Mike Bartlett has become well known for writing Doctor Foster so I was interested in seeing how he would write for a very different kind of Doctor. On the basis of this episode I would say it is not so well.
It seems that Bill, like previous companions created by Steven Moffat will alternate between travelling in the Tardis and living on Earth. This time it makes more sense given that she is focusing on studying. She and her student friends Harry, Shireen, Paul, Felicity and Pavel are searching for accomodation and seem to have been in luck when a Landlord offers them a huge empty house to stay in. It is too good to be true. The Doctor helps Bill to move in but soon discovers that something is not quite right when the walls board up and people get trapped in the walls.
The cause of these problems are creepy alien insects called the Dryads. Creepy crawlies are always a good way of getting the audience to feel uncomfortable. The way they can crawl up people's shoes and swarm over them is an effective way to cause scares.
Deep in a tower in the house is a wooden woman, Eliza. She turns out to be the Land Lord's mother who has been preserved for many years. The wood-design around her body is quite good. It also helps the story to take on a darker significance. The Landlord is actually a recluse living with his mother. They both vanish in a cloud of insects.
This all leads to a disappointingly abrupt ending where the people are restored for some reason. Perhaps it took them twenty years to be fully absorbed. It still felt a little unexplained.
Overall this story was not spectacular. Haunted House stories are difficult to pull off in Doctor Who. As a Saturday night show there are limits as to how horrific the show can go.The ending is a sign of how a show can chicken out. Still, the guest cast were decent but overall I would say this is average fair.
6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment