Who’s there? Spoilers.

(Source: BBC One)

I am enjoying Doctor Who more on character development than on storyline lately. There’s nothing wrong with Knock Knock but the idea of a haunted house has been done to death. This one was not… bad, just not original enough to be exciting. I keep thinking that all the episodes so far have had something in common: they’re feel like a homage to a classic story. They don’t have any anything really wrong with them. They just fall a little short of being really, really good. I would say that my favorite so far is last week’s Thin Ice. This week’s not awfully bad, it just feels like I could’ve skipped it.

Wood lice from outer space keep a woman alive, but she’s now made of wood. Oh, and to do that they must devour people into the wood. The one frightening scene was the first victim, partially absorbed into the wall. Other than that, it’s Doctor Who preaching mortality although he’s an immortal himself. He convinces the woman who controls the bugs to give up her nightmarish life. The creepy landlord (played by David Suchet, aka Poirot) turns out to be her son, and the entire story is a tragic tale of a boy who loved her mother too much and outer space bugs.

Could’ve worked better? I’m not sure. I just wanted the stories to get progressively better, and this feel a bit of a letdown. We do get a finale with more hints at who’s inside the vault. Seems there’s a piano in there. Is Missy in there? Or the Master himself? As long as it’s not a bloody Dalek, we seem to be in the right direction.

Highs/Lows/IAmTheOneWhoKnocks:

  • Bill Potts brings a picture of her mom out and shows her the room. That was sweet and endearing.
  • The only scary image in a while, the first roommate partially digested by the wall. That was promising, but as scary goes, that’s as scary as it got.
  • The wood lady, Eliza, didn’t scare anybody. Adding a little more expression in the face would’ve helped. Or, cover the eyes. You’re proper scared of something when you can’t see the eyes, something we all learned from H.R. Giger (the creator of the alien xenomorph concept).
  • David Suchet played straight out creepy very well, to the point that it’s underwhelming to put someone else as another baddie.
  • Bill doesn’t cry over Shireen when she gets consumed by insects. Actually, there’s little reaction by anybody when people get eaten by the house. The horror effect is very muted. It’s not like people have not died in the past episodes. In this one, Bill’s friends all get restored back to life. It’s a little too PG rated to commit to a horror story.
  • That is totally Missy or the Master playing the piano inside the vault.

That will do for now.