The 10th Doctor and Martha arrive in a small village, discover a well with a mysterious past, and fight a monster from the bottom of that well. The end.

As I read Wishing Well by Trevor Baxendale, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading one of the most inconsequential Doctor Who stories written. But why? The Doctor and companion fighting a monster; some innocent locals being transformed into monstrous horrors; a smattering of eccentric guest characters; a quintessential English village – all the elements of a classic Doctor Who storynare included (literally – there are strong echoes of The Daemons and The Awakening throughout the story).

I think the story’s problem was that everything focussed around one, very small, location within the village – the wishing well. The story briefly pops to the pub, or the local rich guy, Henry Gaskin’s house but spends 90% of the time at the top of the well, in the well or at the bottom of the well. It gets a bit dull quite quickly.

The 10th Doctor and Martha are well-written by Baxendale and their on screen chemistry translates easily to the page. I especially enjoyed the scenes in Gaskin’s house where the Doctor thoroughly enjoys eating a jar of marmalade regardless of Martha’s disapproval.

The Doctor’s descent into the well is also suitably creepy and the climactic battle with the alien Vurosis (which has been hibernating, sort of, at the bottom of the well) is dynamic and exciting.

Unfortunately, the cast of guest characters are thinly drawn and pretty forgettable. The two stand outs are Henry Gaskin and Angela Hook. Angela could easily have been played by an actor such as Stephanie Cole. But even these two are relatively two-dimensional and the rest of the characters fare even worse. Particularly uninspiring are the three men digging at the bottom of the well looking for the treasure allegedly left there by a highwayman. Except one of them is actually under the influence of the Vurosis. This is Nigel Carson, who’s entire character is defined by his possession. His two university friends are ‘the one Martha fancies’ and ‘the other one’.

But the weirdest aspect of the guest characters is something which continually pulled me out of the story. They constantly referred to by their full names – Henry Gaskin, Nigel Carson, Angela Hook, Sadie Brown, Ben Seddon, Duncan Goode. It’s really odd. It’s almost as if the author doesn’t trust us to remember who is who and feels that stating their full name every time they appear will help the reader keep track. All it achieved was to increasingly irritate me.

The final defeat of the Vurosis is also a little ‘deus ex machina’ (and also riffs on the climax to The Daemons) making for a rather abrupt and unsatisfying end to what had been a good final sequence.

There’s not a lot else to say about Wishing Well. It’s not a bad Doctor Who story but whereas I often think Doctor Who short stories could do with being developed into a proper full length story, this was a novel which, I think, could easily be abridged into a short story (it seems the audiobook version does dispense with a couple of subplots and tightens up the final chapters so that does suggest the story doesn’t lose much by doing so).

Maybe one for completists or fans of the 10th Doctor and Martha pairing.