afterwards, Bill and Shireen head to Pavel's room where his record keeps skipping in place. They find him partially consumed by the wall and seemingly frozen in place. The landlord enters and stops the record, allowing the wall to finish the job and Pavel disappears. Bill and Shireen run out of the room.

Downstairs, the shutters begin to close by themselves and the Doctor, Harry and Felicity find themselves cut off. Felicity manages to get through the kitchen shutters before they can bolt themselves and runs out to the grounds. However, she is consumed by one of the trees outside, which the Doctor had observed earlier to be swaying despite no wind.

The Doctor examines the wall and causes a large, alien woodlouse emerges. More of the creatures emerge and the Doctor and Harry retreat into the basement elevator and descend into it. In the basement they find evidence that the landlord has been inviting youths to stay in the house every twenty years only to have the lice consume them. The landlord enters and claims to do this to protect his daughter who is ill. Harry tries to run but upon touching the wooden stairs is swarmed by the lice and consumed. The Doctor offers to help his daughter and the landlord considers.

Bill and Shireen run though the house looking for an entrance to the tower. They find a trick book which opens a passage into the tower. At the top, they find Eliza, a woman who has been completely converted to wood by the lice to keep her alive from a grave illness she had. In exchange, they must feed the lice every twenty years.

The Doctor and the landlord enter and Shireen is consumed by the lice as the landlord continues with the schedule. Bill however notices a problem with the story as no father would bring his daughter bugs he found in the garden. He also has no sign of any change despite this thing going on for seventy years. The Doctor realizes that the landlord is not Eliza's father but instead her son. Eliza herself had forgotten this as her transformation to wood preserved her body but let her memories fade, allowing them to be filled by the stories of her son.

With this reveal, the landlord becomes more child-like and defiant with Eliza beginning to realize the true scope of the horror he has inflicted on people. She also realizes that he never went out and that what good is living if you stay in prison the whole time. The landlord tries to summon the bugs to eat Bill by using high pitched sound but Eliza is the one that actually controls them. She calls them off, embraces her son and then has the bugs consume them instead.

Before being totally consumed, she orders the bugs to release all of Bill's friends. The Doctor and Bill grab each of them as they emerge from the house and run outside as it collapses.

The Doctor returns to the vault where Nardole is doing some checks. Nardole has observed that the Doctor has given the occupant of the vault a piano as music is emanating. The Doctor dismisses Nardole and brings food to the occupant along with the promise of the tale of his latest adventure. He opens the vault and walks inside.

Analysis

I gathered based on fan reaction that this story was not as popular as the previous ones. For me though, this was the most enjoyable story of the series so far. It was not without it's faults, but it zipped along and kept the watcher engaged. Even the ending, which is where most people lost it, was better than I expected given the track record of Hide, Night Terrors and other pseudo-horror stories.

The horror elements of this story were quite good. I think for more underlying creepiness, I would defer to Night Terrors but this one had the haunted house and carnivorous insects vibe down cold. The landlord as well was a nice touch with his interactions being near perfect to elicit that feeling of cold dread just before the crap hit the fan.

There is however a limit to the scope of horror that can be allowed and that is where things fell apart for most people. At the end of a story, the monster needs to be defeated, things either explained or at least put into state of deferment and then have things return to normal. That last bit can either involve some or all of the guest cast returning from their actual or pseudo-deaths. Most of the time that usually involves an almost "Deus ex Machina" which typically turns people off as too quick and tidy. This story did have that but it also had a twist that helped give a plausible reason why the resolution hadn't happened yet. I at least enjoyed that and it helped me wash over the easy fix.

I enjoyed the Doctor in this story but with so many extras in this story, he got a bit lost at points. This is the first story where the Doctor and Bill have been separated in the heart of an adventure and each have taken on others who know less than them. Bill was a bit of a Doctor type in that she had guesses and intuition that paid off as well as bit more boldness than her fellow tenants. But she was still mostly just operating in the dark where the Doctor was actually looking to solve the problem. Bill could have easily worked in Harry's place but it worked better for the Doctor to actually see the lice consume someone and even though they came back, having the lice consume Bill would have given away the game that they were all going to come back.

