So here's my basic question. They've created this tense, suspenseful episode with some kind of thing that kills people when they see it, and people can only see it when they're behind the person the thing is hiding behind, which means we get lots of slow movement and building dread as people slowly circle the possessed (for lack of a better word) person. It's dramatic, it's spooky, and because everyone is playing this deadly straight, it's very compelling. They pretty much have a winner on their hands here with "The Well". So then what's the point of tying this into an episode from 13 years earlier? What purpose does that serve?
Because really, other than a creepy monster and the same planet (we're told, not that it looks anything like it did), this episode doesn't really share that much with "Midnight". And the creepy monster here doesn't even act the same as the one in "Midnight". In that episode, as you'll recall, the entity took over Sky's body and was mimicking everything the Doctor said, keeping him powerless. There was nothing about mirrors, or things behind your back, or whispering in your ear like we get here. Yes, OK, sure, it's been 400,000 years, that's plenty of time for the creature to have evolved. But it still begs the question, why? What do you gain from tying these two together, other than maybe having the Doctor already know the creature is malicious? It almost feels like the production crew weren't confident that this episode would stand on its own, so they wanted to tie it back to a well-regarded 10th Doctor episode, just to be safe. But if that truly was the case (and this wasn't just something like a draft artifact, where earlier version had the creature be far more similar to the version we saw in "Midnight"), then they should have had more belief in the episode they were making. Because "The Well" is a real winner.
It starts up straight on from "Lux", with the Doctor plotting a new course for the Vindicator and another quick wardrobe change to have them appropriately dressed for the far future. This sequence brims with a sense of fun -- which is good, because after the cold open, there's not going to be any more fun moments in "The Well". Instead we get a pervading sense of tension as the Doctor and Belinda join a platoon investigating a colony that went silent, only to find that almost everyone is dead. They do a great job of building the suspense throughout this first sequence, culminating in the discovery of Aliss, the ship's cook, who's the only one left alive. (Possibly because she's deaf? The Doctor suggests this might be the reason, as she can't hear the whisper of the thing that drove the others mad, but it could just be so that the creature has a host left alive.) There are some great scenes between Aliss and the Doctor, and it's really wonderful how the Doctor just knows British Sign Language; that feels right and proper.
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| The Doctor and company prepare to save Aliss. ("The Well") ©BBC |
I also like how the Doctor's clever plan for getting out of the base (create a reflection so that the creature ends up seeing itself and turning its power against it) only works for a moment, before they're stuck with the creature once again -- and making Belinda the host in this case feels dangerous, rather than "oh well of course she'll get out of it". This whole sequence ends with Belinda actually getting shot, while the leader of the platoon, Shaya, gets to sacrifice herself to save the others by jumping down the well that the creature came up out of. It's all just really well done. (And then there's the suggestion at the very end that Shaya's sacrifice may have been in vain, and that the creature may have escaped the planet after all... Bleak and entirely in keeping with the tone of the episode.)
So really, if "The Well" suffers at all, it's because it goes out of its way to invite comparison with "Midnight", a story that it simply can't match -- but then few other episodes of Doctor Who can. "The Well" is a very strong episode in a run of strong episodes.
(Mrs. Flood sighting: here she's the superior officer at the end asking if the Doctor had the Vindicator with him, complete with a photo of it from the last episode. So it does indeed look like there are time travel shenanigans at work...)