#i was thinking about the tardis and dw references throughout the show and then ideas and lore started spiraling

[aidanchaser]

i know im still finishing up boulangerella (im really at the climax i promise) but i got hit with another long fic idea and its still haunting me after like a week

She found him in Paris, in the twenty-first century. She wasn’t even looking for him, and yet she found him.

She’d only stopped in this time and place for a quick trip to her favorite bakery. There was something about the chouquettes that fluffed up so perfectly here and nowhere else. She’d visited this bakery a century earlier, and while it had been good, there was something about this particular century that was better. Maybe it was just the kindness of the baker and his wife, or a different twist on a family recipe, or something about the air quality. 

She tried to blend in—she always tried—but she was never the best at keeping up with the everyday fashion trends of the universe. There were a lot of different cultures throughout all of history and space to bother with, so she stuck to her red and black-spotted suit more often than not. If the bakery owners found this odd, they didn’t comment. She suspected that they were too polite to comment, even if she were to walk in with an inflatable rubber duck around her waist.

She’d found a perch on their rooftop, and had promised herself that she would only stay long enough to properly enjoy her sweet treat, when she saw him. Or rather, she saw his face on a large board advertisement high above the city.

She knew his face—how could she forget his face?—even after all this time.

But his picture didn’t necessarily mean that he was here. It only meant that he had been here at one point, and a remnant of him was left behind. She had no reason to get excited.

And yet she abandoned her chouquettes on the rooftop and leapt across the buildings to his portrait. His smile was wide and free. She brushed her hand along his face, more than triple the size it ought to be. Though his eyes were closed, she remembered how brilliantly green they were the last time she had seen him and she smiled, though it was bittersweet.

She hadn’t seen him smile this exuberantly in centuries. They’d been running and hiding for so long, and she’d nearly forgotten how happy he used to be. She hoped this picture meant that he’d found his freedom once again.

She slipped down to the streets and back into the bakery.

“More already?” the kind woman behind the counter smiled.

Her burly husband laughed. “You’ve got a healthy appetite, young lady.”

She bit down on her lip as she smiled. Their casual affection was always so warm and comforting. If she was allowed to stay anywhere, she would gladly stay with them.

“No, thank you,” she said. “The chouquettes were perfect, as always. Er—I was actually wondering if you could tell me about the advertisement.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the billboard.

“The Gabriel ad?” the woman asked. “It’s for… perfume, I think?”

“What about the boy in the ad?” she asked.

“Adrien Agreste?” the man said. “Gabriel Agreste’s son. He does all the primary modeling for the brand. He’s a sweet boy. Been in here a few times.”

She chewed on her lip as she tried to place the name Agreste. Had she been wrong? Was this boy not her lifelong partner and closest friend?

“Has he been here long?” she asked, though it was a silly question. Time meant little to people like her and him.

“Since his mother died, poor dear,” the woman said.

And she began to doubt. The boy she knew had lost his mother long ago, in the same war that had separated the two of them. Maybe she was wrong. This boy was not hers.

But something nagged in her chest that she was not wrong, that her partner was here. She could run from that impulse, leave this time and place to him. If he was happy here, she ought not risk it.

But she had to at least see him before she went. It was only right.

[tardisgirlepic]

Ch. 1 “Knock Knock” Analysis Doctor Who S10.4: “Pop Goes the Weasel”: Several Important References

Finally Canon & Things Aren’t Happening the Way They Appear

I don’t have time this week to post a lot.  Next week, unfortunately I won’t have time to post anything about the upcoming episode “Oxygen,” where it looks like payment is coming due in that episode for Bill.  The Doctor won’t be able to move on so easily from that.  And “Knock Knock” signaled that the Doctor is not immune from long-term, so to speak, canon damage.  He will end up paying in a way we haven’t seen before.

Anyway, in “Knock Knock,” we got another huge canon admission!  Yeah!  At the end of the episode regarding the Vault scene, the Doctor finally says that he is a prisoner, something we’ve seen for a very long time in the subtext.

However, things in “Knock Knock” aren’t happening, as they seem.  Right at the start, Pavel plays his phonograph, but there is an upside-down, reflection on the record.  Therefore, things are opposite of how they appear.  We see this reflection several times, including the scene when Pavel is part of the wall as Bill, Shireen, and the landlord discuss the situation.  In fact, this is echoed by the metaphor “Pop Goes the Weasel,” which refers to an illusion from Classic Who that we’ll discuss in a few minutes.

