What’s The Episode? “The Well”
What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Belinda land on a spaceship to get further readings from the Vindicator to try and get them back to Earth. They are unceremoniously dumped on a planet where a military rescue team – straight out of Aliens – are trying to find out what happened to a mining colony. Entering with the soldiers, the Doctor discovers just one survivor, a deaf cook named Aliss. She has “something on her back”, which turns out to be the creature from “Midnight”, still around some 400,000 years later and this is that selfsame planet, now stripped of its diamond. The Doctor is able to force the creature out of Aliss but it attaches itself to Belinda instead. Thanks to some fancy shooting from the leader of the soldiers, Shaya (Caoilfhionn Dunne) Belinda is freed and they return to the drop ship where the TARDIS is and go on their merry way. Only for a post-departure scene where Mrs Bloody Flood turns up again and also it looks like the creature escaped.
Is It Any Good? It’s probably the best episode of the Gatwa era, though how high a bar you want to adjudge that to be is a separate question. But for this season, at the very least, it’s an unqualified yes, and it is such a relief to be able to say that after a string of episodes which have barely and rarely risen above OK.
And the first, biggest improvement here is Gatwa himself. Stripped of his usual fashion choices and made to wear something that actually fits in with his surroundings, he suddenly starts to look like he belongs in the episode rather than just wafting his way through it. The Doctor is rooted in the actuality of this episode rather than simply sitting atop it, which has a distancing effect. But by looking like he belongs in this environment, he instantly gains credibility and, crucially, not just to the viewer but to the other characters in the episode as well.
And this is a noticeably more restrained performance than he usually gives as well, which is hugely to the benefit of the role. For once, he really is the Doctor – this isn’t Ncuti Gatwa just reciting lines on set in a succession of dubious different duds, this is the Doctor confronting a very real fear from his past. The Doctor here feels like a fully rounded character with a past that doesn’t come across as a collection of tick-box references (“Empire of Death”) or stock emotional responses. For once, the tears Gatwa inevitably sheds have real meaning and while their impact would be felt much more acutely if they didn’t burst out every episode, they still manage to have resonance here. Gatwa is positively commanding in the role here and it’s one of the very rare occasions where it’s possible to see why he was cast – because he can do stuff when the scripts bother to give him the chance. He’s fantastic here, from describing the creature as “vile” (very un-Doctorish but oh-so-appropriate in this case) to his desire to still actually see it while they’re running for their lives. At every turn, Gatwa gets the Doctor right and it’s such a breath of fresh air.
Belinda, too, is fantastic here. Or perhaps more accurately, continues her run of being fantastic. She’s such a presence here, and Varada Sethu is making Belinda a simply great companion. Her compassion doesn’t in any way interfere with her no-nonsense approach to what’s going on around her and the character continues to flourish in so many interesting ways. In particular, her discovery that the human race no longer exists obviously rattles her badly – as it does the Doctor, and it’s a nice touch that the script has them find out this at the same time rather than have it be something the Doctor explains to Belinda – but though she is rattled by the information, she’s still grounded and focussed on what’s going on around her enough that it won’t stop her from trying to help Aliss or figure out what’s going on. It’s a great touch among many in the episode.
The rest of the characters in the episode are fine-ish. Certainly, Aliss is fantastic, and Rose Ayling-Eliss turns in what is probably the best one-shot character performance of the whole Gatwa era. She’s just brilliant – scared, brave, and just so terribly relatable. And I’m glad she survived, in the end. Caoilfhionn Dunne, as the commander of the soldiers, Shayla, has a nicely weary but not cynical approach to the character and she comes across well. Her background is pretty hacky, and the child version of her running through flames near the end as she’s about to sacrifice herself is a pretty unforgivable cliche, but she gives real life to someone who would otherwise be a pretty rote role. L
likeable and smart, but not without her flaws, she is at least better than any of her troops, most of whom are just dull chichés. It’s ironic that we got the whole, “we’re characters who don’t even have last names!” speech last week when half the troopers here don’t even get first names. Christophe Chong, playing a whole different variety of dick from his best-known role in Slow Horses, is alright as the panicking soldier who takes command because he thinks the commander has gone rogue but it’s mostly him propping up the role rather than anything else, and most of the rest of the troops only get a line or two anyway before being dramatically killed off by the creature. Well, I say dramatically – it’s dramatic when one troop walks behind Aliss to discover if there is something behind her but when most of the supporting cast needs to be killed off at once – in a move Eric Saward might regard as a bit much – and they’re flying across the room all at once, it does briefly tip into comedy. It’s a small flaw in an otherwise great episode but it’s still quite funny.
