“The Well” is the third episode of the 15th season of the new “Doctor Who” series, also indicated as season 2, and follows “Lux“. It’s available in the UK and Ireland on BBC channels and in many other countries on the Disney+ platform.
Beware that in various adverts and marketing materials, this season is promoted as season 2 passing through a new start with the production by Bad Wolf and distribution by Disney+, hence the double notation.
Note. This article contains some spoilers about “The Well”.
The 15th Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) continues his attempts to bring Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) home, and this time, the stop is in the distant future. The two travellers find themselves in the middle of a military operation led by Shaya Costallion (Caoilfhionn Dunne) that aims at investigating the loss of contact with a mining colony on a dead planet. The team finds bodies and only one survivor, Aliss Fenly (Rose Ayling-Ellis). Everything else seems dead, at least until Belinda thinks she sees something behind Aliss.
Russell T Davies is having ups and downs in his new “Doctor Who” run mixing tropes linked to important themes and others that are over the top, not always with great results. In his construction of a sort of mythology, he’s re-proposing entities already appeared in the past, even in the classic series. In this case, there seems to be no connection to the pantheon we’ve been seeing but together with co-writer Sharma Angel Walfall, he reintroduced an entity that represented a formidable enemy for the Doctor.
In this episode, tropes typical of sci-fi-horror works are used with a mining colony where, apparently, the crew members killed each other. It’s a very tense situation from the beginning, and the developments only increase it.
When the Doctor discovers what planet he ended up on, even he is terrified. His priority remains to save everyone but the story also explores the dark sides of humanity. The characters are trained soldiers but there’s always the hothead who thinks that the use of weapons is the solution to any problem and doesn’t accept any alternatives.
In this type of situation, we take it for granted that the Doctor and his companion will survive, but what about the other characters? One of the episode’s strengths is in the little things that lead the audience to sympathize with Shaya Costallion and Aliss Fenly, but also given the precedents in the show, not having the slightest certainty that they will survive contributes to increasing the tension.
Russell T Davies’ detractors certainly started pointing out right away that the episode recycles some tropes he already used various times in the past. Like many horror stories, it also leaves some doubts at the end. All of this is absolutely true, yet in my opinion, “The Well” is a successful episode. The plot may not be exactly original, but it’s well developed, and the cast performances give strength to the various developments.
Russell T Davies’ supporters can argue that he found his touch again with two straight high-level episodes. The next episodes were written by other authors, so we’ll have to wait for the last two episodes of the season, where all of Davies’ flaws usually come out. In the meantime, we’re left with the various doubts expressed in “The Well” regarding the future of the Earth.
