Knock Knock: What The Papers Say…

Knock Knock: What The Papers Say…

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Credit: BBC

‘You don’t have to go to outer space to find monsters. There’s plenty of things that want to kill you right here on Earth.’

Here’s an uncomfortable hypothesis: Steven Moffat has ruined Doctor Who for other haunted house stories. This is because every haunted house story anyone tries to tell will forever be judged beside Blink, his 2007 classic that regularly tops best-ever episode polls. Anything else is destined to fade into obscurity (see 2013’s Hide).

Can Mike Bartlett, the man behind the BBC’s other great Doctor, Doctor Foster, break this lovely curse? The answer is a resounding ish. If the worst thing you can say about an episode is that it doesn’t quite measure up to the most beloved episode ever – well, that is to praise with faint damnation. What it is is another cracking story in a series yet to drop a dud.

Here’s an uncomfortable hypothesis: Steven Moffat has ruined Doctor Who for other haunted house stories. This is because every haunted house story anyone tries to tell will forever be judged beside Blink, his 2007 classic that regularly tops best-ever episode polls. Anything else is destined to fade into obscurity (see 2013’s Hide).

Can Mike Bartlett, the man behind the BBC’s other great Doctor, Doctor Foster, break this lovely curse? The answer is a resounding ish. If the worst thing you can say about an episode is that it doesn’t quite measure up to the most beloved episode ever – well, that is to praise with faint damnation. What it is is another cracking story in a series yet to drop a dud.

Credit: BBC

Bartlett may be one of the hottest writers in TV right now, plus a celebrated playwright. But he also comes from a clear position of loving this show; he knows instinctively how to do this. After the 1-2-3 punch of Bill’s initiation, we’re back on Earth and following what should be a mundane life event for her – moving into a student house. But Bartlett weaves in all the classic elements amid the character work. The ordinary is made terrifying: there’s pace, chills, suspense, a charismatic villain and – dear god – a house that eats people. This is a mystery that works within its own logic – a beautiful, tragic story about the things a boy will do for his mother. But still, it isn’t Blink.

‘I’ll see you later for more exciting Tardis action, but basically, this is the bit of my life that you’re not in.’

Here’s a fun new way to play the companion dynamic – the Doctor as nightmare stalker! One feature of Moffat’s Doctor Who is that the Doctor’s friends always have lives of their own. Before him, it was usually implied that these people would drop everything and move into the Tardis for their adventures. Amy and Rory had their bunk beds for a time, but by the end they were fully domesticated – a monstery adventure doubling up as their summer holiday. Clara held down that teaching job throughout. And Bill is putting down roots of her own despite the promise of adventures in space and time. She’s visibly irked that her “Grandfather” has clear boundary issues. True, he’s hanging around to avert death and catastrophe, but you get the sense that even if that were not the case, he simply would not get it.

It’s unclear how much time has passed since last week (paradox!), but since the first three episodes took place in one continuous span of real time, it has presumably been business as usual at St Luke’s for quite a while.

And for all the classic horror, this return to modern-day Earth feels remarkably current in reflecting one of the scariest elements of modern life. Dodgy landlord, creaking floors, seven people sharing who barely know each other – it’s Doctor Who does the housing crisis! On a similar theme, there are subtle yet definite nods to Bill’s life in relative poverty. “I thought you’d have more stuff,” the Doctor remarks as he helps her move. Bill asks of the photo of her late Mum, “my own place – are you proud of me?”

Fear factor

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Two main reasons to jump behind the sofa this week (viewers with a bug phobia are probably still hiding there). These look very similar to normal creepy-crawlies but just … bigger. The way they “killed” Harry made my stomach cramp.

And of course, this week’s star turn goes to David Suchet as the Landlord. The Time Lordy name given to the character had led to speculation that he would be a Time Lord, but no, just a lonely old man with serious mummy issues. Suchet apparently signed up without even reading the script – it’s a nice reminder of the status of this show. Truth be told, I would have liked to see even more of him, but understatement was the name of the game here. The way Suchet conveys all that menace using only his eyes is quite something.

