The Well

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd grade and bountiful Human Empire.

The only Doctor Who flash cast with something on its back.

It's a mole, I think.

Love the mole.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Johnny.

And I'm Todd.

Well, this week we're talking about the well, which is season two, episode three. of the current era, written by Russell T. Davis and Sharma Angel Wallfall, and directed by Amanda Bracci, who directed Lux last week and lots of other things, including an episode of Neighbours, apparently.

She's from Melbourne.

I've looked her up since our last episode.

I'm sure she's glad about that.

Yeah, yes, yes.

So, um, let's talk the well, and I want to go generally around the table and talk about how we felt the episode went.

Would you like to start us off, Johnny?

Sure.

I thought, I thought this was a perfectly acceptable episode of Doctor Who, a very traditional episode.

[01:05]

Um, I got strong earth shock vibes from it throughout.

It was, uh, it was done really well in lots of different ways.

It didn't quite all come together for me.

Uh, as one might have hoped, but I, you know, still there's a lot to like in it.

Look, I, I agree with Johnny, but I actually thought it was probably better than that.

It was solid.

It was really terrifying.

I mean, like it, I mean, you know, it's not as terrifying as midnight.

I don't think it can top midnight.

Um, but it did something interesting in me with the creature.

Yeah, like, I mean, the idea that it's 400,000 years older and has evolved and has become even more of a bastard is kind of, it's, it's, yeah, they're like, that was horrifying.

You know, Nathan, sometimes I think sometimes you can judge an episode by how your partner reacts when they're watching it with you because they're not a Doctor Who fanatic, and Ash Watches all of these with me, and sometimes he'll be distracted on his phone or I'll ask questions.

This time, Silence, we are just totally captivated throughout the entire thing.

[02:11]

It was brilliant.

I think it's a really strong episode.

I enjoyed it a lot.

I've been pretty much on side with the episodes this season.

And although there's nothing sort of stunningly new about this, and it does seem to be riffing on a whole heap of stuff from the previous Russell T. Davis era.

I think there's something to be said for doing the thing again.

Um, but when the production kind of conditions are a bit different.

And so I just sort of thought, you know, it's the same sort of world that we've seen since the Impossible Planet.

You know, the Impossible Planet was kind of our 1st new series, space base, and that's what space bases look like now.

This I just thought looked incredible.

These huge spaces, these beautiful sets.

It managed to be atmospheric without turning the lights off and so everything was supervisible.

Um, and, you know, like I just thought it was so confidently and so well done.

[03:15]

And like Todd said, I thought it was really properly scary.

And even watching it the 2nd time, that 1st jump scare, just absolutely.

Like, I leapt again, even though I think I was pretty sure it was coming.

So, so it worked for me perfectly.

So I think I'm probably kind of in Todd's corner here.

Well, I might be the Grinch that stole the well here.

Like, I feel like I might be the one who, who, but I can, I can concur.

It does look great.

And I was thinking about how it's got a lot of traditional Doctor Who elements.

It's got the quarry.

It's got the big long corridor, but people have got to run up and down and it's got the big circular centrepiece, that arena feel for where most of it happens.

And when I was watching unleash afterwards, and they showed some of the raw footage from within side that when they were shooting the stunts of the people leaping over on those wires.

You could see how much work the colour grading had done to the whole episode and how it had really added a whole lot of atmosphere to everything because actually just looking at it, it didn't look that great.

[04:26]

But on the episode they had managed to really pull off a whole consistent cold, uh, spooky kind of feel to the whole thing.

I mean, because midnight, I think, benefits from that, those, you know, the visuals of outside, which are bluer, I think.

But, you know, the planet that's made of diamonds, you know, and we've gone on from there, but everything is so black.

Like everything is so black and you call that aquarium, obvious it's a quarry, but like a quarry, I don't think has ever looked quite as good as that in Doctor Who.

I agree with you.

Those outside visuals of the base in the long distance and just looking up at the stars, I thought was stunning.

I think it's partly the direction too.

I just think it's very solidly directed. which is a great trip last week and and and here the performances and what she had shooty doing and the guest stars.

I mean, obviously there's a writing, but, you know, I think it was a great 12 punch for Amanda as the director.

