An eerily empty space ship or space station where Something Terrible has happened is a classic trope of sci-fi horror—as is the addition of one shell-shocked survivor discovered by the next team to stumble into that very bad place. Doctor Who has fun with that premise in “The Well,” written by Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall and directed by Amanda Brotchie, and further winks at fans by referencing a 2008 episode crafted in the same sci-horror vein.
Not only is it the same vein, it’s the same planet, albeit several hundreds of thousands of years later. The show visited the irradiated collapsed star we see in “The Well” during the Tenth Doctor’s fourth season, but don’t worry if you haven’t watched 2008’s “Midnight” lately. “The Well” gives us a quick explanation (complete with a glimpse of a wide-eyed David Tennant), but the main takeaway is that the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has encountered this murderous entity before. It just takes him awhile to realize that fact, because things look different this time around, and the resident monster has seized upon an awful new way of toying with its prey.
We open as the Doctor and Belinda (Varada Sethu)—still in their 1950s fashions from “Lux,” before a costume change set to Britney Spears’ “Toxic” for no reason other than it’s fun?—are continuing to puzzle through why the TARDIS refuses to take Belinda home to Earth circa May 2025. The Doctor whips out the Vindicator to help chart their course, and realizes they’ve traveled 500,000 years into the future; as soon as they exit the TARDIS, they bluff their way alongside a no-nonsense squad of soldiers investigating a mining colony that’s been out of contact for 15 days.
Once they enter, they realize the place is… eerily empty and Something Terrible has happened, with everyone either dead by laser fire or from having every bone in their body broken. But wait! There’s a shell-shocked survivor! Aliss (Rose Ayling-Ellis) is Deaf, but she can read lips—plus, the Doctor knows sign language and the soldiers have equipment that allows them to project their words on a little pop-up screen. So communication isn’t an issue, but understanding is, with the Doctor and Belinda immediately wanting to help and protect the terrified woman, and the anxious soldiers drawing their weapons.
As fair but badass Platoon Leader Shaya Costallion (Caoilfhionn Dunne) struggles to maintain order amid the rising paranoia, panic, and jump scares, it becomes clear that while Aliss may not be the one behind the massacre… the one behind the massacre is literally behind her, invisibly lurking and killing anyone who moves to what would be midnight on a clock face in relation to her.
As the story comes together, we learn something unseen emerged from the five-mile deep mine shaft chuckling to itself, then set about leaping from host to host as the colonists either shot each other or were mangled by the monster’s powers. Aliss is the final survivor, so it’s attached itself to her like a cruel parasite.
As the Doctor, Belinda, and Shaya try to keep Aliss and all the soldiers calm—and the Doctor realizes he’s been here before, when the place was called Midnight and was covered in diamonds—this season’s emergent theme pokes its head up, as both the Doctor and Belinda separately realize that none of these far-future people have heard of Earth or even the human race.
It’s an unsettling wrinkle in the Doctor’s quest to get Belinda back home. A further bit of intrigue comes at the very end of the episode when one of the soldiers calls into HQ and the boss is none other than Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson), who’s very pleased to hear that there’s “a Vindicator in action.” But the last “gotcha” comes when, much like “Midnight” all those years ago, Doctor Who leaves an open-ended unease that perhaps the seemingly vanquished monster—who we never actually see!—has hitched a ride that’ll allow its rampage to continue instead.
Doctor Who drops new episodes Saturdays on Disney+. The tease for next week showed Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will be back, so somehow the Doctor and Belinda will return to Earth—maybe a visit to the recent past, since the whole “Earth in 2025” thing is still an ongoing mystery?
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