You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. Hello and welcome to a podcast of Spurious Morality. I'm Johnston and hello Greg. Hello. And we're going to talk about The Well, which is the latest episode of Doctor Who, which seems to be going down quite well. I've seen sort of generally positive things about it across the board and quite right too. It was an awful lot of fun. For my money, I'd say definitely the best of this series so far. And it's a strong series
so far, I think. We seem to be doing quite well. So let's dive straight in. Greg, talk to us about The Well. What did you think of it? I agree with you. It does seem to have gone down quite well. I really enjoyed that. Sorry. I really enjoyed that episode. As you said, that's my favorite of the season so far out of the three. It's been a really good season for me so far. I think there's a lot going on under the surface with The Well. There's a lot of, of course, right off the top,
I mean, it's a sequel to Midnight. But there's a lot of other references going on there, too. I mean, the pit itself is a pretty clear visual reference to the impossible planet, two -parter. And then the idea of something being just behind you is very similar to turn left. There's something on your back. Of course, like I said, it's a sequel to Midnight. There's also, it's a clear...
Visual reference to the film Aliens, you know, where you've got a squad of what are effectively space marines visiting a planet, finding everyone there either missing or dead. Someone saying you should nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. I mean, these are not subtle references. And I think... That all works. I think it's nice to see Doctor Who paying homage both to itself and to other big sci -fi productions and finally having the budget and the visual
appeal to get away with that. I think, yeah, so right off the top, enjoy the references, enjoy the... enjoy the visuals like it's a beautiful looking episode like i think they did an excellent job with those little shots where they showed the midnight creature um because you'd never i know in the behind the scenes thing you'd get an actual look at it which i haven't seen but you just get these brief deep in shadow you know fraction of a second looks and it it really adds
to the the tension in the atmosphere um yeah so you know i Just to start there, I think there's a lot going on here. I think it functions well as a sequel, which I'll get to in a second. I enjoy seeing Doctor Who with a budget that's comparable to other sci -fi TV is still impressive to me. It's quite interesting how Midnight was obviously done as a very budgety episode. Midnight was possibly the cheapest New Who episode there's been. I don't know that for sure, but it's a
reasonable guess. And then obviously, like you say, this is money on screen. This is big budget. This looks absolutely fantastic. So I quite like the idea that we've gone back to Midnight, but we've got a budget. I also picked up on particularly the aliens stuff. Absolutely, when they first arrived on the colony and everything, that was very, very aliens, which it's a good thing to be taking inspiration from. I'm surprised Doctor Who hasn't quite done aliens, I should say, in
particular, so well. before so yeah that was good and yeah you're right there are all these other little references as well and it's it sort of is a little bit of a RTD's greatest hits episode but it works and it all sort of comes together quite nicely and you know when you take all of the good bits from something that's good you're probably going to get something good and that's exactly what this did so yeah great episode and it's It's sort of interesting to see how we've
had three very, very different episodes this series as well. I think there's sort of been quite a big contrast. And, you know, we know that RTD likes to do the sort of the first three episodes should be all very different things and let you see completely different parts of the Hooniverse and all that sort of thing. And I think it's probably actually being done more effectively here than it was in the last series.
And I think it's sort of rough general consensus that we're preferring season two over season one so far, which is good. It's good to see. Oh, 100%. And you're right. I mean, he has a very consistent format that he does when he starts a new season or series or whatever they're calling it now. There's the first episode, which is set in the present day, where if there's a new companion, we meet the new companion, get a sense of them.
And then in some order, we have an episode where we go into the future, and then we have an episode where we go into Earth's past. And of course, we've done that again here. And in this case, the episode going into the future is episode three. But there's another reference there. I mean, during the very quick wardrobe sequence, they play Toxic, which has to be a callback to The End of the World, which was the very first space story of the revived series back in 2005.