Mysteries and questions

The thing in the vault is skilled at piano, whiling away its imprisonment. It delivers a serene recital of Beethoven’s Für Elise, switching to Pop Goes the Weasel when the Doctor tells it a story that involved lots of death. And there’s a clear familiarity, even affection there. Yup, it’s definitely Missy.

Continuity corner

This may be the most oblique reference yet, given that it doesn’t even feature in the episode. But in the new Doctor Who Magazine, Bartlett reveals a backstory for housemate Harry that never made it to screen. For reasons best known to himself, Bartlett decided that Harry would be the grandson of the Tom Baker companion, Royal Naval surgeon Harry Sullivan.

“It was a reference I enjoyed hugely, because I love Harry Sullivan,” he explains. “And housemate Harry has, I think, a similar sort of attitude, of energetic sort of pluck. It was decided that, in 2017, people might not remember one companion from 40-odd years ago. So it got cut.” But if the writer said it out loud, it’s definitely canon.

Deeper into the vortex

If you’re still getting flashbacks to Blink, there’s another good reason. The Knock Knock house is the same location used for Wester Drumlins – Fields House, a Grade II-listed Victorian building in Newport.

The Doctor once stepped in on bass for Quincy Jones.

  • As I recall, Rose Tyler also had a best friend called Shireen. Coincidence? Probably yes.
  • I’ve just received a press release about the DVD of this series and noticed it has a 12 rating. I’ve never considered this before. Do we think Doctor Who is a 12? Is it really a “children’s programme” if so? And am I wrong to start my five-year-old nephew on a 12?
  • There is one element of Knock Knock which cannot be allowed to stand. Bill is castigated by her housemates for having a Little Mix playlist. But that’s exactly what a switched-on hipster would be doing. Little Mix are the single greatest act to come out of the X Factor. This future-facing ball of sass are easily the best UK girl group since Girls Aloud – and very possibly since Bananarama.
  • It’s a busy time for Bartlett. The second series of Doctor Foster is due later this year, and this Wednesday sees BBC2 air the adaptation of his “future history”play King Charles III. Depicting an imagined version of Charles’ accession to the throne, it’s already causing a stink.

Next week!

Writer Jamie Mathieson, acclaimed for some of the most popular episodes in recent years, returns with Oxygen. We’re back off into outer space – and obviously nothing is going to go wrong.


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David Suchet and Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who
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David Suchet was brilliant… the yoofspeak less so

“Knock Knock.” “Who’s there?” “The Doctor.” “Doctor Who?” “That’s right.”

Things went bump in the night but Poirot refused to investigate, so the Doctor had to do it. Here’s everything that happened in episode four…

The haunted house was a retro horror treat

From creaking floorboards to claps of thunder, whistling wind to slamming doors, this knowingly nostalgic episode was styled like an old Hammer horror flick. A touch of vampire film here, some poltergeist-style activity there – and that classic horror trope of housemates getting picked off one-by-one. This was Evil Dead meets Amityville Horror, Burnt Offerings via The Shining – with a soupçon of Sapphire and Steel.

The playful film references even became overt when Bill (Pearl Mackie) operated the secret bookcase and muttered: “Indiana Jones, come on!” There were echoes of classic Eighties drama series Edge of Darkness, too, with people turning into trees.

It could be enjoyed as a straightforward adventure too, of course – a spooky house with a sci-fi twist and emotional resolution. For homage-spotters, however, there was something for everyone.

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Credit: BBC

Mike Bartlett’s debut Who script had yoof appeal.

This is a big week on the Beeb for playwright Mike Bartlett. The screen adaptation of his royal play King Charles III airs on BBC Two next Wednesday and here came his first story for Doctor Who – not to be confused with his other TV hit, Doctor Foster.

The episode began with a bracing burst of Little Mix on the soundtrack and flung us straight into the Scooby-Do gang vibes of six student housemates. The slangy script bristled with youthful energy, targeting younger viewers with a flavour of Who spin-offs Class and Torchwood.