Before I explain a few things from the first part of the episode, I want to go over the Vault scene because “Pop Goes the Weasel” brings in a lot of subtext.

 Doctor Weirdness & Vault Scene

Does the Doctor seem off to you, especially starting at the end of the haunted house scene where the Doctor seems callous with the students’ plight of losing all of their housing and belongings?  He says, “Better luck next time” and leaves.  Is it really the face of the Doctor we think it is?

In fact, he sounds like the 12th Doctor in his 8th season:

DOCTOR: Are you being cheerful? I'm against cheerful.

He may be the schizoid man, which also has a reference to “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

 Lots of Food Not Necessarily a Good Sign

Next, we see Nardole talking to whomever behind the Vault door, and then we see the Doctor with 2 big bags of Mexican food, shown below.  How many people are in the Vault?  That is a lot of food.  BTW, this Vault scene looks like it was filmed later in the season because the Doctor’s hair is longer and more unwieldy.  

 All the food here plus something said at the beginning of the episode between the Doctor and Bill about food may mean the Doctor is not himself:

DOCTOR: Sleep's for tortoises.

BILL: Not Time Lords?

DOCTOR: No! Unless we've regenerated or had a big lunch.

BILL: Regenerated?

Sleeping and a big lunch is a reference to “The Two Doctors” episode with the 2nd and 6th Doctors, where the Sontarans and others are trying to master time travel. The 2nd Doctor is temporarily converted into an Androgum, a race of voracious gourmands.  He eats so much food that he falls asleep at the table.

With a seemingly voracious appetite, is the 12th Doctor being converted? The only other time that I can think of where someone is voracious is John Simm’s Master in “The End of Time” because he’s running an energy deficit.  The 10th Doctor tells him what��s happening.

DOCTOR: Your resurrection went wrong. That energy. Your body's ripped open. Now you're killing yourself. 

Has the Master taken over the Doctor’s body?  It’s possible since the Doctor looked into the Eye of Harmony.

BTW, yet again we see another reference to the Doctor not sleeping, which is a reference to “Sleep No More” (and capitalism gone amok, which is a recurring theme).  Lack of sleep will drive him mad again.  And “Sleep’s for tortoises” is from the 4th Doctor story “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” where we see a Chinese magician in the services of a despot from the 51st century, who is posing as the Chinese god Weng-Chiang.  The despot drains life forces to stay alive similar to what happens in “Knock Knock.”

 Für Elise & Beethoven

When Nardole is leaving the Vault area, someone in the Vault first plays “Für Elise" (or "Fuer Elise”), a composition by Beethoven.  The title means “For Elise,” which is significant since Eliza is the landlord’s mother.

Beethoven is a reference to the Doctor and Bill.  In fact, the 12th Doctor has a bust of Beethoven (red arrow) in his office.

Is the Doctor inside the Vault?  The landlord is a mirror of the Doctor (which I’ll show you more in a few minutes), so maybe the Doctor is playing “Für Elise" for his Mother or Mother of God consciousness.

Anyway, the music stops Nardole in his tracks:

NARDOLE: A piano? You've put a piano in there? Why?

DOCTOR: Goodnight.

NARDOLE: (sighs) Oh, you don't learn, do you, sir.

Again, the Doctor is not learning whatever lesson Nardole thinks he should, which also doesn’t bode well for the future.

What would Nardole make of the next tune, “Pop Goes the Weasel”?

 “Pop Goes the Weasel”: Misdirection, The Prisoner Series & Classic Who

We get some important clues suggesting who is in the Vault.  I’ve seen a lot of people guessing Missy.  However, I don’t believe this is correct.  DW and Moffat love misdirection.  The person in the Vault does play an upbeat “Pop Goes the Weasel” when the Doctor mentions that children get eaten in the story of the haunted house, which does seem like a Missy thing to do.  However, the song has long ties to the early days of DW.  I’ll give you my best guess of who is in the Vault in a few minutes. 

“Pop Goes the Weasel,” an English nursery rhyme and singing game, is an important metaphor.  First of all, it refers to prisoners, mind control, and illusions, which have been driving DW for a long time.  These references show up in the 3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane episode “Planet of the Spiders,” as well as the iconic British TV series from the 1960s called The Prisoner.  Second, “Pop Goes the Weasel” is also a meme in The Prisoner, representing an acronym.  Third, a different metaphorical representation of the song title shows up in “Thin Ice.”

