Ncuti Gatwa’s second season of time travel adventures is in full swing! Our latest episode of Doctor Who, “The Well”, drops The Doctor and Belinda (Varada Sethu) 500,000 years into the future. It seems a staple point of any Doctor Who series is to visit the far future at least once. This season is ramping up the stakes with what’s happening on Planet Earth. So, how does this third episode hold up so far?
Doctor Who “The Well” is directed by Amanda Brotchie, written by Showrunner Russell T. Davies, and starring Sharma Angel Walfall. This is the first episode of the second season that features a writer other than Davies. Since teasers of this season first came online, many had crazy theories about what this episode might be about. We’ll dive into this review, as there are some big reveals to discuss. SPOILER WARNING!
The Mystery of Earth
While, of course, the big mystery of this episode is the Shadow Entity behind our characters, the overall series mystery is ramping up. This is the mystery of Earth now being gone. Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) is this season’s big villain; she seems hell-bent on ensuring The Doctor is unable to get back to Planet Earth for the time being. The final scenes reveal that she is aware of the doctor’s technology for locating and locking onto Earth. I imagine that next week’s episode, which appears to be “doctor-lite”, may address this element.
Still, I can’t help but feel this mystery around Earth is somewhat close to the Stolen Planets from Russell T Davies’s last series with David Tennant. That season finale involved Earth being stolen. The entire series arc was all about the planet vanishing. This time around, it seems only Earth. Still, a little bit of a coincidence. This time it looks a lot bigger, as both Earth and the Human Race have been taken out of time, since other characters are not aware of or familiar with either.
My only fear is that the revelation of who Mrs Flood is and what she has done to Earth will bore people with the plot thread. Yes, we’ve been playing with this reveal since 2023. Can we get it over already? I think part of this also comes from the letdown I felt with ‘Empire of Death‘ and ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday‘. There was this big build-up, and the payoff was relatively flat. Hopefully, we’re not about to go into round two for this.
The Shadow Entity
I’ll admit, Doctor Who “The Well” shook me up when the mysterious monster first appeared. It was a basic jump scare style tactic by the writer and director. From there on out, when the entity makes its second-by-second appearance, it does catch you off guard. Director Amanda Brotchie handles these scenes well, especially with the way the cast responds to the writing. This episode is almost a direct sequel to “Midnight“, an episode from Tennant’s fourth series of Doctor Who, also under the showrunner Russell T. Davies. “Midnight”
Throughout this episode, we are once again teased with the mystery of “Midnight Entity”, which we can’t see, but it seems there is a bigger reveal. Some can hear it, apart from one of our guest star characters. I enjoyed how this episode handled the entity. Even by the end, we still really don’t know anything about it. We barely got a glimpse at it towards the end. However, by the credit,s we’re left with more questions about what it was, what it wanted, and what it is doing next.
Still, the episode somewhat ends on a dark note. Did the entity escape the planet, finally? As the screen fades to black, if you listen carefully, you can hear the ever-so-creepy whispering presumably coming from the entity. Did it make it onto the ship? Honestly, I think Doctor Who should move forward and never return to this. It’s very creepy if we have to live with the fact that the entity may, or may not, be out and about causing chaos.
One Hell of an Adventure
Rose Ayling-Ellis is excellent as Aliss. I’m a big fan of how the characters’ deafness is incorporated into the story, without feeling exploitative. The reveal that they couldn’t actually hear the monster was fantastic. It allowed Ncuti Gatwa to have an emotional moment when the reveal came—doctor Who “The Well” featured an impressive cast. Caoilfhionn Dunne was fantastic as the squad leader; even though we had limited time with her, it was great. We also had Slow Horses star Christopher Chung as a gun-ho soldier.
With episodes like this, it’s hard sometimes to form connections and care about one-off characters. It really depends on how they are written and how much time we get with them. Dunne’s character is a perfect example of how to execute this. Her apparent sacrifice was emotional, tense and just sad all around. The strong performances of these characters really help the overall story and drama of the episode.
Varada Sethu once again proved to be a fantastic addition to the Doctor Who cast. Belinda is quickly becoming one of my favourite characters in the series. She’s being written so, so well in these new episodes and I’m fascinated to see where her story goes as the adventure goes on. The whole reveal of the “Midnight Entity”, when the Doctor learned the planet’s name, was well-paced and tense. More of this in my Doctor Who, please!
Conclusion
Doctor Who “The Well” was a fantastic episode. I felt a shock at the monster in this episode, which I hadn’t felt in quite a long time. This episode served as a surprise sequel to “Midnight”, which is why the BBC was so tight-lipped about reviews. Honestly, I think this episode might be one of my favourites of the last two seasons. It was super tense, creepy, and the stakes were there. It also had that emotional pull of the characters. The ending? Perfect way to end it.
In some ways, we’re still at ground zero when it comes to knowledge of the entity. We don’t know anything about it. The creepy whispers relate to the “Midnight” episode, where it steals people’s voices and such. This might be one of the most chilling episodes of Doctor Who in years. More of this, please! I mean it, if the series continues into the next season, please keep the stakes creepy and weird like this. I think this is where Doctor Who thrives—creeping you out and scaring you. They’ll still never top the Weeping Angels, though.
Doctor Who continues with “Lucky Day” on Saturday, April 26, on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, and on Disney+ worldwide, where available. This episode sees the return of a previous companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), which appears to set up elements of the upcoming season finale. Exciting times!
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