[05:29]

I do want to spend some time later talking about the performances because I think, you know, this is an episode with that relies very, very heavily on the quality of the performances.

Have you watched Unleashed yet?

I haven't.

No.

No, um, so, so, in a leash, they talked about how the concept for this episode was, was brought to Russell, and everything, everything was there, basically, a poisonous planet, you know, something lurking to kill people, and he suggested bringing the monster back.

So it was originally not going to be the monster.

It was going to be another monster.

And so he just went, oh, I could do a sequel to this story.

And then it just adds so much depth to it.

Oh, and the fear on Chuti's face.

Sorry.

I really enjoyed this episode.

Yeah, so I mean, again, I think we'll talk about why exactly we've chosen to make this a sequel to Midnight, where it doesn't seem to need to have been that.

[06:31]

Had other people been spoiled, though?

I had a vague sense that this was going to be a sequel to midnight.

I can't remember where I read it, and I don't seek out Doctor Who fan theory videos or anything like that.

But somehow I got the sense that it was going to be a sequel to midnight.

And I remember kind of going, why are we talking about galvanic radiation when x tonic radiation is right there?

And there it was.

I had no idea.

That it was going to be a sequel at all.

And so, you know, as you were saying, like they were saying, girl, vanic, and then when it all just started to turn to, you know, extonic and, you know, diamonds and you, the soundscape just started to go and shoot his look and I'm just they're going, 0 my goodness, they're not doing this.

They're not doing it. they are doing this.

This is just a wonderful captured moment.

And I can see why Russell would have, you know, seized on that because I think it works really, really well.

Um, I love the direction. of that slow realisation.

[07:35]

It's just seeded through the entire episode.

But the moment I had an inkling in the back of my head was when Alice does that strange look, which is Sky's eye dart movement from midnight.

I was like, why does that look so familiar?

I just had chills down my spine.

But didn't didn't clock until just before that reveal.

I was like, oh, oh, okay.

Yeah, I wasn't spoiled, but it is when they said the word ex-tonic, I thought, oh, yeah, here we are.

And I thought, I've got to admit that I would, I didn't have that vanish thrill of going, oh, we're back here again.

He's a, he's the, he's the pteroreptils back for another runner.

No, I didn't got to feel like that.

I, I, and I did kind of think, oh, this is why we've been taking it so slowly.

Like, I think this is why the pace in that middle section has been so so deliberate and so set up in that kind of way.

[08:36]

Um, I did like, I think they've made the right choice to show a little bit more of it than they did during midnight.

I think it would have been unsatisfying to not show anything and they chose really smartly to just show those little bits of the jump scares, those things you can't quite see.

And so when when they happen, you kind of, the 1st thing that happened.

I didn't know whether Belinda had imagined it or not.

And then you sort of see just, and even later in the episode, there's just a few kind of reverse shots where it's kind of just creeping around in the, in the shadows and there, that's, I think that was smart.

That was a good thing. that a good thing to do.

Johnny, I just find it freaky.

You know, and even watching it the 2nd time, I didn't even try to pause it because I just didn't want to know.

Yeah.

I did try.

I found it.

I can't say I found it scary.

I can't say I found it edge of my seat kind of stuff.

[09:37]

And actually, I was thinking a little bit back to Lux last week and how those group of barkers on the chairs that Russell had given us to say, to show us how fans watch and read Doctor Who, and how, you know, how literate we've all become.

You know, they say things like, you know, oh, we're 30 minutes in.

Youve got to go back and start the 3rd act.

You know, you've already heard what's going to happen here.

And I felt a little bit of, I can sort of see the workings a little bit too clearly in this.

And think back to midnight.

I just could not, you know, back then we were on.

I genuinely didn't know where that episode was heading at any stage in its in its duration.

Whereas this, I felt, I think the reason why I wasn't entirely sucked into this world and completely engrossed by it was I could sort of see the script working.

Um, which is not say the script is bad.

It's not, it's really good.

[10:38]

And the direction is really good as you say, but I just, I could see, I could read it a bit clearly, I think.

For me, I think that it's this era's iteration of this thing, and I think that that's something that we need to do every so often, do you know what I mean?

