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

Another banger!! This season is shaping up super well. I really enjoyed the tension, the atmosphere and the side characters especially Shaya and Aliss. Really another great directed episode too, the same director who did Lux! I hope she'll return in the future.

The Mrs Flood cameo was certainly interesting, as I think its clear she's involved in what's going on with Earth! She looked fantastic too!!

I can't lie though, while I enjoyed this a lot, the leak that the Midnight creature would return massively soured the reveal for me. I just spent the whole ep waiting for it, and was like 'oh sure okay' when it happened. Don't get me wrong, the reveal was good, but it didn't hit as much as it would've had I not known. Also did we need the flashback?

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“THE WELL: A GRIPPING AND GORGEOUSLY TENSE UNEXPECTED SEQUEL”

Following directly on from the fourth-wall-breaking Lux, Sharma Angel-Walfall’s (co-written with Russell T Davies) debut Doctor Who episodeThe Well dials down the scale but not the intensity, plunging us into an eerie, barren mining planet in the distant future. The episode transports the Doctor and Belinda from the glamorous glow of 1950s Miami to a bleak, lifeless world 400,000 years in the future – and in a very classic Doctor Who touch, this vision of sci-fi desolation is brought to life through quarries and steelworks in South Wales. But it’s never once unconvincing, thanks to stellar direction, haunting design, and genuinely chilling atmosphere.

The return to a more contained “base-under-siege” setup is a smart pivot after Lux, offering a tense, almost claustrophobic experience that echoes Midnight without mimicking it. The mining base on planet 6-7-6-7 feels lived-in yet ominously abandoned, with detailed set design suggesting a bustling operation brought to a sudden, horrific halt. Every broken mirror and scattered body tells a story, and it’s in the quiet exploration of these ruins that the episode builds its dread.

CHARACTERS: DEATH, DISABILITY, AND DESPERATION

Unlike The Robot Rebellion or The Devil’s Chord, this week’s guest cast gets room to breathe. The episode introduces eleven soldiers, but wisely focuses on just a few: Shay Costallion, the pragmatic and courageous captain; Cassio, the brash, insubordinate soldier who won’t take orders from the Doctor; and Mo, a more soft-spoken and relatable presence. Most of them are doomed, of course – this is a Midnight-sequel after all – but we get to know them just enough for their deaths to sting.

But the real standout is Rose Ayling-Ellis as Aliss Fenley, a deaf cook and the only survivor of the base. Her performance is riveting – equal parts fragile and fierce – and the writing never reduces her to a victim or a gimmick. Instead, her deafness is integral to the plot in a subtle, meaningful way. The future’s use of augmented sign language and speech-to-text tech offers smart, hopeful world-building, and the episode makes several poignant jabs at present-day inequality through lines like Aliss' horror that Belinda doesn’t know BSL – “It’s illegal for nurses not to know sign in my time.” Brilliant.

Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is, once again, a masterclass in contrast. He’s warm and inquisitive one moment, then suddenly terrified and rattled when he realises where they are. His fearful recognition of Midnight is brilliantly underplayed – a quiet dread creeping in, setting this apart from the louder, more reactive responses of other incarnations. You feel that he remembers what happened last time.

Belinda also continues to grow in strength and presence. Still a bit swept away by the chaos, she’s more confident, improvising, taking initiative, and getting to be a nurse again – a lovely nod to her core identity. Her unwavering support of Aliss, even when everyone else turns on her, is an important beat for her development.

PLOT AND THEMES: THE UNKNOWN, THE UNSEEN, AND THE UNSTOPPABLE

The episode thrives on atmosphere, paranoia and ambiguity. There’s no exposition dump for the monster, no clear solution, no real name. Like Midnight, the fear is in what we don’t know. The creature is never fully seen, but we feel its presence in every shot – whispering, stalking, killing anyone who walks behind Aliss. The visual cue of Aliss’ terror every time someone moves behind her is quietly terrifying, and rewards rewatching.

That this is Midnight again isn’t immediately clear, but when the reveal hits – that the creature is back, and they’ve returned to the same planet – the horror truly sets in. Crucially, this isn’t a lazy retread: the creature has evolved, or is perhaps a different strain of the same threat. It doesn’t mimic people like in the original, but instead hides behind its host, feeding on fear and waiting to strike. The twist that it moves from body to body if its current host is killed adds an unsettling logic to the chaos. The rules are simple but horrifying: don’t walk behind the wrong person.

