Sometimes, in fiction, you don\u2019t need to say a Very Important Thing in a Very Important Way to make a good point, just ask how a thing would work if it played out in the world. This week\u2019s episode of Doctor Who<\/em>, \u201cThe Well,\u201d does exactly that, and brilliantly.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Picking up straight after \u201cLux<\/a>,\u201d the Doctor and Belinda, still in their \u201850s outfits, are trying to get the TARDIS to work. Belinda helps with the controls, but the vessel still refuses to land on May 24, 2025, which panics the nurse even more. If the TARDIS isn\u2019t broken, she assumes that the date or the Earth itself could be broken, and frets about her parents. The Doctor shares her concerns, but promises that she will be reunited with her family.<\/p>\n The Doctor persists with his plan to land in a few more spots with the Vindicator (the gadget he built last week) to orient the TARDIS. This time, it\u2019s 500,000 years in the future, and Belinda asks if humanity even exists by now. He assures her it does, as humans spread to the stars and wormed themselves into every corner of the universe. The pair head to the TARDIS wardrobe to get into some appropriate clothes before heading out.<\/p>\n They step out onto the gantry of a spaceship where an advance party of marines are leaping into the void. With no choice but to join them, they land on the planet below, enabling the Doctor to take the Vindicator reading. But, alas, the planet\u2019s heavy radiation means the ship (and by extension, the TARDIS) has to glide down slowly over the next five hours. So they tag along with the mission, the Psychic Paper enabling the Doctor and Belinda to insinuate themselves with the team.<\/p>\n The planet is inhospitable, occupied only by a small mining colony that has dug down into the world to extract its last remaining useful resources. The colony went silent a few days before and, before you can say \u201cOh, is this going to be an(other<\/a>) Aliens<\/em> riff?\u201d one of the marines suggests it would have been wiser to \u201cnuke the site from orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n All of the colonists are dead, half from gunfire, half from injuries that look like they fell and broke every bone in their body. The mirrors are all smashed and the systems are offline, the records of what went on inaccessible. But there is one survivor, the colony\u2019s chef, Aliss Bethick (Rose Ayling-Ellis) who, like the actress who portrays her, is deaf<\/a>. Aliss has been waiting in the middle of a large cargo turntable (which reads on camera as a big circle) for days.<\/p>\n Aliss is isolated, both physically in the staging and because of her hearing loss, and while she can lipread, it\u2019s still a barrier between her and the soldiers. The Doctor can communicate with Aliss in sign, and the soldiers all have their own captioning screens on their lapels. Much of the second act is taken up with the interrogation of Aliss as the marines work through the logistics of how to communicate with her. For instance, getting her attention by casting to another soldier\u2019s screen in her eye-line to get her to turn around. Belinda enters the circle to treat Aliss\u2019 injuries but keeps seeing something lurking behind her new patient.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t long before the Doctor learns that the desolate planet they stand on was once covered in diamonds. This is the planet Midnight from the series four episode of the same name when the Doctor, trapped in a shuttle, tries and ultimately fails to defeat a sinister entity that possessed one of the passengers. Like then, the Doctor\u2019s pleas for calm fail. Two of the soldiers mutiny and attempt to lure the entity out and kill it. They do not survive.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Belinda who works out and explains the rules: If you imagine the host \u2014 Aliss \u2014 at the center of a clock, then whoever stands directly behind her is attacked by the unseen monster. If you stand at six o\u2019clock then you\u2019re fine, but \u201cyou\u2019ll die at midnight.\u201d Quite literally, as whoever is in the entity\u2019s way gets thrown around like a ragdoll \u2014 half the crew shooting each other to kill the entity, the other half getting minced by the alien.<\/p>\n The Doctor approaches Aliss to speak to the monster but since it\u2019s time for the third act to start wrapping up, he just stares for a bit before working out the solution. In order to mine the diamonds the colonists would dump down mercury, using a pipe which is conveniently running behind Aliss\u2019 head. Shooting the pipe will cause a river of mercury to cascade down, creating a mirror that should be enough to banish the monster.<\/p>\n They make their escape, but the Doctor can\u2019t help but wait behind to see the monster, giving it a chance to latch onto Belinda. The captain of the marines shoots Belinda enough that the entity thinks she\u2019s about to die and switches hosts, after which point they leap into the mineshaft. Belinda wakes up in the TARDIS in the Doctor\u2019s care, ready for the next adventure. Meanwhile, the marines debrief their boss \u2014 Mrs. Flood! Who knows all about the Vindicator, too \u2014 before revealing the alien did make it on board their spaceship after all.<\/p>\n One of the threads in the episode is Belinda keeps discussing human terms and superstitions to shrugs from everyone around her. It\u2019s something that\u2019s got both her and The Doctor puzzled, as there seems to be something very wrong<\/em> with all of reality.<\/p>\n Showrunner Russell T. Davies was asked about bad faith criticisms that the show had somehow gone woke<\/em>. \u201cSomeone always brings up matters of diversity and there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messaging and issues and I have no time for this,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cWhat you might call \u2018diversity\u2019 I just call an open door,\u201d he added, \u201cit\u2019s cold and it\u2019s bracing and there\u2019s a world in front of you! There\u2019s a blue sky, there\u2019s clouds and there\u2019s noise, there\u2019s birdsong, there\u2019s people arguing.