 The Prisoner, Interrogation Techniques & “Pop Goes the Weasel”

The Prisoner is a 17-episode iconic British television series from 1967, and it looks to me like many ideas in DW come from The Prisoner.  (I recommend it, and it has far-reaching influence beyond DW.)  The series is a psychological, allegorical, spy drama about a British former secret agent who resigns abruptly in anger.  Then, he is abducted and held in a prison disguised as a coastal, island resort, where his captors use psychological warfare, among other things, to try to find out why he abruptly resigns from his job.  At one point, he vows to escape, come back, and destroy the place.  He also forms revolts, which is very much like what is in the subtext of DW.  We also see that as well from the Doctor’s statements in “Smile” where Scottish settlements all over are demanding independence.

No names at this mysterious resort prison are used, only numbers for both inmates and warders, so it’s generally difficult to know who is a prisoner and who isn’t.  Our agent, who generally can’t trust anyone, is assigned Number Six.  However, he says he is not a number, but a person and a free man in the opening credits. In fact, throughout the series, he refuses to embrace this new identity and sticks to his individualism to the extreme frustration of his warders. 

The 12th Doctor seems very much like Number Six, defying the rules.  In Classic Who, the Doctor said he was only free if he did the bidding of the Time Lords, although he did like defying the Time Lords, especially the 4th Doctor.

Like the former agent, the Doctor doesn’t use his name.  In fact, what’s interesting is that we’ve become accustomed to assigning each Doctor a number in a similar way the agent and fellow inmates are assigned numbers. The 4th and 12th Doctors seem particularly defiant in many ways, like Number Six.

Six, BTW, in DW is an interesting number because we saw how Kahler Tek was actually Subject 6 at the academy.  Archive 6 holds the TARDIS on the game station.  Also, there are hexagons all over the inside of the TARDIS. 

Here’s River, shown below, in “The Husbands of River Song” opening her secret alcohol cabinet.  The hexagons make a honeycomb structure, which is typically an ancient symbol of immortality.  Every other column of hexagons has a circle inside.

We also see the 5 faces of the Doctor, shown below, in “Smile.”  Each one is in a hexagon.  Here, the Doctor may be a schizoid man.  One of the episodes of The Prisoner is “The Schizoid Man,” where Number Six has a duplicate, who tries to steal his identity and mess with his mind.

Interestingly, in The Prisoner episode “Once Upon a Time,” the main warder Number Two quotes Shakespeare’s "All the world's a stage" monologue from As You Like It,  “One man in his time plays many parts.”  The Doctor is playing many parts, especially the 12th Doctor.

 Mind Control, Dream Manipulation, Hallucinations & More

The idyllic-looking setting of the coastal resort conceals the sinister workings of the prison that breaks the spirits of the inmates to gather intel.  Most of the prisoners are brainwashed and become hollow versions of their former selves, succumbing to the collectivist attitude of the prison community.

Using a variety of techniques, the warders try to extract information from our former agent, including mind control, dream manipulation, hallucinogenic drugs, identity theft, physical coercion, and various forms of social indoctrination.  He’s too valuable, so his captors don’t use permanently damaging techniques, like with most of the other inmates.

One other thing that happens to Number Six is that his mind is transferred into someone else’s body for an episode.  This show has futuristic, sci-fi, and fairytale elements to it.  At one point, Number Six says, “Don’t tell me time travel is in it as well?”

In comparison, we’ve seen many of these techniques in the subtext of DW.

 “Pop Goes the Weasel” Meme in Episode “Once Upon a Time”

The melody of "Pop Goes the Weasel" shows up in several episodes of the The Prisoner. However, it’s particularly important in the penultimate episode "Once Upon a Time."  Number Six is under assault by intense mind control techniques that make him become childlike.  Then, when he undergoes interrogation, he obsessively sings "Pop Goes the Weasel" and says “Pop… Pop…Pop…” at times.  "POP" here is an acronym for the meme representing the directive "Protect Other People."

In DW, is the person in the Vault actually using the meme “Protect Other People”?  If the Doctor is inside, I would expect him to use this meme.