So again, this is an episode that very much wears its history and its influences on its sleeve, which I also think is interesting because... Much like Midnight itself, this is an episode that the classic series could have attempted to do. I mean, there's obviously the appearance of it and the budget of it is way in excess of anything the classic series could have dreamed of. Just the simple concept of, you know, having a character in a room and you can't have, you
know, two people on opposite sides of it. I mean, that's, you don't need any kind of budget to portray that, honestly. So it kind of has that, you know, tense horror feeling that, you know, that the classic series sometimes shot for. And I think because of everything else that, you know, Disney can throw at this, it ends up working
so well. You know, talking about the season as a whole, I think, well, first of all, we're continuing what we had in the last season, which is like RTD very much trying to bring high concept ideas of, you know, superstition. you know, magic and religion in a way, you know, a pantheon of gods and kind of, you know, melding that with the more traditional science fiction bent of Doctor Who. And, I mean, obviously you see that in both
the scripting and in the visuals. I mean, Robot Revolution isn't really, you know, doing the
fantastic with the sci -fi thing. in the themes but it is doing it visually because it's very much a a 1950s future sci -fi sort of thing um compared to the technology doesn't seem nearly as advanced as it should basically it's it's got that sort of retro feel to it lux of course is very much just about the difference between fiction and reality or if there is a difference because of course it very much examines doctor who just as a concept as a program and then here
in the well um we have the you know this this midnight creature which has unexplained powers unexplained abilities um what essentially seem like magical powers and we put it up against this very hard sci -fi you know, surrounding this hard science fiction frame. And I think those things kind of, you know, they bounce off of each other a little bit. But I think that's something that he's been very obviously interested
in exploring for both of these seasons. And it's very much evident in all three of these episodes. And it's a good thing to explore as well. And
I am particularly enjoying the idea of. the pantheon um you know in last week's episode i'd sort of talked about how it's it could very easily get old very quickly um just in terms of oh look it's another god that the doctor's going to beat at the end of 45 minutes uh but it's having now had this having had the well which is nothing to do with the pantheon obviously um it's It sort of reminded me that, well, actually, no, we do have this variety and the Doctor is still
going off and doing what he's doing and just the Pantheon are kind of interfering on the periphery, as is Mrs Flood, who's obviously sort of linked to the whole thing in some way, shape or form. But, yeah, it's good that we're still getting episodes like this and it was episodes like this. that I was sort of concerned we'd maybe lose when we got the shorter episode count. But this seems to have restored my faith in eight episode
series a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think this is very much the, this is the wild blue yonder of the 60th specials, right? Where we had very
traditional, you know, Russell T. Davis. opening and very traditional RTD finale but then in the middle we had this just completely dissimilar scary sort of thing and so it's good to see that he's still interested in going back to that well and again there's the pun but yeah I mean it's good to see that he's willing to do that because you don't want anything in Doctor Who any season of Doctor Who with exceptions to be you know, relentlessly the same style, the same tone, like
especially with the modern show, like the variety within the seasons is one of the most appealing things about it. And it's good to see they're keeping that up. Yeah, absolutely. So while I've got you, because obviously you haven't joined us for one of these episodes yet, talk us through what you thought of The Robot Revolution and looks. So I liked the Robot Revolution. I think it's a really good opener. I think Belinda is a great companion. You know, I have absolutely
nothing against Ruby. I just kind of, and even though, I mean, she was fleshed out, you know, she was given a family and a backstory. Honestly, she had more of a backstory than what we've seen with Belinda, even through three episodes. But it almost felt like she just kind of... Just slotted in like, oh, well, this person was pretty much born to be a companion. Here she is. Whereas Belinda's much more, she's reluctant. She's not sure she wants to be there. She's stuck with
the doctor. She wants to get home. And I think she's, you know, she's not, she doesn't view all of this as just a great and awesome adventure. Constantly, she's taken aback by some of it. She's scared. And I think that's a more naturalistic reaction. That's part of why I like her so far. Robot Love Revolution's fun. I mean, it does a lot of the season premiere stuff of shorthanding the one character. whose name I forget, ironically enough, is killed. And then we see how deeply
that affects the doctor. You know, we see the traditional tear run down his face. That's, you know, shorthanding to a new audience, like this is how deeply this doctor cares, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, it's doing a lot of that stuff where it's reintroducing the show again. It's got this very, like I said before, future, retro future aesthetic. It's the robot voices. I am convinced that Nick Briggs is doing an homage to Michael Kilgareff, the giant robot voice,
because they sound exactly the same. And yeah, I mean, I think it's an enjoyable episode. It's light on its feet. It sets up the conflict for the season. It sets up the new companion. It really feels like it's laying the groundwork in a way that previous RTD openers did not. I think one thing we're seeing from him this time around is a lot more willingness to explicitly seed a season -long plot arc, which is not something that he did in his... First tenure as showrunner.
