Ncuti Gatwa and Verada Sethu find themselves at one point recreating Aliens with The Well. Here’s our spoiler-filled review.
This review contains spoilers.
I had a chat earlier this week about modern Doctor Who, and where the line was between working within resources of old, and working how to spend the money now available to the show. Lux was a good example from last week, an idea that’d be impossible for the show to have realised before now. But also, one of the challenges of old was stretching the cash, to the point where a lot of stories had one set to play with, and needed to wring the most out of it.
The opening segments of The Well suggested a far broader story than the one we were going to get. A space story, with posh space suits – courtesy of what’s becoming the traditional dip into the TARDIS wardrobe – and a blast of Britney Spears.
Then, following my original thoughts, I wrote down ‘why does this feel like Aliens?’
The obvious answer is sometimes the right one: The Well was paying homage to James Cameron’s 1986 classic, not just through dropping in dialogue, but also the early search through a colony that had fallen out of touch. The motion tracker, the finding the life signs? The Alien saga – right down to The Well’s ending looking an awful lot like Alien 3 – seemed a clear influence on Russell T Davies’ script.
Then, I wondered – having avoided trailers – if we were going to get the Weeping Angels in the midst of all of this. Broken mirrors? So that creatures can’t see their reflection? Hmmm. Anyway, ten minutes in, I have a whole host of guesses as to where this was going, right down to ‘I wonder if we’re getting another spin on base under siege.’
It serves me right. From the moment the small ensemble burst into a room to see a woman called Aliss sat in the middle of it, The Well got under my skin. And when you think about it, in terms of practicalities, there’s not too much to it. There’s Aliss, on a chair, surrounded by people with guns and shouty voices. Eerie sound work. A camera keen to explore the negative spaces (terrific direction from Amanda Britchie, I thought).
Hang on, I wondered. This feels a bit like Midnight. When a bunch of people were basically sat in a room for 40 minutes or so for one of the creepiest, smallest episodes of Doctor Who in the last 20 years. When the rug pulled and I realised The Well was actually something akin to a Midnight 2, I was sideswiped. Happily so.
One of the delights of Midnight, going back to the 2008 episode, is how little it explained. It’s an episode from the David Tennant original era where the Doctor doesn’t win, he just survives, having basically been outplayed.
The return of Midnight brings with it a little more rule explaining, and at the heart of that is the aforementioned Aliss. Played by Rose Ayling-Ellis, she’s a terrific guest star, her eyes full of the kind of convincing terror that raises the stakes. Sitting in the middle of a room, begging “don’t turn your back on me”, her eyes flickering with terror and unease? Brilliant. The Well is very much elevated even further by her work.
Likewise the work of Verada Sethu’s Bel, who I’m finding a more interesting and intriguing companion to the Doctor so far than Ruby Sunday. I’m finding her more interesting that Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor too, who I enjoy watching, but wonder if the mystery is dampening there. Sethu though is at the heart of the interactions with Aliss, and I completely buy her and her character. The undercurrent of simply wanting to get home means I never think she quite wants to be where she is, and I’m warming to the dynamic.
On the Midnight side of things, every little bit we find out about the ‘creature’ makes it slightly – just slightly – less sinister. It’s still one of the most effective foes modern Doctor Who has brought to the screen, and that it’s 17 years between means its reappearance has impact. I found The Well, at its core, really gripping and tense. Russell T Davies is terrific at screw-turning episodes like this, and The Well is up there in the top echelons of his Who work.
I also want to acknowledge that the weaving in of sign language and subtitles into the story I though was really well done. I’m loathed to even mention it, as it felt organic and clever. But also, Doctor Who is getting a battering for making sure its church is broad. Yet look how it benefits an episode. Davies has been making comments about not restricting himself by exploring as much as possible, and it’s work such as The Well that’s a fitting riposte to a lot of the bollocks being aimed at Doctor Who. Like the stories, not like the stories: that’s fair enough and up to you. But this Doctor Woke criticism? Bin, get in it.
I really, really liked The Well, and it was almost a shame to see things pulled back the broader mysteries coming back in. I’m beginning to view the appearance of Anita Dobson’s Mrs Flood as a replay of the Twist threads of last season. I’m sure there’s a lot more to them, and I’m very aware that the first time we met her, she knew what a TARDIS was. Still, at the moment, it feels a familiar playbook.
More interesting are the broader hints that the Earth has been wiped out of memory. I like to think that this whole season is ultimately going to be modelled on the vintage animated series Ulysses 31, but that’s me going into my niches again. Still, word of the Earth has gone, and there’s a date that the TARDIS can only bounce off? Interesting.
With Midnight still out there, and Davies for the first time in his latest turn in the Doctor Who hot seat recalled a more recent foe, we hit the half way point already of season two (nggh, still can’t get used to calling it that.) I’ve skipped the trailer, so can’t tell you what’s coming. But I’d very much like something on the level of The Well, please. For me, this season is already outpacing the last…
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