Doctor Who Season 2, Episode 3 Review – “The Well”

Warning: This reappraisal contains spoilers for play 2, occurrence 3 of Doctor Who, "The Well."

“The Well” is an immensely frustrating occurrence of Doctor Who. There’s existent committedness scattered passim its runtime, including immoderate striking fearfulness imagery that feels pulled consecutive from a Stephen King novel, but it struggles to physique connected that foundation. Flung 500,000 years into the future, the Doctor and Belinda get connected a crumbling, ice-laced mining colony wherever thing has intelligibly gone wrong. The infrastructure is successful ruins, the unit has vanished, and lone 1 shell-shocked subsister remains. Right from the off, there’s a acold stillness that dilatory settles successful and wraps astir america similar a brisk fog, permeating a slow, creeping dread. It’s a crisp opposition to the superb chaos of past week’s outing, but the displacement to a slower, much ominous gait is simply a invited one.

Surprisingly (unless you’ve work the leaks), it besides serves arsenic a nonstop sequel to 2009’s "Midnight" – a tense, near-perfect vessel occurrence built astir 1 of the show’s simplest, astir chilling ideas. For amended oregon worse, the follow-up isn’t a retread of that one-off, and doesn’t effort to be. But portion “The Well” starts arsenic a bold successor to an all-time great, it yet ends up slipping into airy imitation.

To their credit, Russell T Davies and co-writer Sharma Walfall marque a deliberate effort to debar simply rehashing "Midnight." The entity has been reimagined with caller rules and ocular tricks, and there’s immoderate awesome restraint successful however small we really spot of it. They adjacent recovered a fewer inventive ways to marque this entity astir arsenic terrifying arsenic the archetypal clip we encountered it, and there’s inactive immoderate wide intent successful however the mysterious alien is handled. The creature’s plan is mostly near to the imagination, and manager Amanda Brotchie impressively leans into a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it embodiment.

But it’s hard not to consciousness that this instrumentality chips distant astatine the powerfulness of the original. “Midnight” was astir fear, groupthink, and the fragility of trust, portion “The Well” conscionable awkwardly gestures toward a scary monster and calls it a day. Where “Midnight” near gaps for the imaginativeness to fill, “The Well” feels excessively anxious to explain, excessively speedy to visualise the fearfulness alternatively than fto it haunt from the edges. For each the unease Brotchie's absorption cautiously conjures, the communicative underneath feels disappointingly bladed by comparison. The Midnight entity is nary longer this terrifying enigma relying connected mimicry and manipulation to sow paranoia and panic. Instead, it’s present a acold much accepted monster of the week, jumping betwixt victims successful a parasitic concatenation successful a clichéd pass-it-on setup that recalls fearfulness flicks similar It Follows oregon Smile. Gone is the intelligence dread, the eerie unknowability that made its archetypal quality unforgettable. It was a malevolent quality that adjacent the Doctor couldn’t crushed with oregon outwit, toying with connection and fracturing a country utilizing conscionable its guile.

It shares truthful small resemblance to its archetypal appearance, and it’s hard to flight the feeling that the reintroduction of 1 of Doctor Who’s astir enigmatic villains is unnecessary astatine best, and actively disappointing astatine worst. Even taking the occurrence connected its ain merits, and putting speech the unavoidable comparisons, “The Well” inactive struggles to find immoderate mode to basal out. The supporting formed is painfully forgettable, the communicative lacks immoderate substance beyond the Midnight reveal, and adjacent Ncuti Gatwa feels off-tempo, his accustomed spark dulled by dialog that forces a semblance of affectional catharsis from country to country alternatively of genuinely earning it. There are flashes of large hostility and horror, but they’re trapped successful a publication that desperately struggles to find its footing anyplace else.