Yes, of course, there was Bad Wolf and there was Torchwood and there was Mr. Saxon, but literally those are just words. Whereas here we've established the earth has been blown up. We don't know why. We don't know what happens on May 24th, 2025. We've got a character who explicitly wants to get home, but can't. So we've set up these 10. And now in the well, we see that. People in the future don't know what Earth is. So we've set up these ongoing tensions. And that's not something
that the show has done before under RTD. So I wonder if this is, you know, kind of him being influenced retroactively by Stephen Moffat, Chris Chibnall, etc. So, yeah, I mean, Robot Revolution, good. You know, I don't know, seven out of ten, probably. Like, you know, good, good, solid opener. Enjoyed it. And then Lux, I loved. I thought it worked really well because A, the setting's great. B, it involves the Pantheon in an effective
and surprising way. I mean, I don't know how everyone else felt, but like when his, you know, the don't make me laugh, don't make me laugh. And then when he finally laughs, it's the giggle. I did not see that coming at all. That was shocking to me. And I love the way that it ends. I love like this God becoming even more of a, I don't know how you describe it, more of a true God, I suppose, like actually becoming one with the universe and all of its light and I am everything
and I am nothing. That's a beautiful and haunting ending for the... for the character. I thought the animation was spectacular. I thought the visuals were as good as anything we've ever seen in Doctor Who. Alan Cumming was fantastic doing the voice. Yeah, I mean, it's a very strong episode.
And I think it's not... What I've also liked about this season, too, and we'll get to this in a second, but I think there's been a... great deal of social commentary going on which i which i'm very interested in as well yeah it's um i actually think it's doing a far better job of handling that than the last season did it's it's slightly less on the nose i'm all for social commentary there should be more of it in fact but it perhaps doesn't always need to be as heavy
-handed as it has been at some points. I get the need for heavy -hand with that kind of thing, but there's also room for subtlety, and I think we're handling that quite well in this series. Yeah, I mean, Robot Revolution gets a little bit on the nose with the Planet of the Incels line, but that's fine. We can mock those individuals to their face. It doesn't bother me. But, you know... Lux is, it shows, I mean, it doesn't shy away from the racism of being in Florida
in the 1950s at all. But it doesn't do it in a way that's, you know, over the top or that overshadows, you know, the actual story that's going on, which, you know, I think that's really the, you know, the line you have to be careful with is like, if the story is going to be about... you know, some sort of social commentary that, yeah, make it as overt and talk about it as much
as you want. But if the story in this case is about, you know, the doctor and Belinda encountering one of the pantheon, you know, in an abandoned movie theater, then you can absolutely have the social elements there, but they shouldn't take over the story and they don't. But, you know, RTD makes an obvious effort to. you know, give them the spotlight from time to time. And I think that's the best and the smartest way to go about it. And honestly, the well, I think, has a lot
of that going on. It doesn't, and it's the most subtle out of all of it. But, you know, I think the fact that we know he changed the, you know, Alice from being a hearing person to a deaf person.
yes that you know changes the the tension of the scene it changes how it's filmed but it also makes it also in in making her a person with a disability it um it makes the stuff about don't turn your back on me more poignant right i mean it's Now we're not just talking about, you know, turning your back on just a person, which is bad enough. We're talking about turning your back on, you know, a member of a more vulnerable community. And, you know, that's the kind of
thing that the doctor would never do. So, you know, I think that makes the episode a lot more effective in that way. And I think, you know, a... Victim character in Doctor Who just begging, please don't turn your back on me is more emblematic of the series morality as a whole. So I thought the well was incredibly well done. And probably it's that or Dot and Bubble for my favorite RTD2 episode. Yeah, it's definitely a contender for the strongest we've had in the last few years.
It was an excellent episode. Any last thoughts, anything you want to add before you escape? Not really. I mean, I think I'm very interested to see where this goes because we've got Mrs. Flood back. We've had her appear in a few episodes now, all of the episodes. And so we know that some of the stuff from the previous season still
has to be picked up on. I think some of the complaints that we heard about the previous season were in the vein of like, well, we introduced all this stuff and we didn't resolve it, but I'm curious to see how much is still out there to be resolved. And in addition to seeing, you know, what each of the individual episodes is going to be, I'm very interested in both the seasons arc and what could potentially be the two season arc as well. So very much looking forward to
it. Yeah, it's certainly interesting to see where it's all going. And yeah, it's ticking along nicely. It's got me interested. It's got me hooked. So yeah, excellent stuff. Well, thanks very much for joining me, Greg. And we'll have you back on soon. Hopefully so. We'll see you in the future. Brilliant. Thank you.