spoilers for season 2 episode 3 The Well (2025 Doctor Who) and season 4 episode 10 Midnight (2008 Doctor Who) below!!
tw for discussions of racism, xenophobia, violence, ableism, disablism, and the 7/7 bombings (yes, really)
it's not a controversial opinion to say Midnight is one of Russell T Davies' best episodes. i feel it's his Blink: a unique, blood-chilling episode with a very simple concept that really makes your skin crawl, and introducing a creature whose true nature is not only concealed, but near-impossible to know.
in rewatching Midnight, it's clear that nothing (which is what i'll be calling the repeating creature who takes over Sky Silvestry) isn't the real star of the show: it's the people. in this episode, nothing acts as a mirror held up to humanity and exposing all of its faults: particularly herd mentality, and violence/aggression enacted on those decided to not be part of an in-group.
we have an interesting pastiche of humanity in this episode: varying ages, genders, ethnicities, skillsets, backgrounds and beliefs, who the Doctor assumes will be able to reason things out. instead, we see these humans devolve into paranoia, terror and rage, going from laughing and sharing stories with one another to actively trying to kill people in a short space of time. the real horror of Midnight isn't nothing: it's how quickly we can descend into irrational, fear-driven beasts fully willing to murder innocent people if we get to survive.
The Well presents us with the same conundrum, and the same creature, but from a different angle. like before, nothing's attack pattern is covert, and relies entirely on the dynamics between the people who discover it. but this time, instead of using their own words to manipulate them, it's their prejudice. this slump into broken logic used to justify heinous actions is mirrored between The Well and Midnight, but they both centre around different ideas:
Midnight came out in 2008, at a time when fear and hatred towards immigrants was at an impossible high in Britain. it's no accident that an enclosed form of transport is chosen as the episode's setting, as the London 7/7 bombings were very present in the public consciousness and resulted in extreme xenophobic attitudes. we see these ideas come out in the humans on the bus with the Doctor, as Val Cane (Jethro's mother) actually asks, "Like an immigrant?" with disgust when the Doctor says he's a traveller. Midnight acts as an extended metaphor for insidious nature of xenophobic ideas, and how people will devolve into this mentality if they are given an excuse/allowed to go unchecked.
The Well shifts its focus onto another kind of prejudice: ableism. Aliss Fenly is a Deaf woman who nothing has attached itself to, and whenever someone stands directly behind her, they are killed. herd mentality again presents itself in the same manner as Midnight, with paranoia, irrational acts, and confirmation of biases which leaves Aliss—an innocent victim who had to kill in self-defense—treated as a murderer. there's a very interesting real-life allegory with the way Allis is treated to how disabled people are routinely thought of as disposable, or even a threat.
in the UK we are receiving horrific cuts to PIP, a type of payment which helps disabled people live independently. we have seen the maintenance of austerity and continuous disability cuts, as well as a rise in disablist rhetoric. although as a society we are generally more informed around issues which affect the disabled community, that deep-seated ignorance and fear still persists. this is why the Lombardic society in The Well, despite having accommodations for Deaf people (e.g., it being illegal for nurses to not know how to sign, the speech-to-text holograms, etc.) was still a threat to Aliss' survival despite her being an innocent civilian.
Russell has been very clever in crafting a Midnight sequel which shares all of the original DNA, but centres another fight relevant in the UK public consciousness. nothing isn't scary because it repeats, or because it kills if you stand behind it. it's scary because it's a human mirror which effortlessly exposes the very worst parts of humanity...and that's what makes The Well a worthy sequel to Midnight 💎🕛