As for the Midnight creature, it’s still as effective as it was back then, even though it’s evolved into something different. It feels like a genuine threat in a way that very few Doctor Who creatures do (and certainly more than the pathetic attempt at redoing Sutekh ever did) and the Doctor’s terror at it feels wholly justified. Its whispering is a great way to realise the threat, as it has the deaf character be immune to it because she can’t hear the whispers. Although – is that the case? The Doctor speculates it is but then again, Aliss is the only one left in the end and where else would the creature go but her? Anyway, it still works and it’s a tremendous presence throughout the episode, instilling fear and paranoia in everyone. Its defeat – by self-sacrifice – is maybe slightly obvious but the revelation that either it survived or that there were perhaps more than one gives the episode a final sting in the tale that lands. Whether we will return to this creature or not will remain to be seen but if we don’t, it’s still one of the most compelling creations of the modern era of Doctor Who.
So, as if it wasn’t clear at this stage, this episode is, despite a couple of slight lapses, an absolute triumph for this season and this iteration of the show. Going to space bases is just something Doctor Who does, both in the classic series (and this draws heavily from the likes of “Earthshock” and “Resurrection of The Daleks”) and the new one (“The Impossible Planet” / “The Satan Pit” most obviously in this context) and so checking in to one from time to time is no bad thing. In this case, the results have been absolutely excellent. We have a great Gatwa performance, a compelling villain, a fantastic companion and a great setting. Everything just coheres, and it all just works.
Would You Recommend It? Wholeheartedly, for the first time in what feels like ages. There’s just very little here that needs to be criticised and so much that needs to be praised. I haven’t even talked about the production yet but it’s great. There have been a few instances where questions about where Disney’s money has gone might legitimately be raised but not here. The base looks fantastic, the setting feels appropriately vast and epic, and the quarry standing in for an alien planet might just be the best quarry standing in for an alien planet the show has ever had (an award previously held by “The Satan Pit”, appropriately enough). There’s a real cohesion to the way everything looks, from the mine to the troops, the planet to the spaceship – all these things feel like they belong together in a single, coherent universe.
And it really is amazing what a difference getting another writer involved makes. This is the first episode of the season to not be wholly written by RTD (indeed, the first one since “Rogue”) and having that extra voice seems to have made things come together. Whether it’s made RTD up his game and have someone push him rather than just agree with him, or whether it’s Sharma Angel-Walfall bringing an A-game isn’t clear but whatever the reason, it’s clearly working like gangbusters. There’s a focus in this episode that’s been badly lacking of late – we’re spared the typical and increasingly-ungripping stuff about the Pantheon, or Today’s Big Lecture, or whatever and we just get a great Doctor Who story, well written, well directed (very well directed, in fact), well acted and well produced. It shouldn’t, twenty years into the new show, be a big deal to get all those things aligned but it does feel like a long time since they actually have. And seeing them all do so just emphasises what’s been missing of late.
Now, saying all that, that’s not to suggest this episode is entirely perfect. It’s very clearly influenced by Aliens, right down to the rent-a-cliché troops, “nuke the site from orbit” (said twice!), motion detectors, and the suicide at the end mirroring Ripley’s in Alien3. Even the creature escaping at the end feels like it should be leading up to a Big Confrontation with a loader. Showing your roots is one thing but this is the whole damned tree. There are also a couple of logical fallacies – if the human race never existed why would “immediately behind someone” be midnight on a clock face, beyond the need to refer to the previous episode? Why does the Doctor assume there’s only one creature? The creature that can’t look at its own reflection is also a fairly standard piece of sci-fi get-out-of-jail to defeat this week’s monster and is weirdly similar to the Mara, despite there being no explicit connection between them. The Doctor using mercury to force it out was a clever plot point, to be fair, though how long anyone would survive breathing mercury fumes is another matter. And yes, Mrs Flood turning up at the end is both tedious and predictable at this point but it’s also something we’re obviously just going to have to live with. This isn’t working on a Bad Wolf or Mr Saxon level because those were just little references dropped in – not arcs as such, just little moments for attentive viewers to pick up on. But fine, we’re stuck with it, there it is. I don’t see how this reveal can possibly be satisfying but you know, benefit of the doubt and all that.
But putting aside Mrs Flood, there’s always a few logical flaws in Doctor Who and in the context of this episode can easily be forgiven. Those kinds of small errors are that much easier to see past when the whole is greatly in excess of the number of parts and here that’s definitely the case. This is a well-constructed, tense, engaging, and chilling episode of Doctor Who, delivered by a cast who are extremely capable and a director that really delivers. It’s the best episode in absolute ages and more than that, it proves how well Gatwa’s Doctor can work, given a decent script, a slightly toned-down performance, and plenty to get his teeth into. Bloody great!
Scores on the Doors? 8.5/10
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