And so I don't think this is as inventive as the source material.

But what I do think is that it's a really good kind of tone piece.

And given that the traditional science fiction episodes of this era have been the Starbeast and Space Babies and the robot revolution, You know, I think that they were probably Doctor Who fans who are gagging for something just a little bit more Trad, and I'm glad that they got it.

Not that I didn't like those other 3 episodes I just mentioned because I did.

But it was kind of nice to say, all right, well, Doctor Who can still do its old standards and it can just do it incredibly well.

[11:39]

And just even wandering through the, the quarters, the crew quarters and stuff, you know, just the details of those sets, the way that they've been dressed, all of the stuff, the junk everywhere, the evidence of, um, you know, the, the fight and the deterioration and all of that sort of thing, crew quarters that looked really nothing like, you think about the impossible planet, right?

right And how impressed we were by it.

And now you go back there and you think, there are a lot of painted balsa wood flats.

You know, like, but you don't get that sense here.

And I think, I think because TV is a visual medium and because Doctor Who is about putting strange things on TV, I'm actually okay with this, like, I don't think it's as good as midnight, but I think nearly nothing in Doctor Who is as good as midnight.

And and I just think this is so confidently done, just so kind of engaging and exciting.

And I do think the one thing it does, that scene in the middle where just 5 people get killed, where it's just like, oh, we're killing 5 characters right now and it's just like, and now we're surrounded.

[12:48]

Now we're in the same situation, but now we're surrounded in dead bodies.

And I just think that is really, really something extraordinary.

I agree.

It's something, you know, it's not it's not as unique as Midnight, but it's a good solid suspense. horror thriller episode.

Like some of some of it, like, and the death, the death is... were you impressed by the death Tod?

Yes, James.

Like a death.

And you know what?

Also, I was impressed.

It's that strange, sinister way you said that, Todd.

Yeah, watch out.

Um, I was also impressed by the um, the TARDIS costume cabinet because I rid her of the fact that we, the TARDIS managed to sense the environment and give them the exactly right ace suits to match those helmets so we could get Belinda and the doctor screaming as they were plummeting towards the planet.

I loved that.

I know some people won't, but I just like the fact that the costume cabinets there and the TARDIS can just sense what we need.

[13:51]

It's been upgraded.

It's the new psychic paper, I think.

Do you know what I mean?

It's just like, and now we'll go in this door and out that door.

We'll have some Britney, and we're going to be dressed for the episode, and it doesn't actually matter, and we did it last week, and we're doing it this week.

And just as we've said before, having a doctor who dresses for the adventure is so great.

It's so, you know, it's like having heart and all back.

It's just terrific.

I love it. so much.

It's one of my favourite things. where the budget went.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

So why are we making it a sequel to midnight?

I mean, given the mid 90s, one of the best Doctor Who episodes ever, and it's only going to kind of invite sort of comparisons.

Um, what do you think the reason for it was?

It's never resolved.

You know, that thing is still alive.

Yeah?

Like, it's there on that planet. they don't kill it.

[14:54]

They just kill Skye.

So like that's always been a loose thread to pull.

But I think you also run the risk of saying, if you didn't have that in there, You might run into the criticism of, well, yes, they tried to do another midnight, like with a similar creature and it wasn't as good.

But by by doing this and tying it in with it and allowing the creature to evolve after 400,000 years, I think is actually very clever and the strengthens the episode for me.

I mean, I think this era of the show has a real desire to bring back elements from the past and to bring back old enemies, and it has done this, and old friends and allies, and it is, it is really infused in this era much more than it is in, in other parts of modern Doctor Who.

And I'm I'm fine.

I'm fine with that.

But I think that it's difficult to, it's difficult to watch this and not think about all the fantastic things that midnight managed to do.

[15:57]

And one of the reasons, one of the reasons I think I didn't really buy into this, I know we want to talk about the characters a bit, but in midnight, that that creature brought out the worst in those supporting characters and really, it really made you see how he could have this visceral effect on people who felt like us, the mum, the dad, the kid, that professor, you know, all that.

And so it really transformed those people around it.

And here I just didn't really connect with any of the.