 “Pop Goes the Weasel”: “Planet of the Spiders” & “Turn Left”

In DW, “Pop Goes the Weasel,” to my knowledge, is first used in the 3rd Doctor episode with Sarah Jane Smith called “Planet of the Spiders.”  It’s actually the 3rd Doctor’s last episode.  Here’s yet another spider and Sarah Jane reference. It’s obvious that some of the things in “Turn Left” come from “Planet of the Spiders.”

According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The blue crystal that the Doctor took from Metebelis III in a previous adventure is desperately sought by the Eight Legs, a race of mutated spiders, as the final element in their plan for universal domination. With help from an old mentor, the Doctor realises the only way to foil the plot is to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Doctor must risk death to return to the cave of the Great One and save the universe.

Psychic Abilities

“Planet of the Spiders” initially takes place at a Buddhist meditation center where a group of men are secretly working on developing their psychic abilities, seeking power and one also seeks revenge.  The Doctor, meanwhile, is researching psycholotry, telepathy, and clairvoyance and enlists the aid of a clairvoyant.

Psychic powers feature prominently in this episode, like teleportation, psychokinesis, and physical manifestations.  The Doctor tells the clairvoyant, “Mister Clegg, your powers may seem to be extraordinary, but I assure you that they lie dormant in everyone. They're perfectly natural.”  Professor Clegg, who is independent of the meditation center and crystal, has the natural ability of psychokinesis, etc.  However, multiple people use the powers, especially with the help of the blue crystal the Doctor stole or with the aid of the spiders’ ability to join minds with the humans.

Here’s Sarah Jane with the queen spider on her back, shown below, along with the 3rd Doctor and his old mentor K’anpo Rimpoche.  The queen is usually only visible when she wants to be, and she is controlling Sarah Jane. The spiders have more control over their victims, than it seems the beetle has control over Donna in “Turn Left.” The queen ends up talking through Sarah Jane in a different voice.

K’anpo, a Time Lord living on Earth who is the abbot of the meditation center, has an assistant Cho Je. At one point the Doctor and Sarah Jane find out that K'anpo and Cho Je are the same person.  Cho Je experiences pain and seems real, but he is a projection of K'anpo.  In fact, when K’anpo dies, he regenerates into Cho Je.  This is the only time we see 2 Time Lords regenerate in one episode.

That a Time Lord can project a version of himself is another superpower, so to speak.  Is something like this happening with the Doctor?

 “Pop Goes the Weasel,” Giant Spider & Illusion

The Great One, a colossal spider (red arrow) who rules over the queen and the other spiders as a goddess, is shown below.  The tiny 3rd Doctor with white hair is at the bottom right of center in the foreground in the crystal cave.

The interesting thing about this image is that if we shrink it down, shown below, the spider area is an eye, which makes sense because the Great One sees much of what is going on. I see this as a representation that mirrors the Eye of Harmony.  The other spiders are in a big “C” shape in a room on Metebelis III.  This seems like the forerunner to the Eye of Harmony.  

However, along with the spidery Eye, the cave part behind the spider is odd.  In a way, the two bright spots near the top look like eyes, where the spider is the nose.  This is easier to visualize for me in the larger image.

The Doctor returns to Metebelis III from where he stole a blue crystal from the planet.  He didn’t realize he stole it at the time, although he did take it.  He goes to a cave and hears Sarah’s voice.

(The Doctor arrives in a cave lit with blue light.) SARAH [OC]: Quickly, Doctor! Quickly! GREAT ONE [OC]: Stop! If you come any further, Doctor, you will die. Oh, not at once, but gradually every cell in your body will be irretrievably damaged by the crystal rays, and I need you alive. DOCTOR: I heard the voice of my assistant? GREAT ONE [OC]: Have no fear. She is quite safe. DOCTOR: But she called out to me for help. GREAT ONE [OC]: Like this? SARAH [OC]: Doctor, help me! Come quickly! GREAT ONE [OC]: No! It is an illusion. Listen. SARAH [OC]: Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle. That's the way the money goes. (Pop.) DOCTOR [OC]: Goes the weasel.

It’s interesting because “Pop Goes the Weasel” is used in an illusion with both Sarah’s and the Doctor’s voices being mimicked. 

In fact, the Great One has a lot of mind power and can easily control the Doctor, as she demonstrates, even though she is not on his back.

