TV Review - Dr Who – Knock Knock

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Spoiler alerts Given that one of the oldest knock-knock jokes involves Dr Who “Who’s there? – Doctor Doctor Who? That’ right” ) the use of Knock Knock in an actual adventure title isn’t too surprising. Sadly it is a weak episode though surrounded by much better ones. With the Doctor seemingly honouring his oath to guard the Vault for once, Bill look for student accommodation with a rather random bunch of her friends who we never really get to know properly as characters. After struggling for a while in the search the group are offered a ridiculously cheap creepy old apartment by a sinister landlord character, played very well by Poirot actor David Suchet. The house is a typical haunted property, with raging thunderstorms and creaky floorboards. The Doctor pops in to help investigate and as the student vanish one by one or get trapped in separate rooms, they all learn the landlord hasn’t left the house. The cockroaches then start eating the tenants, as the Doctor and Bill discover that the Landlord is using the alien (not ghost) creatures to preserve his mother who he has turned to wood, while feeding them a bunch of tenants every few decades. The Doctor solves the problem by waking the wooden mother up so she tells her older looking child off and lets the cockroaches finish them both off. Bill’s friend are then all miraculously restored to life though not the people devoured in previous generations by the roaches, who then swallow the whole house and vanish. This all felt rather Scooby Doo, especially as no one really dies except the Landlord and his wooden mum. The roaches swarming over everyone looked suitably icky but such an effect has been used before even in episodes of The Big Bang Theory (in one of Sheldon’s nightmares). The students are just stock figures intended for expendability. In the original script one of them proves to be descended from Harry Sullivan (a Fourth Doctor Companion) but that was dropped from the final version aired. This clearly needed more death and more Suchet but less Shaggy, Freddy and Thelma. Letting everyone we never knew well enough to care about live was a pointless outcome. Arthur Chappell