Baby-faced Harry (Colin Ryan from CBBC’s Leonardo) described the Doctor as a “legend” (well, he is but not in that sense) and tried to high-five him. Shireen (Mandeep Dhillon) muttered: “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here, yeah?” Even the 2,000-year-old Doctor (Peter Capaldi) got in on the act, saying “Chill, put some tunes on” before firing up Bill’s Spotify playlist and even more Little Mix.

At times, though, it was a little like Bartlett was quoting from a dictionary of yoofspeak, especially when lanky Scot Paul (Ben Presley) came out with the cringeworthy line: “We should throw our own party. Pop-up. Freestyle. Boom!” Stop it Dad, you’re embarrassing us.

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David Suchet made a creepy, classy guest star.

No wooden acting here. David Suchet playing the Landlord was brilliant casting. Just menacing enough as he mysteriously appeared without warning, smiling evilly in corners. Grey-haired and brown-suited, Suchet even looked ghostly. Never before has a tuning fork seemed so sinister.

Despite creepy lines like “You signed the contract. Now it’s time to pay”, The Landlord wasn’t really a baddie. Like Norman Bates (another horror film reference), he was just a deeply messed-up, grieving son in denial, trying desperately to keep his mother alive.

It was heart-rending when he eventually admitted that Eliza (Mariah Gale) wasn’t his daughter but his mother, asked her forgiveness and reverted to childhood with his plea of “I don’t want to” before dying in his mother’s embrace. A cracking guest turn from the 71-year-old Poirot star.

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Bill continues to charm.

It was a treat to see the Doctor’s new companion “off-duty” and trying to be a normal(ish) student, all fresher’s parties and Chinese takeaways. “This is the bit of my life you’re not in,” she told her “grandfather” when he wouldn’t go away. We also enjoyed their exchange when she found out – four episodes into her Tardis tenure – that he’s a Time Lord. “Sounds posh. Do you wear robes and big hats?” “Big collars, mostly.”

Yet it wasn’t all girlbands and bantz. There was a further hint of Bill’s emotional depth as she chatted to the photograph of her mother (is she really dead? We’re beginning to wonder). When the Landlord asked: “If you could save the one who brought you into this world, wouldn’t you?”, the camera cut to a tearful Bill. Significant, perhaps?

Endings and effects are common curse this series

We seem to say it every week but only two things let down this excellent episode: some patchy special effects and a rather rushed ending.

The alien woodlice were serviceable but it looked distinctly shonky once they started swallowing up humans. And when Harry got his foot stuck in a rubber staircase, it verged on laughable.

The house crumbling to the ground and the Doctor barking “Right, you lot, back to the estate agent” also wrapped things up in one heck of a hurry. Still, those gripes aside, this was probably the best episode of the series so far.

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Credit: BBC

Foreshadowing of regeneration has begun.

“Sleep’s for tortoises,” scoffed the Doctor. “Unless we’ve regenerated or had a big lunch.” “Regenerated?” asked Bill, understandably for someone who’d only just worked out what a Time Lord was. The Doctor waved her away with: “Oh, the questions, the questions.” But we’re beginning to countenance the end of the Twelfth Doctor’s reign.

Otherwise, Capaldi was on fine form again this week. He asked tree-woman Eliza “How are you feeling? Rotten?”. He summed up his strategy as “Info dump, then busk” and came over all philosophical by declaring: “New friends and fireworks. That’s what life should be.”

He was busy being a sort of timber-based exorcist but the Doctor still found time to munch on prawn crackers and namedrop US super-producer Quincy Jones. We’ll miss the charismatic Capaldi when he’s gone.

The immersive audio version is even creepier

This episode is, for the first time, available to watch on iPlayer in a “binaural audio edition”. Which, in layman’s language, means that 3D surround sound tricks your ears into thinking certain noises are coming from behind, below or above you.

Perfectly suited to a haunted house horror story, then. It only works with headphones but if that’s your bag, then head online, plug in and get extra-spooked.