I mean, Russell said on Instagram that he was thinking about calling this episode the 13 instead of the well-meaning the 13 people who dropped that.

I'm really glad he didn't because actually I haven't I've met hardly any of those 13.

Do you remember last week they were talking about characters who didn't have surnames?

And this week we get a set of characters who don't even have 1st names who are true for 7 and super 8 and things.

And so for me, I couldn't really, this is one of those things I think midnight does really well.

[17:00]

All its elements combine in a kind of plot-like way, which is really cool.

I think midnight is doing something quite different, and in midnight, the villains are the people.

And so it's people under pressure.

And, you know, you've got that disgusting family beef and Valerie.

And what's her name?

Val or something I can't remember.

You know, like Colin Morgan's parents who are just horrible daily mail readers, you know, who, you know, the moment they think there's a refugee somewhere nearby, they're putting people out the airlock, you know.

And, and, and so that's a story all about that, about people under pressure turning on one another and being evil.

And the, the evil of the, the monster is, is kind of uh, to the side.

The monster is inventive and interesting, but mostly it operates through sky.

Here that doesn't happen at all.

We don't have it possess a person and we don't have it really inspiring people to be evil except that, you know, people are scared or whatever.

So it's not interrogating those characters in any way.

[18:01]

And so I think it is doing something quite quite different, which is why it's a little bit surprising that they go for it.

I suspect that it's giving the doctor a relationship with it.

And so the doctor gets to react to it at the very end when he goes up to Alice and looks her in the face, but he's talking to the creature and he hears the creature talking to him.

And I think, you know, that's one of Shooty's best moments as the doctor.

I think that's an amazing performance.

And I think that's why it's there.

I thought that was very powerful and I certainly think that and I concur with you, that his performance in this episode and certainly those moments and his relationship, both with Alice and with Shire, were really well done.

You know, I've been a bit critical of him being a one, two, 3 note sort of actor, but this week really, he shined through very much so.

I love that that shot, like that that expression on his face. is so prolonged and so full of fear and harks back to tenants, kind of fixated, um, stare as he's starting to be like overtaken and and, and you, you kind of going, oh, is it actually going to take him now?

[19:20]

Has he been possessed?

Is it going back to its old playbook?

And is it going to actually take him?

Um, And it's his relationship with it is one of visceral hatred.

You know, and this is something, again, in this era, there are really clear lines about who's good and who's bad.

And this episode, he calls the thing vile.

He calls it a stone cold murderer.

And the same way that Alan in episode one is just that he's just a bad egg, you know, like, and the same way that the gods of the pantheon are just bad.

They're just, there's not the faulty technology like in Moffat story would be, you know.

It's not even that tenony thing of, oh, I've got to give it a chance.

I've got to hug it 1st and see if it really wants to die.

No, it's it's just this thing.

These things are just, they're really clear moral.

After the Chimolera, it's actually a really interesting reaction.

There's a really clear moral line here about what's right and what's wrong.

Yeah, although, you know, his 1st sort of regular episode has the snot monster turning out to have been another victim all along.

[20:28]

So that's because capitalism is what's evil about, right?

Capitalism is always the secret villa, I think.

Unless you...

I want to talk also about the incredible performance by Rose Ailing Ellis, who I had heard of before.

A friend of mine at work really wanted her to be the next companion.

So I had heard of her.

And I just think she is absolutely magnificent.

Just incredible, absolutely brilliant.

So she worked, um, like, with the script writers to improve the inclusiveness and language and, and, and how, like how the characters reacted to her and how she reacted to the characters to make it more believable, um, from the point of view of the deaf person.

Well, she was just absolutely stunning, the whole performance, and, you know, the moments, like when people turned dead backs on her, and what she could just convey the emotions in her voice and her look, and you just wanted her, that character to be able to survive and go back to her daughter so, so much.

[21:42]

I was just stunned by her performance.

I just thought it was utterly compelling.

And I think it's a great performance matched by a great character creation, someone who's keeping secrets, but we're still sympathetic with them, even though they haven't told us the full truth.

You know, and the truth gradually emerges and they're a flawed character and we may not always, sometimes we support what she's doing.

Sometimes we don't, but that's a really great central character.

But can we say the same for the rest of the characters in thing?