 “Pop Goes the Weasel,” Queen Spider, Mind Control & Superpowers

“Pop Goes the Weasel” shows up a second time in “Planet of the Spiders.”  Sarah and the Doctor escape the spiders’ prison after Sarah takes the Doctor's hands and concentrates before they both vanish.  Then, they reappear in a human village on Metebelis III, where the humans are under the spiders’ control.  The Doctor says

DOCTOR: Goes the weasel.

SARAH: What?

DOCTOR: How did you manage that?

SARAH: The Queen taught me. Nothing to it, really.

There is no “Pop” here when they materialize.  Unbeknownst to the Doctor, Sarah has the queen on her back.  A little later, the queen takes control of Sarah and demands the blue crystal, which is now in K’anpo’s hands.  Sarah even has the power to zap the Doctor with an energy bolt.

A short time later, Sarah is losing her identity.  The Doctor and K’anpo try to help her:

DOCTOR: Sarah, listen to me. Struggle against the spider, Sarah. Fight it!

QUEEN [OC]: I am the Queen.

K'ANPO: No. You are Sarah Jane Smith.

SARAH: I, I

K'ANPO: You are free. You don't have to be dominated. Look into your mind and see that you are free.

DOCTOR: Sarah, look at the crystal. Look at it! Look deep into its blue light.

QUEEN [OC]: No! No! I will not.

K'ANPO: See that you are free, now.

QUEEN [OC]: I am the Queen.

SARAH: No, I'm free. Free.

QUEEN [OC]: The Queen must live. Help me. I shall die.

SARAH: I'm frightened!

DOCTOR: Concentrate, Sarah! Concentrate!

K'ANPO: You are free!

(With a cry, the Queen falls from Sarah's back.)

SARAH: Doctor!

(Lying on her back, the Queen Spider's legs curl up and she vanishes.)

Sarah Volunteers & the Doctor Is Responsible for Everything

A short time later, we find out Sarah volunteered to have the queen take her over.  Caecilius in “The Fires of Pompeii” looks like he volunteered too with the beetle, and the subtext suggests that he did it for love.

SARAH: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Doctor.

DOCTOR: What have you got to be sorry about? You did very well. You should be proud of yourself.

SARAH: To let that creature take me over like that. I mean, I actually volunteered.

K'ANPO: We are all apt to surrender ourselves to domination. Even the strongest of us.

DOCTOR: Do you mean me?

K'ANPO: Not all spiders sit on the back.

SARAH: Oh, I don't understand. You're not saying they've taken over the Doctor, are you?

DOCTOR: Oh no, Sarah, no. No, he's talking about my greed.

SARAH: Greed? You?

DOCTOR: Yes, my greed for knowledge, for information. He's saying that all this is basically my fault. If I hadn't taken the crystal in the first place. I know who you are now.

K'ANPO: You were always a little slow on the uptake, my boy.

DOCTOR: It's been a long, long time.

SARAH: You know each other?

DOCTOR: Oh, yes. Yes, he was my teacher. My, my guru, if you like. In another time, another place.

K'ANPO: Another life.

SARAH: Oh, no. Don't tell me you're a Time Lord too?

K'ANPO: I am. But the discipline they serve was not for me.

DOCTOR: No. Nor for me.

K'ANPO: I wouldn't have chosen your alternative. To borrow a Tardis was a little naughty, to say the least.

BTW, the word “naughty” comes up a couple of times in this episode.  Interestingly, in “Thin Ice” Nardole calls the 12th Doctor naughty for leaving in the TARDIS with Bill.

The 3rd Doctor has to fix his mistake and take the crystal back to the cave, which destroys the Great One, but the Doctor’s cells are damaged.  He regenerates back on Earth.

 “Pop Goes the Weasel” & “Thin Ice”

The lyrics to “Pop Goes the Weasel” are rather obscure, and they have been attributed to several possible things.  One of them is a spinner’s weasel, which shows up in “Thin Ice.”

According to Wikipedia:

A spinner's weasel consists of a wheel which is revolved by the spinner in order to measure off thread or yarn after it has been produced on the spinning wheel. The weasel is usually built so that the circumference is six feet, so that 40 revolutions produces 80 yards of yarn, which is a skein. It has wooden gears inside and a cam, designed to cause a popping sound after the 40th revolution, telling the spinner that she has completed the skein.

