Doctor Who Series 10 Episodes 4-5 review - Knock Knock/Oxygen

We continue our look at series 10 of Doctor Who with the 4th and 5th episodes of the series

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Doctor

Doctor Who

OK, I’ll show myself out.

If you’ve been a student in your life, you’ve probably been here. You’re searching for somewhere to live in your second year, you want something to fill all your desires but find that doing that and keeping the budget under control come at cross purposes and you have to settle, hopefully with a compromise but most likely with somewhere sh*t. At least you’ll always have the money to get yourself plastered, right?

And so comes Doctor Who’s ingenious attempt to make a horror story out of it. I don’t like horror films much but I adore this concept so much I couldn’t look away. But at it’s core, it’s a fairly standard horror plot, at least to start with. Bill and her new housemates: Eliza, Shareen, Harry, Paul, Felicity and Pavel all move into a way too good to be true scary mansion with cheap rent. The Doctor thinks there’s a mystery to be solved and of course he’s absolutely correct. I like that they take time to have the cast talk to each other, allowing us to get to know them, even a little.

The Doctor, who takes the guise of Bill’s Grandad in what is blatantly a reference to Susan, is more of an embarrassing parent. Another nightmare amongst the student community. But he’s not there to embarrass here, something is afoot in this strange mansion and it all links because to a Hercule Poirot, ok, David Suchet plays the landlord of this spooky place and it’s a fantastic performance, as to be expected from him.

So, in standard horror fare, the place is creepy, creaky and noises are heard, people begin disappearing one by one, initially it goes unnoticed but when it becomes knowledge it becomes a race to solve the mystery or escape. But a warning that attempting to escape may not end well.

Of course, this is Doctor Who and there’s something else going on entirely, the final act of this episode is a quite jarring change of genre from the rest of it, and that’s not exactly a bad thing, I think the story behind what’s going on and how they ultimately resolved it is a mixture of powerful and tragic. I won’t spoil too much of it here but it takes what might be considered a somewhat silly reveal and makes it interesting.

I have my issues with the final scene, can we give Nardole something to do already, it’s been 3 episodes since he’s even had a supporting role in events and there really needs to be something to justify his presence in the show. Oh, and the Vault, just put us out of our misery, this does not need to be a season-long arc, it’ll only disappoint.

Rating 8.5/10

I’m convinced that Jamie Mathieson is a rare gem. In Capaldi’s era he gave us Mummy on the Orient Express, one of my favourite episodes of series 8, he immediately followed up by the very good but flawed Flatline and here we are with Oxygen, which also falls into the very good but flawed category.

So, we’re on a space station in the far future, it’s some kind of mining station and people are dying left and right per the usual Doctor Who tropes. The Doctor, abandoning the vault again, this time with Nardole tagging along, answers a distress call from the base but is soon separated from the TARDIS and loses his sonic screwdriver. (Please, when the next one inevitably comes along, give it a new design, that one looks hideous) can the Doctor save anyone on the base and keep his own life?

OK, so let’s start with the great stuff, the cinematography and editing in this episode is fantastic, this is another horror episode, odd so soon after the last one but the editing is good and keeps the tension going, the monsters whilst not exactly anything original, look decent enough to be serviceable. The horror is done really well in this episode, having 2 well-done horror stories back-to-back is amazing.

Here’s the thing, serialising Doctor Who is not what I’d call necessary. You can be anywhere and any-when, you don’t need an ongoing story to connect them. What you can do though is have character arcs that pass through and we’re definitely getting the start of that. I suspect this may partly be under the suggestion of Moffat but the Doctor makes a hefty sacrifice to save Bill. We know he can survive in space for a short period from Four to Doomsday but he was out for a lot longer this time and it’s cost him his sight.

Is that going to be permanent? It may well be, I was surprised when it continued past the end of the episode but now it has, I could see it lasting through the season, although not telling Bill is stupid and how this will impact his undercover work is unclear.

Bill is really being put through the mill, going through what’s really her first proper near-death experience. And being put through another one almost immediately afterwards. I hope this does have an impact on her, I like Bill as a character but she does need to grow and change for this arc to work out for her.

OK, onto the negatives and I’ll start with my smallest gripe, Nardole. I’ve complained the last two weeks that he was reduced to a cameo. Here, his role is extended but it’s largely made up of him complaining about the vault or him flirting with the AI, yeah, for a series that usually has its humour really spot on, this grated on my nerves throughout the episode

But onto a more interesting problem. The concept. Clearly, it’s mocking capitalism by bringing it to such an extreme where a business charges their employees to use the air they breathe whilst mining. Problem, what kind of stupid company would ever…

OK, I just answered my own question. 

Overall, it’s a very good episode and opens up some interesting avenues for the show to go down, we’ll have to see where things go from here

Rating 7.5/10