‘Doctor Who’ Season 2 Episode 3 Review – “The Well” Takes the Doctor Into The Depths of Absolute Terror

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) | Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf

In “The Well”, the Doctor and Belinda’s journey home sends them far into the future, where a mining expedition has collapsed into absolute chaos. Written by Russell T. Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall and directed by Amanda Brotchie, “The Well” offers a healthy dose of psychological terror. It’s a tense, claustrophobic thriller in the very best of ways; Alien meets Doctor Who. It’s a bombastic debut for Angel-Walfall and a brilliantly executed bit of psychological horror that’s sure to rank among fan-favorites like “Blink”, “Midnight”, and “Boom”. One part character-driven drama, one part horrific descent into madness, and wholly thrilling from start to finish.

Please note: this review contains spoilers for Doctor Who: The Well.

Into the Depths of Terror

When the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda (Varada Sethu) arrive in an abandoned mining colony hundreds of thousands of years in the future, they discover a horror beyond imagination. For hidden away in the decrepit halls of the mining facility sits the expedition’s lone survivor, Aliss (Rose Ayling-Ellis). And lurking somewhere behind her is absolute terror. What monster awaits the Doctor, Belinda, and the squad sent to rescue Aliss? Can the Doctor and his friends hope to defeat a creature they can hardly witness? Or has the final midnight struck for our beloved Time Lord? In “The Well”, Davies and Angel-Wallfall play with our deepest fears. For what is scarier than the thing we think we see in the corner of our eyes? A horror that always rests just out of sight but nevertheless remains ready to strike.

“The Well” delivers a masterclass in tension and payoff. It’s an expertly structured episode, perfectly paced, and dripping with unease; the kind of episode that strikes hard, ratchets up the stakes, and makes you hold your breath tightly until it finally pushes you over the edge into pleasure and terror. It’s a very simple story, a quite traditional base-under-siege adventure. But what makes it so effective is Davies and Angel-Walfall’s superb character work. They quickly get you invested in Aliss, as well as that crew that’s been sent to rescue her, led by a very empathetic Shaya (Caoilfhionn Dunne) and an equally frosty Cassio (Christopher Chung). And it’s the tension between the characters—their suspicion of each other and distrust in the Doctor—that really keeps the episode on its rails. Overall, an absolutely superb piece of tension-building and payoff.

A Return to Midnight

And now for the elephant in the room—yes, “The Well” is a sequel to 2008’s “Midnight”. Well, sort of. It’s been hundreds of thousands of years since David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor last stepped foot on the planet Midnight, and in that time, the diamonds that covered the planet’s surface have been mined for everything they’re worth. As for the entity that lurked within the wilderness of Midnight’s surface? Well, it’s been reawakened by the mining operation, having crawled from the depths of the miles-deep mining well. And it’s evolved since the last time the Doctor faced it. This time, instead of mimicking the words of those it faces, it hides behind its victims, just out of sight, slowly driving those around it to madness. And, if that’s not bad enough, it even kills anyone who goes behind it in the most horrific of ways.

This evolution of the enigmatic “Midnight Entity”, as it’s colloquially known, makes for quite a shocking twist. It’s always risky revisiting an episode as beloved as “Midnight”—especially when a large part of that episode’s success rests on all of the questions it leaves unanswered. Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear, and the worry with a sequel to such an episode is the temptation to start explaining away that mystique. But Davies and Angel-Walfall carefully skirt around that risk, broadening the entity’s threat without explaining away its mysteries. “The Well” offers an evolution to the mythos of “Midnight” that only strengthens its horror; it’s just an unknowable threat. The Doctor finds himself no closer to understanding this creature now than he was back in 2008, and both episodes are all the better for it.

A Rocky Journey Home

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Belinda’s ongoing quest to return to May 24, 2025 bubbles away in the background. Having tried to use the Vindicator in “Lux” to find a way back, the pair instead end up countless millennia in the future, when humanity should be roaming the stars. Except humanity isn’t roaming the stars. In fact, none of the members of the rescue team seems to have ever even heard of humanity—or of the Earth itself. Which might just pose a problem for the Doctor and Belinda. Does something happen to the Earth on May 24, 2025, causing it to cease existing altogether and thereby preventing the Doctor and Belinda from returning? It poses quite the wrinkle for the TARDIS team; an enticing thorn in their relationship that’s sure to keep poking at them in episodes to come. But for now, let’s put a pin in it.

Final Thoughts

Overall, “The Well” delivers an absolute home run of an episode. It’s exactly as pulse-tinglingly tense as you want it to be. A perfectly executed trek into the heart of absolute terror, packed with enough twists, turns, and chills to make even the hardest of cynics delighted. It’s the rare sequel to a fan-favorite episode that knows how to expand the story without ruining what made the original so special. But underneath all the twists and turns lies some truly remarkable character work—particularly from Gatwa, Sethu, and Ayling-Ellis. Ayling-Ellis, in particular, commands the screen with a performance that includes both spoken dialogue and British sign language (the episode’s clever use of on-screen captions when the other character talk to Aliss, who is hard of hearing, is particularly noteworthy too). Ayling-Ellis plays brilliantly off of Sethu and easily steals the whole episode with an emotional powerhouse of a performance

And best of all, “The Well” gives both the Doctor and Belinda a chance to show what they’re made of, separate from one another. Belinda truly holds her own here, led by Sethu’s commanding performance. Gatwa’s Doctor, too, continues to show exactly how deft he is at commanding a room. But really, it’s a brilliant showcase of how perfectly the two work together. And, overall, “The Well” a shining example of how good Doctor Who can be.

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