When it’s finally revealed that the creature is playing with its victims – not hunting out of necessity, but for the thrill – it’s one of the darkest implications the show has dared to make in recent years. The creature is unknowable and unstoppable, and the only option is to run.

ACTION AND CLIMAX: SACRIFICE AND SURVIVAL

The action scenes – especially the one where multiple troopers are flung into the air – do slightly undermine the terror with their silly theatrics, but this is a minor flaw. The episode regains its footing with the emotional and character-driven final act. Costallion’s sacrifice in the airlock to save Belinda is deeply moving and sobering, a brutal reminder of the cost of travelling with the Doctor. It also mirrors The Waters of Mars in tone – fatalism, heroism, and the weight of time.

The Doctor’s desperate gamble to use a wall of mercury to break the creature’s grip on Aliss – despite its toxicity – is a solid moment of practical ingenuity. But it’s not a neat resolution. The final moments don’t bring closure, just survival. And then comes the final shot: the creature is still there, whispering, watching. Ready to strike again. It’s one of the most chilling endings Doctor Who has done in years.

AUDIO, DIRECTION AND ATMOSPHERE: SCARING US SILLY

From its minimalist score to the clever sound design – whispers, static, and the eerie hum of a base gone cold – this episode knows how to use silence. Director Dylan Holmes Williams creates a tangible sense of dread through lighting and camera movement, and the production values are top-tier across the board.

There’s also a fantastic use of lighting and reflections – mirrors are a key motif here, and the shattered remains across the base evoke ideas of broken identities, unseen threats, and shattered lives. Smart visual storytelling all around.

BUILDING THE ARC: ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE

The series arc gets a chilling advancement here. The reveal that no one has heard of Earth – because it was destroyed on May 24th, 2025 – adds a whole new layer of existential tension. Suddenly, the Doctor and Belinda’s adventures aren’t just thrilling romps through time and space; they’re a desperate attempt to uncover a mystery and stop a disaster.

📝 VERDICT: 9.9/10

The Well is one of the strongest episodes of the RTD2 era so far – a perfect blend of atmosphere, character, mystery, and existential horror. It builds on Midnight without diminishing it, delivering an entirely new kind of fear while still honouring the legacy of the original. With brilliant performances, particularly from Rose Ayling-Ellis, gorgeous production values, and a slow-burn plot that rewards patience, this is modern Doctor Who firing on all cylinders. Creepy, characterful, and completely captivating.

This is my favourite episode this series, and my second favourite of the RTD2 era (after Wild Blue Yonder). Wild to say because I had this exact thought with Lux! Are we 3/3 for this series so far!?

I absolutely adored the building tension throughout this episode, and while I'm not one for jump scares they really worked for me too once we reached them. I do admit that the throwing across the room stuff got a little silly by the 4th or 5th person with how over the top it was, but it didn't seriously affect my enjoyment.But genuinely the horror stuff worked so well for me. Fear of the unknown is such a common thing to have, and I loooove when DW explores it so much!!!

All the performances were great, and the side cast were fantastic! It's nice having an RTD2 side cast that I care about and feel invested in. Obviously, Ayling-Ellis steals the show with an incredible performance as Allis, who's such an amazing character in her own right. And Shaya's character development from the start (where she was pragmatic and uncaring) to the end (where she remembered she got into this job to bring hope to the people, and was optimistic about saving folks) was so great! With an amazing performance too! I also love that the Slow Horses guy continues to only play smug assholes lol

Gatwa and Sethu continue to be outstanding, and this is a contender for my favourite Gatwa performance as 15 yet. He nails both the gravitas of stepping into a scene and taking control, and the sheer fear and terror perfectly. Plus the empathy he shows Aliss, while still not fully trusting her. Just such a great nuanced performance!

I also absolutely adored the world building and the fact that they explicitly say that the world is more accessible to deaf people, and how that's been taken into account. But then on top of that, the squadron still often forget/choose not to turn on their communicators. Even when directly addressing Allis! Even with all the accessibility options in the world, and the law being made for more accessible people, that sadly doesn't mean people will always take advantage of that to help those that need it. It's a good dose of very depressing realism in what's otherwise optimistic worldbuilding. 

Oh, and no long paragraph about this; but I thought the episode was gorgeous! I love how great the visual direction consistently has been this era.