You know, like I, for Shire and for Salamar.

They're the sort of archetypes that really don't have much behind them.

So I, I love that Rose's character is literally at the centre of this episode, but there's not, there's not the same depth applied to everyone else.

There's not because there's so many of them, but I actually think Shia as the commander was utterly brilliant, and I thought her performance was as good as, as Rose, and you could so easily have had her not trusting the doctor and going down that road.

[22:51]

Obviously, you always have the 2nd in command that's going to cause problems and I was okay with that.

And then we had Mo as well and we had, you know, a few of the others around there.

But that was not a problem for me because Shire was so well drawn, I thought.

I think that the tendency to have a reduced supporting cast in a 45 minute Doctor Who episode isn't a bad one.

And in the chipmal era, we often had a very small sort of supporting cast, here having a supporting cast, but with a lot of bit players, all of whom get a, you know, line or 2 of dialogue, just makes the thing seem bigger and maybe a bit more expensive.

I want to shout out to Gaz Chaudhry, who played Kai, who was the soldier with the shaved head, who followed along with Cassio, you know, 2nded Cassio's red code declaration, who wears a prosthetic, and I didn't realise all the way through the 1st watching, but he has a prosthetic, and he was a former Paralympian playing wheelchair basketball, who has turned to acting.

[23:58]

And I thought he was really great.

I thought he was kind of cute and just kind of compelling to watch.

But I was kind of surprised because watching it the 2nd time through after I knew it was very clear, but I didn't actually pick up on it the 1st time.

He was great.

And I think those call 4 who were part of the 13 were really good.

And I think having Belinda there, and again, Ash commented how wonderful she was, and I just thought, just her empathy and bonding with all those different characters, and then the whole thing about, well, what's happened to the earth and humans, tying all that in around all of that, just worked so well.

I mean, I cannot, um, say enough, how good she is in the role as Belinda and that really, really helps, you know, support Shooty and the whole production.

Yeah, she's outstanding.

I mean, she, she has this really great presence without drawing attention to herself in any way, and yet when she steps into a scene, you can't seem to take your eyes off her.

[25:03]

So she's got that gift of kind of being an ensemble member and them being the lead in a scene at any one time.

Um, And I think, you know, if um, she didn't have quite as much humour to bring to this episode because obviously it's got a different tone to it this episode.

But in the previous stuff.

I've loved her slightly Barbie relationship with the doctor and that she really is sort of, she is really sort of bewildered by why anyone would be impressed by him.

Like, it's not like, we've seen other people go, well, I'm not particularly impressed by you, doctors.

She's kind of trying to work out what it is about him, that anyone would sort of would sort of gravitate to him for.

I think the thing of having the both of them discover at the same time that there are no more humans and no more earth is a good call as well. because we've had lots of, you know, the doctor finds out, I think, and conceals it in order to kind of preserve the companion's feelings and stuff, and these maintains her agency and maintains her being on an equal level with him.

[26:07]

They've both found it out at the same time.

And neither one of them is super freaking out about it more than the other.

I thought that was really good.

I do want to just wind up, I think, by just talking about the end, though.

I had a little moment.

So Trooper 79 and Alice go up in the lift.

But the lift indicates there are 4 people on it.

And then there are 4 people left alive downstairs.

And for a 2nd I thought that because everyone else was so confident that they didn't have the thing behind them, that Belinda just concluded that she must have it behind her, but that it wasn't there at all.

And so her being shot and Shia throwing herself down the well was all not necessary and kind of bad.

And I had a chat with Brendan about this and Brendan had decided, no, there were 2 creatures.

And I said, well, there's literally no hint of that in the text, so why?

[27:07]

We even going there.

Except when I rewatched.

Belinda says that she can hear the whispering, and there is just the hint of whispering, um, in the on the soundtrack.

Now, that could be German expressionist whispering that is just representing what she thinks she hears.

But I think perhaps there's enough possible ambiguity there.

In any case, what happens is that the creature escapes, which is a pretty great ending.

I think the strong implication is that the creature escapes.

I actually felt better about it when I thought, oh, maybe there's a 2nd creature.

