Doctor Who S2 E3: The Well Review

Spoilers ahead!

Doctor Who returns this week with an episode that leans into another pillar of strong Doctor Who episodes: horror. 

While for many, the spooky episodes and monsters are often the strongest memory people have of the show, hiding behind the sofa in fear of the Daleks is a cultural memory for many in the UK, but being a family show means that Doctor Who doesn’t stray into horror elements all that often. 

Once again picking up directly from last week’s episode, The Well sees The Doctor and Belinda materialise in a drop ship just moments before its complement of troopers dive from the ship and plunge down to a mysterious planet steeped in dangerous radiation.

In space, no one can hear you scream…

Stranded on the planet for the next five hours until the ship is able to safely land, The Doctor and Belinda join the troopers on their mission to investigate a nearby mining colony, where all communication has been lost with the 35 colonists that inhabit the base.

At this stage there is clear inspiration from classic horror movies like Aliens in the design of the base and the initial premise of the episode. Doctor Who has a surprisingly strong connection to the Aliens franchise, not only is this not the first time elements of Alien and Aliens have directly influenced aspects of an episode, but Alien director Ridley Scott famously worked at the BBC during the production of the first series of Doctor Who in 1963. He was assigned to design the iconic Daleks, although left the BBC before production work began.

The 1979 movie then also shares strong similarities with the highly influential 1974 Tom Baker serial The Ark in Space, with speculation that the latter had a direct influence on the horror classic.

The Well matches that horror pedigree, carried by its strong building of tension and mystery throughout the episode. This is mostly driven by the interaction and reactions of the episode’s characters as they struggle to deal with the episode’s monster, one that thankfully remains unrevealed but for sparingly brief glances.

Like most good horror, the fear builds from the darkness and the unknown. In The Well that question is initially whether or not the creature is even there. Did you catch a glimpse of it, or was it a shadow? A trick of the light? You can feel the frustration of the characters as they struggle to figure out what is happening, or if they are losing their minds.

There’s a familiarity to the creature and its methods and that is no accident. As speculated by fans prior to the episode’s release, The Well is a follow-up to the Series Four episode Midnight. 

Threat level Midnight

For those that maybe aren’t familiar with Midnight, that episode sees David Tenant’s Tenth Doctor on a holiday excursion in a shuttle on the surface of a diamond planet where radiation from the system’s star is deadly to any and all forms of life. When the shuttle breaks down an unseen entity finds its way in, toying with the panicked passengers as it steals their voices in its twisted attempt to learn more about its new playthings. 

That episode is rightly considered one of the show’s best and scariest. The iconic episode is one that’s true focus is the power of fear and panic within a mob; how quickly rational thought and compassion deteriorates when facing an unknown threat. With the series never revealing any detail of what the creature was or its motives, even speculating whether or not there was a creature, or if all that transpired was the creation of mass panic.

A sequel was a huge, huge risk for the show. Revealing too much, or just a bad episode in general, had the potential to not only put a dent in the strong run of episodes for Ncuti Gatwa’s second season as The Doctor, but also bring down a beloved and iconic piece of television with it too. 

Thankfully it pulls off being a sequel successfully, with enough different about it for the episode to stand on its own two feet. On reflection, it makes you wonder if it needed to be a sequel, and if the sequel aspect was included much later as a rewrite. The reveal does seem to come a little out of nowhere and the differences between the two Entities are enough that this could have easily been a similar but different creature.

The last ten minutes, following the reveal, are probably the weakest parts of the episode. The characterization throughout the episode, partcularly deaf lone survivor Aliss Fenister, and the build up and reveal itself is phenomenal television, the shock reveal marks a whiplash change of pace and tone as we speed through a solution and escape to close out the episode. 

A strong first half

The Well could have greatly benefited from being a 60 minute episode or two-parter, something that the show no longer has room for outside of its season finales, having seen its episode count drop from 13 episodes during Russell T. Davies’ first run on the show to eight during this run. 

The Well marks another strong entry into the show’s 15th series, which is already meeting its halfway point, bringing thrilling horror to the mix in an episode that manages to pull off the herculean feat of following up on an iconic episode, led by a fan favorite Doctor. 

Now is a case of needing to wait and see if the current version of the Disney era of the show will be considered a success with a renewal from Disney at the end of this series’ run, or if Doctor Who will find itself once again in the wilderness. 

What did you think of this week’s Doctor Who episode? What are your favorite Doctor Who episodes of all time? Let us know in the comments below and on our social media!

Ben Newton Contributor

Ben has been gaming for as long as he can remember, with some of his earliest memories being of playing DOOM with his Dad in the late 90's. His passion for gaming is shared with a passion for writing that he hopes to share by contributing to Smash Jump.