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Rarely does Doctor Who embrace another genre as completely as the first 30 minutes of “Knock Knock” does. For the first two thirds of its running time, tonight’s episode is a horror movie, with all the customary trappings. There’s the spooky haunted house with the still spookier landlord. There’s a bunch of thinly sketched young people who are all possibly idiots. There are loud noises and eerie music and windows and doors shutting all by themselves. If anything, it’s all a bit old-fashioned, in the best possible way.

And to its credit, the script by Doctor Who newcomer Mike Bartlett doesn’t take this as the umpteenth opportunity to deconstruct the genre. The Doctor and Bill are dropped into this scenario, and the Doctor’s presence—as well as the fact he’s not some young doofus, at least not in this incarnation—means the story unfolds a little differently than it might in a typical horror scenario, but even then he doesn’t fundamentally alter the setup as he might in another story, at least not at first. Let’s say you remove the Doctor from this story and make Bill the same basic person, except not a companion. It’s not too hard to imagine that version of her working out enough of what’s going on to confront the landlord over the house’s prior occupants, much as the Doctor does.

It’s around that particular scene, when the Doctor starts pleading with the landlord to let him help and Harry makes his ill-fated escape attempt, that the episode transitions from horror movie to a more typical Doctor Who story. The emphasis flips from surviving to solving the latest impossible mystery, and it’s here where the Doctor’s superior knowledge and experience—not to mention his alien nature—alters what kind of story we’re watching. For the first 30 minutes, the focus is on the young people in danger, with the Doctor as honorary member of that band. Following the story “Knock Knock” sets up to its inevitable conclusion would probably mean Bill and the Doctor escaping the malevolent threat by the skin of their teeth, the former’s friends all sacrificed for the sake of building up the monster they just escaped. And sure, Doctor Who isn’t above killing all its guest characters. The aptly named Fourth Doctor story “The Horror Of The Fang Rock” is perhaps the most brutal example of this.

But “Knock Knock” chooses a different direction, as the episode asks us to switch our focus to the landlord and his wooden mother. The Doctor and Bill then move from horror movie survivors to a TARDIS team trying to understand and help. Their own experiences become subordinate to their empathy. And that’s not a bad thing! It’s just a bit weird to watch the story undergo such a shift, especially on a first viewing. The first half-hour and the final 15 minutes of “Knock Knock” are independently very good, even excellent, but the lack of cohesion between them undercuts both.

That could be a bigger problem for an episode not anchored by three terrific performances—four, if you include Mariah Gale’s affecting work under heavy prosthetics as Eliza. I’ve already heaped plenty of praise on Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie, and I’ll soon do so again, but let’s first turn to David Suchet, who is magnificent as the landlord. Like Capaldi, Suchet elects to underplay his character, suggesting a man who is less evil than he is broken or even incomplete, which perfectly fits someone who never really left his tragic childhood. The temptation would be for the former Poirot star to sow hints of menace from the first moment, but it’s only when Harry asks once too often about the tower—and, without knowing it, potentially puts Eliza in jeopardy—that the landlord snaps, and even then only for a moment. The psychology of Suchet’s performance is impeccable: For much of the run, he’s a little boy doing his best impression of a grown-up, then he’s a little boy being cruel to those who must die to save his mother, and then all falls away as his mother realizes who she is and treats him like his son again for the first time in decades.

Still, tonight’s episode is only briefly about Suchet’s landlord. Most of the time, the focus remains squarely on Bill, and here’s where we see a very different horror aspect come into play: Bill faces the exquisite embarrassment of the Doctor wanting to hang out with her and her friends. While other new series companions have had love interests and family members, very few have had friends—like Bill, Rose had a friend called Shireen, while Donna had her arch-enemy Nerys—and these were generally unseen or only briefly glimpsed. It’s very rare for Doctor Who to explore a companion’s personal life in this way, and Bartlett’s script repeatedly underlines just how out of place the Doctor is in this setting, with Mackie and Capaldi wringing every ounce of comedy out of the Doctor’s repeated intrusions.

