Doctor Who (41)- 2.03 : The Well

[nixie]

Better, Doctor and Belinda travel into the future, the ship they land on is investigating why they've lost contact with a mining colony on a deserted planet.
The only survivor is Alice who is deaf. The doctor has been there before.

Earth no longer exists and again Mrs Flood appears at the end.

 

[Dave]

Once the message of the week had been delivered, then it was a simple mystery story. It was also a prequel story, and I can't remember the David Tennant story, so didn't quite understand what the creature was, or the ending that it had actually survived and not fallen down the well. That's my fault.

(Pure nitpicking here: they were using a lot of mercury in this diamond mining operation. Mercury is often used in gold mining to separate it from the ore, but isn't required in diamond mining itself. The mercury waterfall was necessary to the plot, but they could have substituted a gold mine for a diamond mine and there wouldn't have been an issue. The actual planet Mercury probably has a thick layer of diamonds near to its surface - was the setting originally going to be the planet Mercury and after rewrites the story changed but kept the diamonds?)

 

[farntfar]

I didn't understand it as a prequel to the other story but as something that happened much later.

Spoiler: reference to previous story which may give away the plot

They said that the sun used to be an ectopic (?*) sun thousands of years ago, before it died.

(?*) whatever the word was.

I thought it was a good episode.

 

[Matteo]

I also understood that it was much later than the Tennant story. I also thought the planet was already stripped of diamonds so was not sure what they were mining (or what the mercury was for).

Why did the Doctor ask Aliss if there had been a noise?

Again with Mrs Flood?

Oh and he cried again .

Still, a much better episode.
A shame the music was so loud.
I said a shame the music was so loud.
A shame the music was so loud!
The music...it was so
oh forget it.

 

[Matteo]

Maybe I've missed it (because of the music) but has the Doctor tried to materialise  near the Earth on 24th May (e.g., the Moon, or just in space)? Or for that matter, on the 25th?

 

[BAYLOR]

It kind of sounds like the First Evil in Buffy.

 

[Dave]

Maybe I've missed it (because of the music) but has the Doctor tried to materialise  near the Earth on 24th May (e.g., the Moon, or just in space)? Or for that matter, on the 25th?

This is an excellent point!

A few weeks ago we stayed at a Airbnb in a flat on the 4th floor. When we pressed the #4 button, the lift didn't work. When we pressed other buttons (#1, 2 & 3) it still worked. So, we went to the 3rd floor and walked up one flight of stairs. Even with the instructions in a foreign language, this took us only maybe 2 or 3 minutes, because it was the logical thing to do. We then found out via notice on the 4th floor that the lift was broken and wasn't working up to the 4th floor. We informed the agency. They told us, sorry that they weren't aware of that, but we could use the lift to the 3rd floor and then take the stairs up. Did they think we were still there on the ground floor, still waiting for the lift to work, hours later?

In the Doctor's case, he knows that he cannot get to Earth on the 24th May, so logically he should try the Moon or near Space instead, or dates on either side of the 24th May. Is he still going to be trying to get to 24th May in every episode until the final episode? I thought the Doctor was supposed to be some kind of genius with an extraordinary intellectual and mental superiority, but clearly he is going to be standing on the ground floor for several weeks yet still pressing on #4.

 

[farntfar]

He had promised Belinda that he was going to get her back on the 24th, essentially immediately after they left. So that's what he's trying to do.
If he got her home on the 25th, she would have to come up with some sort of excuse or explanation why and where she had been.
If he got her home on the 23rd, there would be all sorts of possible problems of her seeing herself or something.
And you might remember what happened when Rose went back and saved her father. Those big bat things might come to get her.

 

[Dave]

The Doctor has promised many companions that he would take them home "just after they left" and has very frequently failed to do so, leaving their lives in a state of uncertainty or with permanent changes in their lives. There is nothing at all new in that; it is part of the show's lore. You can interpret that as a reflection of the Doctor's chaotic and unpredictable nature, or as the difficulty of navigating the time stream, or the fact that the stolen Type 40 is totally unserviceable.

The big difference here is that the plot is inferring that the Earth no longer exists on 24th May or at any time afterwards. This is quite different. Like @Matteo I thought that a genius like the Doctor might be able to prove that rather than just keeping pressing floor #4.