Doctor Who enters into horror territory with its latest episode, “The Well.”
The Doctor and Belinda are still struggling to return to Earth in 2025. They end up on Planet 6767 with a platoon of soldiers investigating a mining colony that has stopped communicating. The only survivor is Aliss (Rose Ayling-Ellis), a deaf canteen worker, who has a strange entity attached to her.
“The Well” was a traditional “Monster of a Base” story. It’s a story template that the show has used many times before, and it has led to some great Doctor Who episodes, like “Dalek” and “Water on Mars.”
“The Well” can stand alongside those classics.
“The Well” had the same setup as Aliens, where a platoon of soldiers investigates an industrial space facility and finds out about a sort of catastrophe. Aliens was a great reference since it’s such a great movie, and “The Well” shared the industrial setting on a dark, desolate planet. “The Well” does have differences from Aliens since the episode was more of a mystery. The Doctor and soldiers came across a crime scene, and the entity was a supernatural being that caused fear to those around it.
The twist in “The Well” was the reveal that it was a sequel to “Midnight.” “Midnight” was a bottle episode, and it was considered one of the best episodes of Series 4, which was quite an achievement considering that season had ”Silence in the Library”, ”Forest of the Dead”, and “Turn Left.” “The Well” was a little more expansive than “Midnight” because of its setting, and the platoon could retreat and abandon Aliss if they wanted to. The use of soldiers going to an abandoned world did make “The Well” feel like another sequel episode, “The Time of Angels”/”Flesh and Stone,” which followed “Blink.” That Series 5 two-parter was a great follow-up to one of the most well-regarded Doctor Who episodes.
“The Well” still had a claustrophobic feel since most of the episode took place in one room as The Doctor, Belinda, and the soldiers tried to figure out the rules. There was a lot of tension and atmosphere throughout the episode. “The Well” was the most mature episode Doctor Who has produced in recent years since the humor and colors were dialed down, and the fear factor due to the characters sensing a presence. It was an episode that relied on fear of the unknown.
Ncuti Gatwa got to show his more dramatic side as The Doctor. He bonded with Shaya Costallion (Caoifhionn Dunne), the platoon leader. He experienced terror because he was facing a creature from his past. One of the most striking moments in the episode was when The Doctor spoke to the creature, and the reaction on his face said it all.
As well as being a strong horror story, “The Well” continued the season-long storyline. The Doctor and Belinda find out from the platoon what they didn’t know about Earth or human beings, and they deduce that something bad had happened to the planet. It was a classic mystery box, like ‘Bad Wolf’ in Series 1 and the disappearing planets in Series 4. The disappearance of Earth felt like the reverse of the Series 5 season arc, where cracks across the universe erase everything but Earth. Series 5 was my favorite season, so I am interested to see where this storytelling is going.
“The Well” was a simple, restrictive episode that had a lot of tension and could easily have filled in Russell T Davies’ first era of Doctor Who. It’s an episode that can win back audiences who have stopped watching. The IMDB score shows there’s a lot of love from the fans.