Bill did have a nice Watsonian moment where the Doctor is being all clever and she points out flaws in the story because of age issues, something that the Doctor had forgotten about. That is probably one of the best things about Bill in my opinion. She is more observational intelligent rather than genius. In the past, it has been an easy fallback to just make the companion a very smart person who can hang with the Doctor. Bill on the other hand is more of regular smart person who has the added knack of looking at things from a different perspective and noticing things that others missed. Hence her asking a question in every story so far about the nature of the Doctor's life and little things that had never really been examined by the show so far.

The guest cast was pretty good. Bill's five friends all seemed to be enjoyable and had reasonably well fleshed out personalities even though most of them were taken from the screen after only a few minutes. Harry got the longest run being the stand-in for Bill and he did okay, although he did have a moment where his acting went a touch off the rails. But they worked well for the most part.

The highest praise should be reserved for David Suchet. I'm mostly familiar with David Suchet as Poirot and his style and appearance was so different here that I actually didn't recognize him beyond, "That guy looks familiar". But his characterization was quite enjoyable as was his treatment of the character. Since we know that a haunted house story is coming we immediately cotton on to the creepy nature of the character. His appearances and disappearances seemingly without warning got me thinking that he might be some sort of apparition or holographic projection at first.

But the interesting thing came about with the reveal about Eliza being his mother. Up until then he seemed to indulge in the various horror tropes about the butler or caretaker who is in on the attack. But there is always this sort of unsteady quality even in these moment. Once it is revealed that he was the son, he seems to drop all pretense and reverts to the eight-year old boy who wants to save his mother. It gave me a strong Norman Bates quality, except that his mother wasn't a monster. I thought there was a subtlety and dynamic to the performance that was very enjoyable.

Eliza was a bit of a failing for me in the story. The first issue wasn't a fault in the episode but with the BBC in general as Eliza's reveal was shown in the series trailer fairly prominently. As such, it was pretty obvious what was waiting behind the screen when Bill and Shireen enter. I did have a problem with the acting as well though. I'm wondering how much the actress was hampered by the makeup, but she seemed to be very unsure of herself and never really put out any sense of will. There was just something about her performance, especially relative to the strength of David Suchet's that just seemed weak.

The visuals and atmosphere were also done very well and I got the sense that the director has had some horror experience. There was a moment in the story that did bother me and I'm not sure if it was something specific to the episode or if it was the broadcast. At one point, when Bill is trying to get the Doctor to leave, the film speeds up. This is similar to the beginning where they are looking at different places, but that seemed like standard montage stuff. This speedup seemed like everyone was getting a strange Munsters quality for no appreciable reason. I wouldn't put it past BBC America to have tossed in a couple of speed moments just to keep the run time down but on the off chance they were there deliberately, they did not work at all.

One thing that did surprise me both about the story and some of the reaction to it is that with all the little clues and hints to the past that were put in, no one mentioned the Tractators. Granted, I try to avoid talking about Frontios as well, but given that Christopher H. Bidmede specifically mentioned being inspired by seeing woodlice in the garden, I would have thought that some sort of joke or reference would have made itself available. Obviously Ghost Light got the biggest play in most of the references I saw.

We also got a further tease regarding the vault at the end, which was also our only bit of Nardole in the story. There isn't much to say other than I liked the piano playing ability of the person in the vault. It is my understanding that we will probably find out who the vault person is in Episode Six (Extremis) as this is the next story written by Steven Moffat. It's rather pointless to speculate given that it's going to be revealed soon but I think the betting favorite is the John Simm Master given that he was revealed somewhat by accident by the BBC. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked to find that the vault is the Master's TARDIS except that the Doctor has disabled it in some way to both prevent it from taking off and to only allow someone in rather than anyone out. But we'll find out soon enough.

Overall, I enjoyed this story. It was a bit of a letdown at the end, but I think that is almost unavoidable given the nature of the show. But that letdown was not nearly as hard as some of the pseudo-horror stories of the past. In fact, I think if Eliza's acting ability had been a bit better, it might not have had much of a letdown at all. I also appreciated the fairly straightforward nature of the story with just that one little twist at the end to keep it from getting too generic. If you like your Doctor Who a bit scary, this story should work for you. Not perfect, but an enjoyable experience.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5