I actually felt that I felt it was a little too familiar, that ending, and then I thought, oh, hang on, maybe maybe there's another one I felt, but I...

But can I say it's an unusual episode where the problem is solved by the very precise shooting of a companion?

That's, and that is, that is something else I think that crept in about the doctor.

[28:09]

The doctor isn't the one to solve the problem at the end.

I always feel a bit funny about those episodes.

There's plenty of stories that end like that and there's plenty of stories I feel completely fine about it, but there's always a moment where I think, ah, could we have made this a little bit.

A little bit better.

I guess the ending, like the shooting of the companion and then, is there one creature is there two?

I did like sort of the cliffhanger right at the end.

But yeah, around that sort of time I was there going, I'm not sure quite sure what's happening. am I buying this?

I probably have to go back and rewatch it.

You know, this is the one little area of the episode where I was a bit hazy on and then and then having, um, Mrs. Blood turn up and do a more of a student twist roll.

I was, although, I was a bit like, I like the fact that Mrs. Fudd was just always on earth and commenting and being in everyday clothes and now she's something a bit different, although she did have a little iPad and was most pleased about the vindicator.

I did like that line.

[29:10]

I have a question.

Who did it better?

The well?

Or sleep no more.

So, because sleep no more, of course, ends in that same way, doesn't it, with the creature escaping?

I kind of like the end of sleep no more because the implication was that everyone watching the episode would die, that it was actually going to kill us as the viewers because it was set up to do that.

It was a message that was being encoded in the episode in the flashes of static that we had all spent the last 45 minutes watching.

And it's a little bit like the moment where you learn that the Daleks are going to turn up on New Year's Day or whatever in the middle of Dalek Master Plan.

You know, we've got a week and they'll be here.

So you're threatening the audience is kind of good.

I don't think that worked in a way. and I'm much less down on it than Brendan is.

I think this was a little bit more effective, I think.

I think I've blocked all of sleep no more out.

[30:10]

I just can't remember anything that happened in it, and I don't think I remembered much of this happening in a while I was watching it.

But I like the ending of this episode without the reveal at the end.

I liked that Shia took it into the well and threw it off with her.

If nothing else, because that was then the reason for the well-being in the plot, because actually it had been prefigured really heavily.

It hadn't actually performed a function and then I thought that was quite neat.

And I would have been quite happy without the little bit at the end.

There you go.

Um, I didn't have a problem with that anything because it, we do not know how that this creature works.

We only know how the humans interpret this creature works, right?

So, Is it killable?

No, is it like, we don't know.

Um, Like, we think it's been destroyed or at least wounded, but the doctor runs back to see it.

So he delays delays their escape.

And then he runs after her and delays their escape again.

[31:12]

So is that monster running along?

Because now it's free.

She's committed suicide.

It's just free.

You can do whatever the hell it wants.

It's followed to him onto the ship and gone after them.

That's how I read that.

It's certainly true that its appearance on the ship is telling us that the humans have not deduced everything that's true about it, that it doesn't operate according to the rules that we've worked out.

And I think that's a good choice.

Yeah, it's very, it's interesting.

I don't know whether I, I, I really love all of that ambiguity, perhaps at the end.

But in the end, the whole thing is a package, I just thought was solidly acted, solidly directed, executed just beautifully.

You know, it's as good as last week's for me.

It's it's that 9 out of 10.

And I'm really happy with the way this season's going.

So that's all the time we have for this week.

I'm going to plug 500-year Diaries series 2, our 1st episode on the Dalek Invasion of Earth was released last Sunday, and this upcoming Sunday, we're going to be following the 2nd coming of the cybermen in the moon base.

[32:23]

So that'll be this Sunday.

You can keep up with all of our Doctor Who podcasts on Flight3entirety.com on Blue Sky or FTE podcast on Mastodon if you're one of the dozen or so people that uses that social network.

Meanwhile, untitled Star Trek Project continues unabated and you can catch us most Fridays for episodes of Star Trek from across the history of the franchise.

And if you download this week's episode of 500-year diary, I promise that there will be something there about what Brandon's doing podcast wise in the show notes.

So all that remains is for me to say, until next time, may Shooty Gatois offer you the chance to walk the universe on his back.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Good night.

See you soon.