That character work also neatly complements the horror genre excursion. After all, it’s a classic horror trope that the characters involved have to act like idiots for the plot to work, and “Knock Knock” is no exception. The problem is Bill has established she’s no idiot, and nothing that happens tonight is any stranger than what she witnessed in the first three episodes. The story explains her occasional obliviousness as a character choice, an indicator of how much she wants to preserve some space of her life independent from the Doctor.

Even then, “Knock Knock” is careful to make Bill the bravest, most intelligent member of the group, with her volunteering to investigate the spooky noise and her working out a good chunk of what’s going on here. Beyond that, some of the storytelling choices on the margins are clearly designed to ease the weirdness of placing Bill, a companion who we will see in episodes before and after that, in a narrative scenario that would normally involve the brutal murder of a bunch of her friends: first, only Shireen is someone she knew before the events of the story, and second all her housemates come back to life at the end, a necessary and wise concession given how much death affected her in “Thin Ice.”

Finally, a larger thought: An episode like “Knock Knock” underlines the difference between Bill and her predecessor in the TARDIS. In part because Clara began as a mystery instead of a character, she could never really progress beyond being the archetype of a Doctor Who companion. All her actions and motivations ultimately either traced back to her role as the Doctor’s companion or felt episode-specific, something not clearly rooted in a character that existed outside the TARDIS. She wasn’t unique in that regard: Martha was in a similar position, and Amy and Rory rode the line with this, especially after season five. The point is the stories Doctor Who eventually figured out best suited Clara were those that spoke more universally to her role as a Doctor Who companion—her addiction to adventure, growing similarity to the Doctor, and even her romance with Danny Pink were compelling because of what they said about the show and its storytelling conventions.

Bill, though, exists independently of the Doctor, even if “Knock Knock” portrays her failing to keep her life separate. In this respect, she fits into the best tradition of Rose and Donna, characters the show likewise took time to develop outside the TARDIS. Bill’s desire to find a place to live, her dealing with Paul’s unwanted advances, her friendship with Shireen, even her showing her mother’s photo where she ended up—all these are aspects of a character that could exist and be compelling even if she had never fallen into the Doctor’s orbit. And that makes it all the richer when Bill makes the companion’s contribution to the resolution of the story, as she points out the impossibility of the landlord being old enough to be a middle-aged father in the mid-20th century and the improbability of such a father just randomly sharing a box of insects with his sick daughter. These are practical objections that may not be directly informed by any of the traits and motivations that I just mentioned—though notice how Bill also pauses when the landlord challenges the Doctor to say he would not do anything to save his own mother—yet there’s a sense of connectivity and coherence in Bill’s actions that you find in the best new series companions. Doctor Who has something special in Pearl Mackie and Bill, as her presence has elevated every episode she’s appeared in. When she’s accompanied by Peter Capaldi and David Suchet at the height of their powers, it’s easy to forgive “Knock Knock” a bit of narrative wonkiness.

Stray observations

For the record, none of what I said above should be read as a condemnation of Clara. She was fun in specific episodes of series seven, very good in series eight, and often great in series nine. Plus, Jenna Coleman generally elevated the shortcomings of the writing for her character. I think series nine is the best of new Doctor Who (though series 10 already looks like it’s in with a shot), so I’m not dismissive of Clara’s contributions to the show. It’s just that everything just feels easier this year with Bill around, as the storytelling is organic and character-driven in a way the show hasn’t tapped into this readily since probably series four or five.

I do enjoy the little stray bits of characterization Mike Bartlett gives to the generally thinly sketched housemates. In particular, Shireen is very obviously crushing on Paul long before Bill calls her out on it, as she consistently teases him about being expendable or Scottish or whatever else in the way someone figuring out if they are attracted to someone would.

The scene in which Bill and the Doctor discuss how he’s a Time Lord is another brilliant interaction between them. I’d say the show should give them a two-hander together, but then I remembered that’s what all the best bits of “Smile” already were. Also, I do hope Bill sticks around long enough to learn about regeneration firsthand after that deft bit of foreshadowing.

At this point, I’m not sure there’s any logical identity for who’s in the vault that isn’t the Master. Only real question is whether the Master in there looks like John Simm or Michelle Gomez.


