Knock Knock (Doctor Who)
Bill and friends face a house that consumes its tenants.
"Knock Knock" is the fourth episode of the tenth series of Doctor Who, broadcast on 6 May 2017 on BBC One. Written by Mike Bartlett, it features Bill Potts and her friends renting a house from a mysterious landlord, while the Doctor senses something amiss. Critics praised the performances but gave mixed responses to the writing.
Quick Facts
- Number
- 268
- Serial name
- Knock Knock
- Doctor
- Peter Capaldi – Twelfth Doctor
- Companions
- Pearl Mackie – Bill Potts; Matt Lucas – Nardole
- Director
- Bill Anderson
- Writer
- Mike Bartlett
- Producer
- Nikki Wilson
- Executive producers
- Steven Moffat; Brian Minchin
Facts from the source article.
Synopsis
Bill Potts and five students—Shireen, Pavel, Harry, Felicity, and Paul—rent a large mansion from an elderly Landlord at a low cost, on condition they avoid the tower. The Twelfth Doctor joins Bill by posing as her grandfather, and becomes uneasy about the house's creaking noises. The Landlord visits, and when the Doctor tests him by asking who the Prime Minister is, naming several including Harriet Jones, the Landlord evades the question and leaves. At night, knocking grows louder, and Bill's friends begin to disappear as all exits seal shut. Bill and Shireen witness Pavel half-absorbed into a wall; the Landlord strikes a tuning fork, causing Pavel to vanish. The Doctor discovers insect-like creatures called Dryads in the woodwork, which draw people into the wood to consume them. He and Harry find evidence that every twenty years, new students are brought to feed the Dryads. The Landlord admits he needs the Dryads to keep his daughter Eliza alive in the tower. The Doctor and Bill find Eliza's body entirely made of wood. The Doctor realizes the Landlord is actually Eliza's son: as a boy, he brought dormant Dryads to his terminally ill mother, and a high-pitched sound from her music box awakened them, turning Eliza to wood to halt her illness. Since then, the Landlord has controlled the Dryads to sustain Eliza by feeding them tenants. Eliza, dismayed at having lived so long without a real life, hugs the Landlord, thanks the Doctor, and commands the Dryads to consume them both while reconstituting Bill's friends. The group escapes as the house collapses. Back at university, the Doctor takes over watching the vault from Nardole, and piano music plays from within as he enters to dine with the prisoner.
Production
The fourth episode of the tenth series, "Knock Knock," was originally called "The Haunted Hub." Its read-through happened on 18 July 2016, and filming began on 1 August 2016, after the third episode "Thin Ice." The mansion was played by Fields House in Newport, the same building used for the Wester Drumlins house in "Blink." David Suchet revealed he "completely freaked" when he realised on the third day of filming that his family had rented that exact house the previous Christmas. Another location was Cefn Tilla Court in Usk. An early script had a scene where Bill's friend Harry was revealed as the grandson of Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan, but this was cut. Suchet, who played The Landlord, had previously acted with Peter Capaldi in the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "Wasps' Nest."
Broadcast and reception
After broadcast, a binaural version of the episode was available on BBC iPlayer in the UK. Overnight viewership was 4.32 million, up half a million from the previous episode "Thin Ice", and the highest overnight since the series opener "The Pilot". Total views reached 5.73 million, slightly up from the prior episode, with an Appreciation Index of 83. Press reaction was mixed; many reviewers disagreed on the writing strength but agreed on performance quality. On Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 17 critics gave a positive review, with the critical summary noting "a bit of narrative weakness aside" but calling it a mix of nostalgia, horror, humor, and monsters. Alasdair Wilkins of The A.V. Club gave a B+, praising the horror genre trappings and calling it "old-fashioned" in a positive sense. Zoe Delahunty-Light of SFX gave 3 out of 5 stars, describing it as "thoroughly adequate" and "infuriatingly inoffensive", criticizing the writing and Bill's characterization but praising Suchet's acting and the Doctor-Bill relationship. Scott Collura of IGN gave an 8.7/10, complimenting the Doctor-Bill dynamic and calling it a "straight-up horror story", but noting that one-off stories had not established meaningful characters beyond the two stars.
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