This article contains spoilers for “Doctor Who” episodes “Midnight” and “The Well.”
One of the best episodes of “Doctor Who” is season 4’s “Midnight.” A tightly written, atmospheric masterpiece produced on a shoestring budget, “Midnight” has stuck in viewers’ minds for so long because it denies them closure. The Doctor has to face off against an alien he can’t see, whose origins he doesn’t know, and never discovers. The creature can only be observed when it possesses the bodies of the people around the Doctor, and it’s defeated not by the Doctor’s usual genius but by the surprise sacrifice of an unappreciated flight attendant.
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Half of the appeal of this monster is how unknowable it is; it’s sobering to learn that there are still things in this universe the Doctor can’t handle. And the longer “Doctor Who” went without a sequel to “Midnight,” the better the episode got. The show’s willingness to embrace the mystery, to allow the loose end of the “Midnight” monster to haunt viewers just as it haunts the Doctor, is one of the smartest decisions it’s ever made. It’s rare for this show to exercise so much restraint. As over 15 years have passed since “Midnight” aired, it’s been nice to have one clear example of the show nailing a concept on the first try and being wise enough not to attempt a second.
Anyway, this week’s episode is a sequel to “Midnight.”
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“The Well” follows the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his latest companion, Belinda (Varada Sethu), as they help a futuristic military crew investigate a mysterious mining incident. They discover that almost everyone at the mining site went mad and killed each other, except for one survivor (Aliss, played by Rose Ayling-Ellis) who can barely understand what’s happened. The creepiness ramps up further as Belinda sees a brief flash of something hiding behind Aliss. The terror crescendos when the Doctor realizes the planet they’re on was once called Midnight, and the alien they’re dealing with is the same one from 400,000 years ago.
‘The Well’ is a decent sequel, even if it never should’ve been made
Although the monster in “The Well” is suitably creepy, the script doesn’t seem interested in capturing the human element that made “Midnight” so scary. The terror of that episode came less from the alien itself and more from how the humans turned on themselves out of fear. “Midnight” effectively ramped up the horror by first having the “bad” passengers stir up trouble, only for the “good” passengers to get wrapped up in it too. Even a good person will get selfish and destructive in such a situation, the episode argued. The only characters who stayed pure ended up dead.
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“The Well,” meanwhile, only lets its bad guys get sucked into the paranoia, with just Cassio (Christopher Chung) and Kai (Gaz Choudhry) making things ugly. The group’s leader, Shaya (Caoilfhionn Dunne), is allowed one morally ambiguous moment, where she gets the alien to kill Cassio before he causes any more damage, but for the most part, she stays true to herself. She ends the episode heroically sacrificing her life, and unlike the attendant in “Midnight,” she does so knowing the surviving characters respect her. “Midnight” was one of the meanest episodes in the series, and we mean that in a good way; “The Well,” meanwhile, is unflinchingly kind.
Well, it’s kind with one exception: the episode ends with the implication that the monster has latched itself onto Bethany (Mo Gilliben). The best-case scenario is that Bethany is just being paranoid, but we know from “Midnight” how dangerous paranoia can be. This one scene is the closest “The Well” gets to capturing that “Midnight” high. We don’t find out what happens next for Bethany, which only makes her final moments on-screen more chilling.
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Unlike ‘Midnight,’ ‘The Well’ is deeply connected to the larger season arc
An underrated aspect of “Midnight” is that it could’ve happened at any time. You could put almost any Doctor onto that ship and the situation would’ve played out the same way. And with the exception of one blink-and-you-miss-it appearance from former companion Rose Tyler on a TV screen, there’s nothing about “Midnight” tying it to the larger arc of season 4. “Midnight” is a near-perfect standalone story; it’s one of the most famous episodes outside the fandom because (like with “Blink”) you can show it non-“Who” fans without needing to explain much beforehand.
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“The Well,” meanwhile, spends a lot of time developing the season’s main mystery of what’s going on in 2025 and why the TARDIS won’t return to it. There’s also a major scene near the end involving the mysterious Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson). This is interesting stuff (assuming the answer to this mystery is more satisfying than the mystery of Ruby Sunday), but it also hurts the episode’s rewatch value. If this season’s finale is another disappointment, “The Well” will be tainted by it forever.
I worry I’ve been too hard on this episode. It’s still a fun, spooky time, and at least it didn’t do anything as frustrating as what “Doctor Who” did with the Weeping Angels during their second appearance. Although “The Well” teaches us more about the alien from “Midnight,” it thankfully never shows us what the alien looks like. (At least, it denies us a clear glimpse; I bet if you pause the Aliss/Belinda scene at the right second, you’ll be able to see it.) “The Well” never lets us hear the alien’s voice directly, and we still never learn what exactly its deal is. This sequel allows its notorious monster to remain a mystery, and for that, at least I’m grateful.
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