Season Two (Series 15); Episode Three - “The Well” by Russell T. Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall

God damnit, Russell. One change, one thing, and this episode could’ve been decent. Granted, I have a number of other problems but Russell was so close, so very close, to getting it right but just had to go and give into temptation. This episode isn’t as bad as I’ve rated it, I think it’s a competent bit of TV, with some really nice direction and a wonderful set but it pisses me off. It pisses me off because it’s emblematic of one of RTD2’s biggest problems: trying to capture the magic of the first RTD era without really knowing how.

A second attempt at getting Belinda home lands the TARDIS on a nameless planet, where a mining colony has gone silent. Grouped up with a rescue team, the travellers soon find themselves face to face with an unfathomable terror.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

This episode was hitting all of the right buttons for me before it was released. A good, creepy central mystery? Check. An isolated location in deep space? Check. A rescue team investigating the horrific aftermath of an unknown event? Check. Check. Check. There is something about the premise of The Well that hits all of the right buttons for me, it fills a weird niche I can’t begin to properly describe or even reference but seem to always love. And I have to say, the first half of this episode did it so well: the setting was really cool, the exploration of the base was unnerving and the implication that something came out of a five mile deep bore hole is a brilliant touch of cosmic horror, hitting yet another weird niche for me in buried creatures beyond comprehension (if anybody knows the video game Still Wakes the Deep, basically that). And then the actual story began.

Before we get to that s**t show, I do want to say the direction and set design are both masterfully crafted. The scene in which we are first faced with the creature, popping up behind deaf survivor Aliss for a split second genuinely made me jump and was the first moment I began to think I might actually be giving a high rating this season. Not only that, but the long shots through the empty corridors and huge, foreboding pit were brilliant. Modern Who is definitely strong on set design so far - pretty much every episode looks fantastic - but something about the grungy, underlit, metalwork corridors just heightened the tension fantastically, the whole first act draped in shadow and corners just out of sight.

And then Russell had the f**king gall to reveal it was a sequel to Midnight. And all I can say is, goddamnit Russell. I groaned when they said the planet was made out of diamond because I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next and yeah, it actively tries to recapture the magic of an old episode with bullshit fan service but just makes it worse in the process. Sure, we still don’t entirely know what the entity is, but the simple fact we see it again makes it more knowable. The fact we know it has a physical form makes it more knowable. The fact we know it has personality and intentions and intelligence makes it more knowable. The fact we know it can throw people across a room and break all the bones in their body makes it more knowable. And the more knowable it is, the less scary this episode and Midnight become retroactively. Russell keeps doing this - trying to recapture what made Series 4 so good - but can’t seem to get it right for whatever reason. He also has a tendency to remove previous conflicts in place of convenient resolutions and mawkish happy endings, which is just condescending to fans of the episodes he’s trying to please. I could describe a not insignificant amount of the Modern Era as “patronising”, which isn’t great.

This episode is bad in my opinion because it represents the shallowness of this era to me, feeding off old glory and refusing to allow any kind of resolution that isn’t shoving some underwritten emotional moment in my face. However, it has problems outside the downfall of its central conceit and they mostly stem from pacing; I don’t know what is wrong with this season specifically, but every episode has felt too short. The characters aren’t deep, we don’t get proper build up to our climaxes and by the time they seem to have gotten going, we’re ten minutes from the end. It’s weird, because they’re the same length as every other episode of the show and seem to be identical structurally, but for whatever reason feel so brief and lacking in tension or meaningful payoff. This episode specifically loses its tension completely because we spend what feels like very little time exploring the base or surviving: once the action starts, we have one set piece and then it's basically over.

And this pacing causes another problem too: characters. So far, I have not cared for a single side character this season. It got close a couple times with the projectionist Mr. Pye in Lux and the squadron leader Shaya in this episode, but both are shallow to me and the back to back self sacrifice doesn’t help. Maybe it's the fact their perceived depth is conveyed to us in exposition or maybe it's the weird pacing issues of the series but for whatever reason, they’re already barely present arcs don’t feel well earned. With Shaya specifically, the actress does a great job but her one minded and unexplained trust of the Doctor and her feeling like a function more than a character, what with that amazing shooting ability the episode keeps on telling she has. As for the rest of the cast, the only other character who didn’t just feel like a meatbag padding out the numbers was the standoffish Cassio, played buy Christopher Chung of Slow Horses fame but he’s unceremoniously killed off in an astoundingly dumb scene that was the very thing that killed the tension for me. 

And that’s another thing, this episode is super dumb at times. Why doesn’t Aliss just tell them there is a murderous entity behind her that could kill anybody. And no, you can’t just say she’s scared because she calms down and then frequently denies that anything’s there even when Belinda notices the entity. Also, why is everybody so quick to right off the very obvious movement they keep seeing behind Aliss to the point where they will insist they didn’t see anything the third time they notice it. And then we get to the final moments of the creature latching onto Belinda and there might as well have been a giant neon sign above Shaya saying “self-sacrifice”. The moment I heard that they couldn’t leave the planet without taking the entity, I knew where the character of Shaya was going and it was just annoying. Also, she very much turns her back on the others multiple times, so paired with the hokey flashbacks you get as she’s running and the ending to this episode is just a dud to me.

One final note, Belinda is still getting worse. I feel like Russell’s making fun of me, teasing a companion that wasn’t just going to let the Doctor get away with his antics and then immediately making her have an identical personality to every other RTD companion. She calls people out one fifth of the time and that’s all that differentiates her from Ruby if I’m being honest, and as much as Verada Sethu is doing a good job she doesn’t have the chemistry Gibson and Gatwa had to keep her interesting. Yes, I talked about this before but it annoys me enough that I’m going to list it as a negative every episode that doesn’t follow through on Russell’s promise.

The Well could’ve been a half decent episode if Russell changed one thing: he could’ve easily made it not a sequel to Midnight. Granted, it would still be a poor script with a bad sidecast and unsatisfying resolution, but it would’ve been a decently creepy little episode. Now, it’s just an annoyance that makes this whole era feel like the TV equivalent of a mid-life crisis. Russell’s clearly good at writing horror and all he has to do to have another Midnight is write something original.

5/10

Pros:

+ Really nice direction that heightens the scares

+ Brilliant first half with a nice mystery

+ Excellent location and set design

Cons:

- The nature of the twist ruins the episode

- We don’t spend enough time with the supporting cast to feel for them

- The pacing doesn’t allow the tension to rise properly

- The plot lacks intelligence

- Belinda continues to be wasted potential