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s notable about this is that Davies\u2019 open-minded (and open-hearted) approach to making the show creates storytelling possibilities. For instance, the last time an episode of Doctor Wh<\/em>o featured a deaf character (2015\u2019s \u201cUnder The Lake\u201d), she relied upon a colleague to interpret on her behalf. And her ability to lipread wound up being part of the solution to the episode\u2019s problem \u2014 reducing her to little more than a plot mechanism.<\/p>\n Here, while Aliss\u2019 deafness is a core part of the plot, it doesn\u2019t feel as if she\u2019s defined by that one facet. Effort has been made to flesh out her character, and it\u2019s more a venue to explore how technology and communication intersect with someone with different accessibility needs. Especially as (co-writers) Sharma Angel-Walfall and Russell T. Davies made the effort to think through how this would work.<\/p>\n Whenever I\u2019m watching an episode of n\u00fc-n\u00fc-Who, in the back of my mind I\u2019m mulling what the injection of Disney money changed. \u201cMidnight,\u201d the episode \u201cThe Well\u201d is a sequel to, was produced as a \u201cdouble banked<\/a>\u201d episode \u2014 splitting the leads to shoot two episodes at a time. \u201cMidnight\u201d was also intended as a cheap story, with the bulk of the script taking place in a single room. If we\u2019re being honest, \u201cThe Well\u201d could have worked just as well given the bulk of the action takes place in a handful of rooms.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say the extra cash lavished upon this episode is wasted: \u201cThe Well\u201d feels almost indulgent by Doctor Who<\/em> standards for the sheer breadth and depth of its sets. I can\u2019t help but recall the Aliens<\/em> riff Strange New Worlds<\/em> produced in its first season<\/a>, which re-used the series\u2019 standing sets for the wreck of the USS Peregrine. It sounds weird to say that Doctor Who<\/em> is luxuriating in the fact it can afford to show a trashed bunkroom for all of a minute, but it is<\/em>.<\/p>\n Perhaps part of the reason it does feel indulgent is that this is an episode relatively low on incident and high on character. Belinda gets a real showcase here, both asserting herself on the narrative at several points, but also being rebuked for doing so. She tries to take charge to help the injured Aliss but the medical kit is so advanced she\u2019s not able to use it. She\u2019s smart enough to work out the rules of the alien, but also it gets the better of her in the end.<\/p>\n Whereas the first two episodes this season felt overstuffed and rushed, the smaller story and focus on character lets everything breathe. That an accessibility tool is a key focus of the plot and used as a venue for storytelling and character development is marvelous.<\/p>\n Look, I\u2019m as bored saying it as you are reading it, but once again I can\u2019t help but point out the influence of Steven Moffat on this season. One of the inspirations for monsters like the Weeping Angels and the Silence was the idea of them being easy to turn into a schoolyard game. The unnamed entity here, with the mechanic that if you stand directly behind the host you will die, seems perfectly in that tradition.<\/p>\n But \u201cThe Well\u201d also offers instances where Davies is in conversation with the rest of this season and his earlier work. In both \u201cMidnight\u201d and \u201cThe Well,\u201d the Doctor is at risk of losing his grip on the situation because the threat of the unknown makes people paranoid and jumpy. A streak of deeply dark pessimism runs through all of this work and while it\u2019s also on show here, there\u2019s a little more hope than there was before.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also interesting how Davies, who has always structured his seasons in a fairly rigid manner, seems to be deliberately repeating motifs and beats. The parallels between this season and the last feel almost like they\u2019re trying to draw attention to themselves. \u201cSpace Babies<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Robot Revolution,\u201d \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Chord<\/a>\u201d and \u201cLux\u201d and now the \u201cBoom<\/a>\u201d paired with \u201cThe Well\u201d feel like episodes vying for the same space in different realities. Not to mention the repetition of moments from episode to episode \u2014 like the TARDIS wardrobe sequence and the repeated hand injuries. If next week's "Lucky Day" is predominantly featured on Ruby Sunday without the Doctor and revolves around physical distance and \/ or the supernatural,<\/a> then perhaps we might assume that this is more than coincidence. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve always hated \u201cThe End\u2026 or is it?\u201d fake-outs that often undermine the drama of whatever denouement they\u2019re tacked on to. Sure, it can<\/em> be effective if you want to<\/em> cheapen the sacrifices your characters made to vanquish the villain, but often it comes across as hacky. Not to mention that people with poor media literacy will assume that it\u2019s actually a teaser for a cliffhanger to be resolved the following week.<\/p>\n Here, eh<\/em>, it\u2019s essentially a way to shoehorn Mrs. Flood in as the soldiers' boss taking the debrief after the Doctor and Belinda depart. She knows about the Doctor\u2019s use of the Vindicator, and has now seen it in action thanks to the soldier\u2019s recording. But there\u2019s no breaking the fourth wall, which means she\u2019s operating here in the same manner as Susan Twist did last year. Which is, uh, interesting.<\/p>\nYou die at midnight…<\/h2>\n
Mrs. Flood Corner<\/h2>\n