Only reason this is a 4.5-4.75 star story and not a full 5 is because I really don't think it needed to be a sequel to Midnight. While it tackles similar themes, and thankfully doesn't actually show us the entity, I don't think I gained anything from it being a sequel? It's very much standalone as is and works well enough being so. But this really doesn't majorly take away from my enjoyment.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

I really want to say I enjoyed this episode and just leave it at that. Unfortunately, I have far too much to say to be able to do that. It definitely has its strengths, but it also suffers from a lot of the same problems as the rest of RTD2 so far.

The episode opens immediately after we left off with Lux, with the same sort of odd characterisation choice for Belinda no longer having any sort of antagonism with the Doctor. They change clothes in a shot-for-shot remake of the previous clothes changing scene from the very last episode, with Toxic playing overtop. I really don't get that choice; it was fun, meta, and an obvious joke in End of the World, but here it just feels tacked on. The repetition of the scene (while we still don't get to see any other rooms in the TARDIS!) definitely doesn't help immerse me in the episode.

I've seen arguments both for and against the Doctor and Belinda ending up with the exact same space suits as everyone else, and while I didn't mind it that much, it did take me out of the story a little. What bothered me more is the Doctor flashing his psychic paper, apparently showing up to test the troopers, but then ending up in control of the whole operation. I almost agree with Cassio in hindsight, though I found his actions a bit too extreme while watching.

Still, as the episode continued I left my worries behind and got properly invested. The atmosphere was potent. Aliss, especially, did a phenomenal job making everything more tense,being obviously distressed and the only one left alive.

I really appreciate the Deaf representation. I think it was handled really well; there's a lot of aids without eradicating the condition, while still showing how some people remain subtly bigoted. You can really feel her frustration when people turn their backs on her or turn off their subtitles without even noticing.

Belinda got to shine as a nurse again, though I felt she was somewhat sidelined for most of the episode.

The first jumpscare was really expertly done in my opinion, fast enough and jarring enough to make me thing I was just imagining something behind Aliss, affected by the musical sting and Belinda's reaction more than anything. Really fantastic.

And now we get to the big twist: this is a sequel to Midnight. I thankfully went into this episode not knowing that, having avoided spoilers and leaks. I think I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the first half of this episode as much as I did if I had known. That being said, I really don't think this episode needed to be a sequel. Worse, I think it suffered for it. I think the monster acted too differently to be the same one, especially taking its motivations into consideration - I genuinely don't believe the original Midnight entity was toying with the passengers or laughing at them (whether or not the Doctor believes it, or if it's in character for him to say that, is a matter of some debate that I would be very open to having). It doesn't help that the way it acted in this episode alone was somewhat inconsistent.

The reveal itself doesn't really work for me either; I find it hard to believe that people 400,000 years in the future know the old name of the planet. I don't have an opinion on the flashback either way - it's the most necessary of the *three* flashbacks we've had in these *three* episodes (gosh, talk about repetitive and formulaic), but I don't think it added much. The Doctor crying also felt the most deserved in this one and as such didn't take me out of the story, but it's definitely cheapened by having happened every episode so far.

The way the monster flings the soldiers around didn't bother me as much as some other people, but I do think there were probably scarier ways to have it kill that are just as safe for TV. I really like the way Shaya weaponised the monster to stop Cassio, it was clever and powerful.

The ending felt a tad bit rushed. The mirror thing had been set up pretty obviously, though I'm not exactly sure how (or even if) it worked, or how the creature went about smashing the mirrors in the first place (did it swing people at them?). While I appreciate them not fully showing the monster, I would have preferred to not even see the silhouette of it in the hallway.

I didn't notice the airlock counting an extra person, but I definitely thought it was possible that Belinda was just imagining the whispers, only hearing them after everyone else said they didn't have the creature on them.

I liked Shaya sacrificing herself and the implication that it didn't work. It was obvious to me, as the Doctor was running behind her the whole time and never got flung back, even when Shaya paused at the edge of the well. A needless sacrifice is one of the best parts about this episode.

The mystery of what happened to Earth continues to intrigue. I think it would be even more poignant if the non-humans looked a little more alien - even just Star Trek-style forehead bumps would do the trick, especially now that Doctor Who has the budget to make its aliens look the part. I also think it could have been integrated into the story a bit better.

The ending is dragged down a little for me with the appearance of Mrs. Flood. I really enjoyed her little cameos up to this point, but in this episode she just feels like amother Susan Twist, and I *do not* trust RTD to have it pay off after the way that plot was handled last time.

All in all, I think this is a really solid episode bogged down by the stories around it. I think it could have been a 10/10 for me if it was more of a standalone, without the season-wide mysteries and the ties back to Midnight. I would love to see the earliest drafts of this story.