Story 315: The Well

In which the Doctor and Belinda find themselves in the middle of a space drop onto a storm-wracked planet...

The TARDIS had materialised aboard a space marines ship just as the troops were about to make their jump, and the Doctor and Belinda find themselves forced to accompany them, saving explanations for when the reach the surface. The Doctor immediately sets up the Vindicator, which should help the TARDIS reach Belinda's home time on Earth. As the troopers train their weapons on the pair, the Doctor employs his psychic paper to give them both clearance to be here. They now believe it to be part of some unannounced test.

They learn that the platoon leader is Shaya Costallion. Cassio Palin-Paleen is second-in-command of the unit. Shaya informs them that this is planet 6767, and the atmosphere is charged with galvanic radiation, which means that their ship will have to follow them down slowly, taking some five hours to reach the surface. There is a mining colony on this world, and contact was lost some fifteen days ago - which is the reason for them coming to investigate.

They enter a domed structure nearby, which has a breathable atmosphere inside.

As they explore, they discover that the mining personnel all appear to be dead. Some have broken necks, whilst others were the victims of gunfire. Oddly, all of the mirrors have been smashed.

They reach a central area and find that there is one survivor - a young woman named Aliss who is deaf. She is sitting alone in the centre of the chamber.

The Doctor is able to communicate with Aliss using sign language, whilst the troopers employ screens which project text messages. She explains that she killed a woman named Sal, whose body lies close by - but she did this in self-defence. She goes on to say that one day all of her colleagues went mad. She does not know why and has no explanation for the broken mirrors. Belinda administers first aid to her.

Shaya tells Cassio that she does not believe that this frightened woman could have snapped the necks of half the colonists. On hearing where Shaya comes from, the Doctor enquires if it is now in federation with Earth - and is shocked when the commander tells him she has never heard of it.

Belinda hears the same thing from one of the troopers. She thinks she sees something behind Aliss out of the corner of her eye, but dismisses it as imagination.

The Doctor, Shaya and Cassio have found the control room but the colony records have been erased. The Doctor uses his sonic to restore them and they hear the final message from the commander. He talks of something behind them which has emerged from the Well - a huge shaft drilled down into the bowels of the planet.

Troopers Mo, Hanno and Kai are with Belinda and Aliss and question her about seeing something in the chamber. Aliss insists there is nothing behind her, but they then see her hair move, as though touched by someone.

Hanno is ordered to move around behind the young woman to take a look, despite Aliss' warnings.

Some invisible force launches her into the air and throws her lifeless body against the far wall.

When the Doctor questions Shaya and Cassio about the source of the galvanic radiation, he is informed that this planet once had an Xtonic sun, which collapsed some 400,000 years ago. The planet was rich is carbon, in the form of diamonds, which is why it was fought over and later mined.

On hearing this, the Doctor realises that this is the planet which was once known as Midnight...

He rushes back to the chamber in which Aliss sits. She admits that there is indeed something behind her back, something which cannot be seen.

Belinda points out that everyone is safe if they do not go directly behind her - likening it to a clock where midnight is the fatal position.

Half of her colleagues killed the other half just to try to stop the entity. She is only alive as she is the only one left. If its current host is killed, it transfers to the killer. She confirms that, whatever it is, it came from the Well.

Cassio, who has been questioning Shaya's instructions to listen to the Doctor, decides to take action against the entity - only for the troopers who go behind Aliss to be killed in the same manner as Henno. Aliss instinctively turns as the troopers move - killing more as her back turns towards them. 

Cassio is also killed.

Shaya decides that they must abandon the mission, leaving Aliss behind. The Doctor and Belinda want to take her with them - if they can manoeuvre onto the marine spaceship without anyone going behind her - but Shaya is not prepared to risk the entity getting off of this planet.

The Doctor knows that getting away from here is its intent and is forced to agree with her - but not to abandon her.

He decides to address the entity itself. They hear faint whispers, and the Doctor realises that this is how Aliss survived - she cannot hear it.

He realises that it destroyed all the mirrors as it cannot face itself, and orders Shaya to shoot out a couple of vents as he opens others. This chamber processes mercury. When a pipeline is ruptured, a wall of mercury falls behind Aliss - a substance which will reflect the entity.

Aliss is pulled free and everyone runs. The entity stalks them.

On reaching the outer airlock, Belinda discovers that the entity has latched on to her. Shaya sacrifices herself to shoot her, knowing that the Doctor will be able to save her life but the entity will move to her. She then goes and throws herself into the Well as the others get to the spaceship.

After the TARDIS departs, Mo reports to their senior officer - who appears to be Mrs Flood. She is interested in the Doctor's Vindicator. 

Later, trooper Val thinks she sees something behind Mo...

The Well was written by Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, and was first broadcast on Saturday 26th April 2025.

