TL;DR: “The Well” taps into deep, unsettling horror while offering a glimmer of human resilience. Stunning performances, sharp writing, and a chilling atmosphere make it a worthy successor to “Midnight.”

Dredging the Deep: A Journey Back to “Midnight”

I didn’t expect “The Well” to hit me the way it did.

Maybe it’s because “Midnight,” that claustrophobic fever dream from David Tennant’s twilight era as the Doctor, lives rent-free in my mind. That episode wrecked me when it first aired — not because of flashy effects or big villain reveals, but because it dared to show us the raw, ugly underbelly of human fear. “Midnight” wasn’t about winning. It was about enduring, and about the terrifying reality that sometimes, monsters don’t have tentacles or sharp teeth — sometimes, they’re just us on a bad day.

So when “The Well” hinted it might be revisiting that territory, my heart clenched.

For the first 20 minutes, I was on edge. The visuals were crisp — all sterile corridors and crumbling mining tech, a blue-black sky stretched out beyond thick, trembling glass. And then, that creeping sense of deja vu. The uneasy glances. The scuffed suits. The mounting dread. It felt familiar. It felt dangerous.

And then, the reveal: the return of that creature.

Not a copy. Not a cheap knockoff. The real thing — or at least, something just as unknowable, just as horrifying.

Mining Terror: Atmosphere, Direction, and the Sound of Fear

Let’s talk about atmosphere, because “The Well” absolutely nails it.

Director Amanda Brotchie paints this mining colony like a slow-motion car crash. Every frame is loaded with tension. The camera lingers just a little too long on empty hallways. Shadows twitch at the edge of vision. Murray Gold’s score hums and rattles with nervous energy, an unsettling pulse under the action.

It’s rare these days, in an era of sensory overload, to find something that really knows how to pace itself for maximum dread. “The Well” doesn’t rush its scares. It doesn’t rely on sudden, cheap jumpcuts. Instead, it lets the horror breathe — and in that breathing space, it finds something genuinely unsettling.

The creature’s attacks, too, are masterfully staged. I’ll grant that its method of dispatching victims (mostly dramatic flinging across the room) felt a little standard-issue. In a show where we’ve seen clocks eat people and statues that murder you if you blink, “telekinetic shove” feels, frankly, a bit safe. But what it lacks in invention, it makes up for in execution — especially the Moffat-esque trick of the creature always lurking just behind you. Every time a character stepped backward, I wanted to scream at the screen.

I didn’t, but my dog definitely noticed my tensed shoulders.

Human After All: Character Work and Performances

One of the biggest triumphs of “The Well” is how fully realized its guest cast feels. There’s no “Redshirt #3” energy here. Every member of this doomed expedition feels like a real, breathing person — messy, complicated, and all the more vulnerable for it.

Rose Ayling-Ellis’s Aliss is a standout. The show doesn’t treat her deafness as a gimmick or a box-tick moment for representation. It’s simply part of who she is, integrated into the story’s texture in a way that feels organic and respectful. When Aliss signs urgently to the Doctor, it’s a moment of pure, adrenaline-laced humanity.

Caoilfhionn Dunne as Shaya delivers another layered performance. Sci-fi loves its gruff commanders, but Shaya is something more: a woman visibly wrestling with fear, responsibility, and the gut-wrenching knowledge that she might not be able to save everyone under her command. It’s a tricky tightrope walk, and Dunne nails it.

And Christopher Chung, bless him, brings genuine humor to Cassio, the skeptical soldier. His gruff, deadpan “It’s not appropriate to call me ‘babes'” had me laughing out loud — not an easy thing to achieve in the middle of an existential horror story.

Then there’s Ncuti Gatwa.

It’s hard to overstate how good he is here. His Doctor is still exuberant and wild and quicksilver — but beneath it, there’s a deep well (pun intended) of vulnerability. Gatwa’s silent tears, as he listens to the creature’s horrific whisperings, are devastating. Without a single word, he communicates eons of loneliness and guilt. It’s one of the best pieces of pure actingwe’ve seen from a Doctor in years.

And Verada Sethu’s Belinda? Continues to shine. There’s a quiet steel to her, a loyalty that feels earned rather than assumed. If the show doesn’t give her a “belly of the beast” episode soon, it’ll be wasting a golden opportunity.

Shadows and Light: Thematic Depth

If “Midnight” was a meditation on how easily we can become monsters, “The Well” suggests something more hopeful: that even in the worst circumstances, compassion can survive.

It would have been easy to simply rehash “Midnight’s” despair. To show these characters turning on each other, tearing each other apart, feeding the creature with their own fear and suspicion.

Instead, “The Well” dares to suggest that sometimes, we get it right. Not perfectly — Cassio still mistrusts the Doctor, and people still die. But there’s a baseline of decency here. A refusal to give in completely. A willingness to risk for each other.

In 2025, that message hits hard. We’re living through a time when it’s so easy to feel cynical, to assume the worst of everyone. “The Well” reminds us that hope isn’t naive. It’s necessary.

Grumbles and Quibbles: Small Flaws in a Big Picture

Nothing’s perfect, and “The Well” isn’t either.

The biggest issue? That aforementioned lack of visual innovation in the creature’s attacks. For a monster this legendary, it deserves a signature move that’s a little more memorable.

Also, the “Earth never existed” subplot feels tacked-on, a bit of table-setting for the season arc rather than an organic part of this story. I get it — serialized storytelling demands breadcrumbs — but it momentarily pulled me out of the self-contained horror vibe.

And then there’s Mrs Flood.

Look, I love a good mystery as much as the next fan. But the Susan Twist parallels are getting tired. At this point, it’s less “intriguing enigma” and more “narrative blue balls.” Either give us payoff, or let it lie. Constant teasing just makes the audience jaded.

Final Thoughts: A Haunting Triumph

“The Well” is the kind of Doctor Who episode that gets under your skin and stays there.

It’s not just a retread of “Midnight”. It’s a conversation with it — a respectful nod to what came before, while forging a new, distinct emotional journey. It’s scary, yes, but it’s also beautiful, in the way all the best Who episodes are.

Three episodes into Series 15, and it already feels like we’re witnessing something special. Something that might, dare I say it, carve its own place among the modern greats.