After the Doctor punches Sutcliffe, a couple of Sutcliffe’s men take Bill and the Doctor to a Frost Fair tent on the Thames.  In the image below, before they get out of the carriage, we see the tent with a spinning wheel (red arrow) outside of it.  The wheel shows up in several scenes, although not prominently like this.  No one ever uses it.

Therefore, “Pop Goes the Weasel” most likely means more than being happy that children get eaten. Interestingly, in “Thin Ice,” Bill and the Doctor free Loch-less, who may turn around and eat people.  She doesn’t that we know of.

However, not freeing Loch-less means many more people will die anyway and the cycle will continue. Before they leave this tent, the Doctor tells Bill:

DOCTOR: I'll take care of this. You get everyone off the ice.

The Doctor’s directive to Bill is essentially POP, Protect Other People.

By the way, everyone on the ice represents prisoners because there are chains all around the area. The stairs have chains (red arrow), as seen in the image below.  People are ascending to freedom.  Essentially, freeing the people at the Frost Fair is akin to freeing the people trapped in the Library computer.

Moments before, we see Sutcliffe looking at his watch.  He, too, is a prisoner, as shown by the chain (red arrow).

At the Frost Fair, besides the POP acronym, “Pop Goes the Weasel” seems to represent the illusion of fun and happiness, until you get eaten or realize another creature has been suffering for generations.  It can also refer to an illusion that people are safe on the ice, unaware of the danger around them until the last minute.  This mirrors how Donna thought she was safe in the Library dream until the last minute, even though the Library was going to self-destruct.

 It’s Time to Pay: The Empty Child Plague & Being Immune

In so many ways, “Knock Knock” is the embodiment of what we’ve been examining in the subtext.  It foreshadows what will happen with the Doctor.   There’s the Empty Child-type plague (space wood lice killing, eating, or changing people into something).  Also, there’s a child who needs his mother.  This time a little boy unwittingly saves his mother, Eliza, with space wood lice.  From there, it seems natural that the little boy would want to keep his mother alive.  In fact, he has trapped himself in a terrible dilemma.  Kill others or let his mother die.  The loving child would always choose his mother over other people’s lives.

The landlord, a child who never grew up normally, is still a vulnerable child inside.  The creepy, sinister landlord persona gives way to a heartbreaking scene.  It’s a twist from “Are you my mummy?”  Instead, we get “My son?” since it’s the mother who has forgotten who her child is. Once the mother and son embrace, in what is equivalent to an alchemical marriage, the plague stops, as mother and son succumb to seemingly the same fate as those eaten.  Then, in horror-film fashion, the house falls in.

Once again, we have a Star Whale metaphor, where the house and space lice are mirrors.  This reference is the first indirect Star Whale reference to the Doctor that we’ve seen over the past 9 episodes.  Even in “The Husbands of River Song,” where Hydroflax is the Star Whale metaphor, the Doctor says his back is playing up from the weight of a monarchy, “an entirely pointless stratum of society….”  While less direct, it’s still the Doctor admitting he’s tired of being the Star Whale metaphor.

 Paying Dues & The Landlord: A Dark Mirror

The Doctor & Landlord Similarities

There are a lot of similarities between the Doctor and the landlord, as well as his house. 

(1) The landlord has “lord” in his title.  The Doctor actually tells Bill he is a Time Lord.

(2) Both men knock on the wood.  The landlord knocks on the wood after he hears the students’ complaints and says, “You understand I won't be able to do any of this tonight. But as soon as possible, yes.”  He oddly knocks on the wood paneling and then adds, “Knock on wood.”  In comparison, the Doctor knocks on the wood when he’s talking to Bill.  He doesn’t look too convinced, though, of his answer.  I take it as a warning to Bill:

BILL: You're not leaving, are you?

DOCTOR: No. Your friend will probably be fine. (knocks on a panel) Knock on wood.

(3) Both the landlord and Doctor show up unexpectedly.  The landlord shows up multiple times, seeming to pop in.  How did he get into the house when it sealed itself?  The Doctor, too, shows up once unexpectedly in what appears to be a cupboard.  Later, we find out it’s an elevator. 

There is a visual reference of appearing and disappearing too.  When Shireen opens the front door to ask the landlord about the washing machine, we see a lit TARDIS, instead of the landlord.  This is a classic storytelling technique that suggests the person who is the object of the search is actually connected to the object viewed.