It takes the brave decision to present itself as a sequel to the highly rated Series 4 story Midnight. Sequels very rarely work, and seldom improve on the original. In movies we have a handful of them which are often regarded more highly than the first - The Godfather 2, The Empire Strikes Back, The Bride of Frankenstein, for instance. These work because they do not simply offer up more of the same.

Another sequel which some prefer to its original is Aliens - and this is the obvious inspiration RTD2 and Angel-Walfall have drawn on. The Well is to Midnight what Aliens was to Alien.

We have an atmospherically hostile planet which was once the source of a terrible alien threat, but years later people have come and colonised it. Communications are cut off, and a military force is sent to investigate. Amongst the group is someone who knows all about the alien threat - the Doctor here taking on the role of Ripley in Aliens. The planet has been renamed, so the "expert" only finds out too late that it is the place where they first encountered the alien.

Whilst John Carpenter's film had a whole army of Xenomorphs, here we just have the one entity - that which the Doctor encountered in his Tenth incarnation on his ill-fated Crusader 50 tour.

The entity's modus operandi has changed, however. Before, it simply possessed its victim - inhabiting them in order to conceal itself to enable it to escape the planet. This change causes a problem.

Its original way of working was surely far more likely to succeed, and you have to wonder why - if the planet has been fought over and colonised for centuries, presumably with spaceships coming and going all the time - it never managed to take anyone over and get away before now. The talk of it emerging from the Well may mean that it hibernated for a very long time, but then the Well isn't brand new.

What it is doing now seems sadistic for the sake of it, and it is diminishing the chances of getting away by killing off half of its potential hosts. Having a sole survivor is obviously going to trigger an investigation, and it can't seem to help killing people who simply get behind it. How can an invisible entity not want to be seen?

This invisibility seems to come and go. In Midnight, the mechanic - Claude - spots something moving just before the Crusader's shutter comes down - so the entity did have physical form. However, when it got into the vehicle it could not be seen as it possessed Sky Sylvestre. Here, it is said to be invisible once again, yet we do catch the briefest of glimpses of something following the party as they run for the airlock. (This was movement co-ordinator Paul Kasey in a grey, featureless mask).

Did Midnight need a sequel? On balance, I'd say no. It was a fantastic, claustrophobic chamber piece which utilised sound design to the fullest. But if we had to have a sequel, was this the way to go about it? It is certainly not simply more of the same, and I suppose going down the Aliens route was the way to do it - so in my opinion it is a qualified success. If it had to have a sequel, then this works okay.

The guest cast is led by Rose Ayling-Ellis, who plays Aliss. She is best known for playing the character Frankie Lewis in EastEnders - and for winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2021. She stars in police drama Code of Silence, which she also executive produces, and has written children's books.

Shaya is Caoilfhionn Dunne. Her work has mostly been in her native Ireland and on the stage, though she has featured in the horror film Saint Maud and TV dramas Chernobyl, Industry and A Thousand Blows.

Australian actor and singer Christopher Chung plays Cassio. He first came to prominence for British viewers in the school-based drama Waterloo Road, which he joined in 2013. He has more recently been seen alongside Gary Oldman in Slow Horses. He had previously auditioned to be one of the flatmates in Knock, Knock.

Bethany Antonio plays Mo. Another actor / singer, she appeared in RTD's Nolly. Her first TV appearance was in Doctors, and more recently featured in the GoT prequel series House of the Dragon. She has also worked with Big Finish.

Anita Dobson once again features as Mrs Flood - this time a senior officer based back at the troopers' HQ. This forms part of the series' story arc, along with the Doctor's continued attempts to get Belinda back home to May 2025 using the guitar-like Vindicator.

Overall, it gets away with it. We'd much rather they left Midnight alone, but if we must have a sequel then this will do. I say this partly because you don't actually have to have seen the Series 4 story to appreciate this.

Things you might like to know:

• RTD2 leaked in advance that this story was going to be "an unexpected sequel", but didn't actually say what to. As well as Midnight, fan speculation centred on The Water of Mars or The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. The latter does feature a similar deep shaft drilled into a hostile world.
• It wasn't originally going to be a sequel - hence RTD2's "unexpected". Ncuti Gatwa wanted a story featuring the Orisha, gods of Nigerian mythology. RTD2 tried to fit this into his Pantheon of Discord but was reluctant to use deities people worshipped for real, for fear of causing offence. As the story developed, it was only then that he spotted the potential to make it a sequel to Midnight.
• The episode's working title was "The Thirteen", as the Doctor and Belinda's arrival took the landing party up to that unlucky number.
• Aliss only became a deaf character in the script after Rose Ayling-Ellis had been cast - which is why her deafness isn't really significant to the plot.
• She dons a Sanctuary Base spacesuit to leave the mining complex - though one dyed grey instead of the usual orange.
• The actors playing the troopers had to attend a military boot camp prior to filming.
• Paul Kasey was credited as "It has no name".
• Co-writer Sharma Angel-Walfall was so busy on other projects that she didn't see the finished episode until it was broadcast.