Knock knock. Who's there? Doctor, Doctor Who, and it's a scary one! Never before has an episode started so on the nose with its title - literally a knock-knock on Bill's door. She's leaving home to move into shared accommodation with some fellow students, whom she barely knows. In fact, apart from one, she's meeting them for the first time as they go hunting for a place to live. A short montage shows the various pitfalls (slightly exaggerated) that such a search presents, until out of the blue a softly spoken old gent offers to help. He has a very large house to rent very cheaply. So cheap in fact that Bill is a little cautious, but it's draughty and creaky so it kind of makes sense. There's wooden panelling throughout, a tower that is out of bounds for safety reasons and they later discover that there is no central heating and the electrics are woefully out of date. In reality, there are so many failings that the property would fall way below legal requirements, but we won't let that get in the way of a good story. Besides, rogue landlords do get away with some shocking standards sometimes! Only on this occasion it leads to the one of the students screaming, never to be seen again...
The episode starts quite bright and fluffy, but by the end of the pre-title sequence it's started to turn. After the titles, it flips back to breezy so it can build the tension again. You see, the missing student had moved in immediately while everyone else took time to get themselves sorted. For Bill, this means gathering a small collection of boxes in her room and letting the Doctor materialise the TARDIS around them! Though grateful for his assistance, Bill seems reluctant to be seen with him. The Doctor has such a strong reputation as the wonderfully crazy lecturer, all the students know who he is but Bill doesn't want anyone to see them as friends so explains that he is her granddad! He protests that he doesn't look old enough and that she should go with 'father' instead. Missing the point, Bill changes her wording to grandfather instead!
And I think that's about all the plot I'm going to talk about. The beauty of Doctor Who is that beyond the Doctor, Companion, TARDIS framework, it can be anything at all and this week it is a mini horror movie with a creepy old house with unexplained noises and unexpected goings on. The sound-scape is as important any any of the plot and visual effects, creating an atmosphere as much as a story. The sound team have really gone to town on this episode, rather like Midnight in 2008. This time around they have gone as far as producing a binaural mix for the episode designed to give a full surround sound experience without multiple speakers. The theory goes that we only have two ears so we should only need two speakers. The mix is created by playing the sounds in a real three-dimensional space around a head-shaped stereo microphone. With microphones positioned where the ears would be it should record the sounds with all the delays and reverberation and refraction that a real head would experience and influence. When played back through headphones, so the sounds go directly to the ears without any further directional affects interfering, the listener should experience the recording as if they were where the head-shaped recorder had been. That's the theory. It's nothing new, but it is experimental. It has to be a separate presentation from the broadcast version because playing it through television speakers or multi speaker surround system would sound wrong, so the BBC have made it available as a special alternative version on their website. It's worth remembering that a good portion of the Doctor Who audience is increasingly experiencing the show via catch-up via computer or tablet and mobile devices. It's not unreasonable to imagine such viewers watching with headphones, so this dip into binaural arrangements could be a good move for the future. But does it work?
I watch Doctor Who as it is broadcast an a normal television with no special sound equipment, just the stereo speakers built into the set. It sounded great with a wonderfully effective atmosphere created. When I re-watch the episodes and make notes for these reviews, I do so via in-ear headphones. They are cheap but have a natural sounding output. Again it sounded great and the normal stereo mix certainly played better directly into my ears that the relatively low separation of the TV's speakers sat several metres in front of me. I then went online and checked out the binaural mix. With my normal in-ear headphones there was certainly a richer quality to the sound, but the introductory explanation before the episode started seemed to do more with it. The stereo effect was of course just as effective and there did seem to be a sense of height at times with some of the creaks and scuttles coming from above while others were below. However, there didn't seem to be any kind of front-to-back depth. There were some very definite visual clues for sounds to be coming from way off in front or creepily from behind, yet I didn't experience it with my ears. If anything, the binaural mix felt flatter in the front-to-back axis than the normal stereo mix, somehow suppressing any lateral depth to a narrow plane. I tried again with some more expensive over-the-ear headphones (I don't normally use them because they squeeze a bit too much and make my ears uncomfortably warm after too long). My thinking was that maybe I needed to hear the sounds as they interact with the outer shape of my ears, after all, that is how we have learnt to interpret depth of sound. There was certainly another level of richness, but that came from the different frequency response of the speakers giving more of the base tones and possibly more resolution along the spectrum. I don't think I felt the thin plane of sound with these headphones and there was a more generous depth to atmospheric sounds like the TARDIS noises, but there was still nothing to suggest sounds specifically coming from in front or behind.
David Suchet gave a wonderful performance as the landlord, proving what a superb actor he is from the warm softly nature of his introduction to the slightly creepy turns as he tries to be more in control, through to the child-like reactions at the end. Pearl Mackie is again perfectly on pitch with her performance as Bill, keenly portraying the duality of her life "I'll see you later for more exciting TARDIS action," she says, "but this is the bit of my life that you're not in." She wants to fit in with her new friends and it is awkward to have her 'grandfather' around and have him exposing her embarrassing musical tastes. Capaldi of course gives every possible side to the Doctor an airing once more as he tries to be 'down with the kids' and still slightly distant from the realities of their steadily dwindling number. As one announces "I'm scared" he simply says "Don't be." when asked why not, he explains "It doesn't help"
Bill's per-episode learning continues early on as she jokes that the Doctor should hire out the TARDIS as a removals service and he explains that he can't because he's a Time Lord. "What is that, your job?" she asks "Sounds a bit posh like, 'I doff my cap my lord', do you wear cloaks and big hats?" to which the Doctor of course explains it's big collars not hats! She asks about sleep and he says only if he's regenerated or had a big lunch. Bill picks up on the word 'regenerated' but he glosses over it "so many questions," he says "Just remember Time Lord, that's enough for now".
Meanwhile, the now regular post adventure visit to the vault reveals that whatever is inside now has a piano and can play it, choosing a light classical piece ("Für Elise" by Beethoven) as the Doctor talks and promises a story of a house and children getting eaten, at which point the piano stops and recommences with classic nursery rhyme "Pop Goes The Weasel". I can't help thinking these are hallmarks of Missy... somehow, and for some reason...
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