(4) The landlord is not a whole person.  He’s stuck in the past, needing his mother.  Similarly, the Doctor is stuck in the past, as he is a Sun, lacking integration with his Mother of God Consciousness, so he is not complete. 

(5) Both are connected to paintings of people.  We see what I’m going to call a portrait to easily distinguish it from similar terminology (although usually a portrait pertains to only a head and shoulders). The landlord’s mother’s portrait is sitting on the floor, shown below.

We also see a portrait of multiple people near the Vault.  If we apply the same metaphor, it should be the Doctor’s family.  And it looks like there are at least 2 people in the portrait.

(6) The landlord is causing people to be eaten through a plague-like infestation of space wood lice. In comparison, being a Sun, the Doctor is spreading a plague that kills people (or eats people, referring to the Star Whale, like the landlord’s house eats people).  

 The Landlord Is a Mirror

Obviously, from all of this, the landlord is a mirror.  However, is he really evil or just a damaged child who never grew up?  At first he seems creepy and sinister.  However, because of the ending, I can’t call him evil. It is a heartbreaking story where the landlord is truly damaged and misguided.  It’s not surprising that he is not supposed to be evil in the end. After all, this story references another theme for the season where someone or something is neither good nor evil, which fits the landlord.

When faced with the same situation, how many children would choose their mother’s life over the death of others?  It’s a similar problem to what we already have seen in “A Christmas Carol,” where Kazran has to choose the day Abigail dies, or the Doctor with the day that River dies.  The landlord would have to choose the day his mother dies, too.

 What is this leading up to?

This may be leading to the coming day that Clara has to die again, meaning she has to go back to Gallifrey and submit to her death.

 It’s Time to Pay: Not an Exception

It’s so interesting that the landlord says

LANDLORD: We must all pay our dues.

BILL: But not you?

LANDLORD: Correct. I am the exception.

(He taps the panelling.)

LANDLORD: For I am your landlord.

I find this so fascinating because this is exactly what we were examining in the chapter on “Thin Ice.” The Doctor doesn’t incur long-term damage in canon.  Like the landlord, the Doctor is the exception.  

However, because the landlord didn’t, in the end, have immunity and we’re coming down to the truth, these occurrences tell us that the Doctor will most likely incur some type of damage or severe consequences over more than one episode.  He will not be immune. Bill’s life looks like it’s in peril in the upcoming “Oxygen” episode in a way we haven’t seen with a companion.  (I’m not counting a quick death.)  Does the Doctor become injured when he tries to save Bill?

 Moving On

DW has made a big deal of the Doctor moving on in “Thin Ice” and “Knock Knock.”  However, it seems DW has over done it in “Knock Knock.”  The Doctor seems rather callous at the end of “Knock Knock” with the students and even Nardole. 

But which face of the 12th Doctor are we seeing?  Are we even seeing the 12th Doctor in control?  It looks like it, but the Doctor is showing us a different face again, so DW wants us to see that something is different or even wrong. 

Regardless, I believe DW is trying to make a not-so-subtle point that the Doctor is fooling himself again. It doesn’t look like the Doctor will be able to just move on from the upcoming episode.  Redemption for him, as we’ve examined, will be expensive.

I continue to believe many of the events we are seeing show elements of the backstory of the 1st Doctor.  The Trickster may be involved in a contract with the Doctor, who possibly as a child tried to save his Mother.  This would be DW’s version of Doctor Faustus.  We know she was lost a long time ago.

 The Needs of the Many Vs. the Few, Or the One

Weighing one life against the lives of the many, or the few, or even the one like Clara, has been a recurring theme, especially for the 12th Doctor. We see it again in “Knock Knock” with the landlord choosing one life over many, like the Doctor did in “Hell Bent.”

However, Eliza chooses to protect other people by giving up her life and her son’s.

In “Thin Ice,” the Doctor made a great speech:

DOCTOR: Human progress isn't measured by industry, it's measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy's value is your value. That's what defines an age. That's what defines a species.

Can he uphold that in whatever is coming his way?  What about Clara?

Who is in the Vault?

It could be Missy, but the Master seems more likely than her. However, my best guess is that it’s the Doctor because of the Beethoven reference, which can also mean time travel.  Also, “Pop Goes the Weasel” seems more likely to be a directive to protect other people.

Is there a stasis field inside the Vault?  Or a regeneration field?  Like there was in the Pandorica?  Both Amy and the Doctor needed that in “The Big Bang.”