 

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This is a post-UK broadcast review of Doctor WhoKnock Knock. River Song always warned the Doctor against spoilers, so be sure to watch the episode first. Doctor Who airs on Saturdays at 7:20pm UK time on BBC One, and 9pm EDT on BBC America.

Meddling kids, alien woodlice, and a creepy Landlord throw Doctor Who‘s Knock Knock into a Scooby Doo-meets-The Mummy adventure complete with a time-warped, played-for-dark-laughs haunted house.

For the second time in this series—which is showrunner Steven Moffat’s last hurrah at the TARDIS console—the walls are inhabited by insect-like creatures. In Smile, worker bee microbots—dubbed Vardies—are the walls. That idea is partially repeated here, albeit in a different setting: Bill (Pearl Mackie) and the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) are back on present-day Earth (my favourite Doctor Who episodes are often the ones that give us aliens in the most ordinary of backdrops).

Bill is looking for new digs with five fellow, penniless students, who have rightly overlooked the fact that she was recently serving them chips in the university canteen. And straight away, Bill is the leader of this goofy gang as she fearlessly goes to check the kitchen when the students are spooked by an odd noise. She discovers a clattering-about Doctor investigating the “lots of wood” house.

The uneasy exchange between the pair reminds me of the awkward dynamic of a young person trying to look cool in front of new friends, while attempting to shake-off the claustrophobic attention of an elderly relative. Bill even fibs to the gang that the Doctor—their lecturer—is her grandad.

“This is the bit of my life you’re not in,” Bill later reminds the Doctor, who insists on sticking around.

The tuning fork-wielding Landlord (sublimely played by David Suchet) ramps up the ghoulish theme of Knock Knock. And it quickly becomes clear that it might be best for everyone to make like a tree and leave.

“You signed the contract and now it’s time to pay!,” the evil Landlord (is there any other kind?) tells his tenants, who clearly failed to read the small print, which perhaps revealed that their other roommates are alien woodlice.

The Doctor works through various names, “wood nymphs, tree spirits,” before settling on “dryads.” He tells Harry (Colin Ryan) that the creatures aren’t just in the wood, but “they’re becoming the wood.” A high-pitched noise is needed to lure them out for dinner, which explains the Landlord’s tuning fork.

For large chunks of this episode Bill is separated from the Doctor and is instead working her way around the haunted house with new chum Shireen (Mandeep Dhillon). The storyline is a bit horror-by-numbers as one by one Bill’s pals are bumped off by the alien woodlice. The on-screen effect is pretty grim, if thoroughly gripping, and reminds me of the carnivorous scarabs in The Mummy.

The whole thing is then spookily turned up to 11, courtesy of the terrific binaural sound design. On at least one occasion, Knock Knock made me jump—and I’m not the jumpy type. Viewers who tuned in to the episode when it broadcast on TV on Saturday night might want to watch—and listen—again by checking out the iPlayer version. Here’s the obligatory plug from the BBC, which says that the binaural audio edition “creates a 3D surround sound effect for anyone wearing headphones, placing them at the heart of the action in this nail-biting episode.”


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13 tweets that perfectly sum up the reaction to this week’s spooky Doctor Who.

https://twitter.com/Jenlove48/status/861028478178783232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiotimes.com%2Fnews%2F2017-05-07%2F13-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-reaction-to-this-weeks-spooky-doctor-who

https://twitter.com/HeronBlue84/status/860940156823580672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiotimes.com%2Fnews%2F2017-05-07%2F13-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-reaction-to-this-weeks-spooky-doctor-who

https://twitter.com/Iamleenelson/status/860928272372297728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiotimes.com%2Fnews%2F2017-05-07%2F13-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-reaction-to-this-weeks-spooky-doctor-who

https://twitter.com/MeLaurenVaughan/status/861029837867278337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiotimes.com%2Fnews%2F2017-05-07%2F13-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-reaction-to-this-weeks-spooky-doctor-who

Doctor Who continues next Saturday at 7:15pm on BBC1

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