Doctor Who: The Well (15x03)

A pretty good horror episode of Doctor Who!

Cons:

Okay, to be honest I think I was slightly more distracted by the connection to "Midnight" than I was compelled by it. The moment of reveal was a literal goosebumps moment, so fucking good, but then after that I was busy thinking... but wait, why is this same cosmic entity doing a different gimmick this time, what is the connection, does it matter to the entity that the Doctor has been here before... it just wasn't adding up to me as a continuation of a story, and felt like it could easily have been its own thing.

It also bothered me slightly that nobody figured out that Aliss might have a different relationship to the monster of the week because she's Deaf... like, for one thing, it might have been explained a bit that not all Deaf people are entirely without any hearing, and might have some slight ability to hear, but Aliss could have explained that she has no hearing whatsoever, and that probably should have clued somebody into the fact that hearing something is probably what triggered the "mad" behavior of all the other people on the crew. It was a little silly that this didn't occur to anybody until towards the end of the episode.

Pros:

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this episode, it was properly spooky, really well done in that regard. The dead bodies, the different ways they died, the spookiness of coming across just one living person among all these dead, and having her not know what's going on... I like that we got the shadow of a glimpse of the "thing" whatever it is, but never saw it properly. And that ending, with the ominous suggestion that perhaps the thing made it off the planet anyway... I mean, it's a pretty obvious trick within the horror genre. The end... or is it??? But it happened to work quite well here, in my opinion.

We also get the continuing A-plot stuff sprinkled in, what with Belinda and the Doctor still unable to travel back from the day Belinda first left, and then also Mrs. Flood turning up at the end as the boss of these soldiers, clearly keeping tabs on the Doctor. A lot of people have pointed out the parallels between this season and the first one with Gatwa's Doctor. Each episode seems to mirror the one of the next season in some way as to its theme or setting... episode two of both seasons are interacting with performance in some ways, with "The Devil's Chord" and then "Lux" being about musicals and movies respectively. Episode four of Gatwa's first season was the Ruby-centric episode "73 Yards," and next week is poised to be another Doctor-Lite Ruby-centric adventure. What is happening here? I'm into it, whatever it is.

This was an excellent adventure for Belinda. While in the second episode she was more of a true sidekick (not in a bad way, just wasn't a ton for her to do in the plot), here we see her really taking an active role in events. She's there to help with Aliss's injury, and then she becomes a voice of reason in a room of people otherwise fraying at the edges. She's the one who figures out the logic of what they're up against, and she continually intervenes to defend Aliss from harm or suspicion. I really liked seeing her step into her power as a real agent of action in this episode, while at the same time maintaining the core of her character arc, which is... I want to go home.

I want to talk about that opening sequence in the TARDIS a bit. I love that we're sticking with Belinda being focused on going home. She talks about her parents, lamenting being away from them, worried for them, and the Doctor makes a promise that he'll get her home. She likes the Doctor, she trusts him to have good intentions, but she doesn't know if she really believes in him to get her home. I love the tension here! She's along for the ride, and she's making the best of it, and even enjoying some of the wonder and interest of this crazy life of adventure. But her primary motivation is to get back to where she started. And I love the Doctor kissing her hand and making this solemn vow. Is this going to come back and hurt later on? We'll see!

Another oft-discussed element of these last couple seasons of Doctor Who is the budget injection from Disney. And yeah, I feel like the sets in particular with this one looked so cool and creative and big. "Midnight" was a budget episode with just the one set for the majority of the episode, and this concept was similarly contained mostly to one room, but it had such a big scope and a lot of visual splendor!

I'm always excited to see Deaf characters in media, and I really liked Aliss! Obviously they're signing BSL not ASL so I couldn't really follow along with it, but it was awesome to see Gatwa doing some real sign. I loved the little world-building details like the fact that it's illegal to be a nurse in this future without knowing sign language. An insensitive and shitty version of this story would be like "in the future we cured all deafness" but that ignores the culture behind it, and it's a much more interesting and I think true version of a future to say that in the future the world is adequately and fully accommodating to Deafness, not that it's been eliminated. I also liked how brave Aliss was, standing her ground and trying fruitlessly to explain herself, all while being terrified and very alone in these bizarre circumstances.

I think I'll leave it there! I'm excited to see Ruby again next week, that will be a treat I'm sure, especially if we get a reunion with the Doctor in there for good measure. And I'm eager to learn more about Belinda and where all this is leading - how long can we maintain the narrative tension of the Doctor not able to get her home?

8/10