Doctor Who: The Well

Doctor Who: Target Books

by Gareth L. Powell

A terror from the past is rising from the darkness five miles deep.

Joining a military rescue mission to an isolated mining colony, the Doctor and Belinda find a single survivor of a violent catastrophe. What killed the colonists? Why is every mirror in the base smashed? The chilling truth spells horror and death...

This spinetingling space adventure from Sharma Walfall and Russell T Davies is novelised by award-winning SF and horror writer Gareth L. Powell. It features the Doctor and Belinda as played by Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 10, 2025

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-the-well-by-gareth-l-powell/

I was a bit surprised by the news that Gareth Powell had been assigned the job of writing the novelisation – I don’t think he has published any other tie-in literature, instead developing his own complex universes. But it makes perfect sense – Powell’s writing is definitely on the more advanced side of military SF, and The Well is the most military Doctor Who story for years; the Doctor and Belinda even change into military uniform, before the horror part of the story gets going.

And of course it’s a good piece of work. A lot of the appeal of the episode was visual, which can be difficult to translate onto the printed page, but Powell actually uses this for freedom to explore the rather small world of the Well and its visitors a bit more. The story is broken up by brief bios of the military characters, fleshing them out a bit more than we got on screen. The tension of the plot is effectively maintained. I felt pretty satisfied.

[Daniel Kukwa]

It's always hard to adapt an episode that is heavy on both action & atmosphere, to say nothing of the performances...but Gareth Powell does his best, and produces a novelization that keeps the pace of the episode yet add just the right amount of extra background layers...without sacrificing the pace. It'll never be the same as the episode itself, but it's excellent in its own right.

[DrAshleyWho]

It’s an episode that under no circumstances should have worked, a sequel to Midnight where a key factor to that episode’s success was the way its antagonist was completely shrouded in mystery to the point where you didn’t even know what it looked like and only understood its capabilities at the same time as the characters, so criticise the newest era all you want but it’s a massive testament that it was able to pull it off nigh-brilliantly whilst still retaining the ambiguity of the creature which is what made it so disturbing (wish Ridley Scott had had that in mind when he did Alien: Covenant!!) Most of newcomer Gareth L. Powell’s expansions come in the form of brief biographies of the military soldiers and a quote at the start from Planet of the Daleks but otherwise the story is as it was shown on television, Powell being smart enough to, like Davies, restrain himself from telling us too much about the entity. An above-functional novelisation effort.

[Jack]

Midnight was an episode of Doctor Who which released on June 14th 2008 as part of the 4th series of the new-revival of the show. It served as the titular ‘Bottle episode’ in which the format of the show is confined in some way, shape or form to save on the production budget. It saw David Tennant’s portrayal of the 10th Doctor take part in a shuttle tour on the diamond planet of Midnight. Exposed to the galvanic rays of an X-tonic star, the surface of the planet is uninhabitable to all forms of life but offers visiting tourists the allure of its diamond surface to view and marvel at. The four-hour journey to the local sapphire waterfalls takes an unexpected turn however when the shuttle is attacked by a mysterious entity which finds its way inside to possess one of its passengers. The possessed passenger soon begins repeating everyone’s words back to them and eventually learns to talk in sync with them. With the passengers becoming increasingly more tense, the Doctor tries to reason with the entity but ends up becoming its victim as it tries to takes his words instead. The day is soon saved though when the shuttle hostess sacrifices herself to save the Doctor who advises the tourist company to leave the planet and let whatever the mysterious entity that inhabits it stay isolated for good.

I have nothing but good things to say about this particular episode, in fact I’d go so far to say it was and still remains my favourite episode in the entirety of the show. Its ability to provide a thoroughly captivating story through a singular set and a large ensemble cast is its biggest strength. Its approach to the story in which we never truly see or define the Midnight entity makes its overwhelming power over the Doctor and passengers even scarier. It highlights to me the key strength of this show in the fact it’s able to produce such an amazing episode because it embraces the limitations presented by its script and production budget. I always have time for this episode and will happily tout it whenever the opportunity comes up to discuss it. The main reason I started this review off with a little nod to Midnight is because of its subsequent follow up story The Well.
The Well was the third episode in Series 15 of Doctor Who which primarily follows Ncuti Gatwa’s portrayal of the fifteenth incarnation of the Doctor. The script was written by both Russell T Davies & Sharma Angel-Walfall and follows the Doctor and his companion Belinda Chandra as they work to find a way back to Earth on May 24th 2025 which the TARDIS seems unable to hone in on. The target novelization of this episode was written by British science-fiction author Gareth L. Powell who is a self-professed fan of the long-running show and was an avid reader of the Target books in his youth.

The Well follows The Doctor and his newest companion Belinda Chandra as they land on a spaceship 500,000 years in the future with the intent of using the Doctor’s Vindicator to anchor and add another triangulation point back to Earth on May 24th 2025. Their objective is soon overtaken however when they find themselves embroiled in a survey and rescue mission by an alien military division. Landing on the planet with the troopers, they discover a mining colony littered with dead bodies and broken mirrors. Upon exploring deeper into the complex, they discover a lone survivor by the name of Aliss who for inexplicable reasons remains the only colonist alive. As they dive deeper into the mystery of the complex, The Doctor and company realize there is a dark entity hiding in plain sight which forces the Doctor to face a past horror he long thought buried.

Let’s review this narrative on two fronts as it would be unfair to judge Powell for the core narrative as it is essentially adapted from the original script. The story in itself works quite nicely because on its own merits. It offers a creepy yet altogether interesting mystery behind the decimated mining complex for the audience to appreciate. It does well in further exploring the dynamic between The Doctor and Belinda as a TARDIS duo which wasn’t setup under a conventional manner. The underlying threat is smartly teased throughout the course of the episode and the way it is able to pull the rug and reveal itself as the Midnight Entity from the Doctor’s past is so well-done. That being said though, all of the books biggest strengths are owed to the script in itself. I don’t feel Powell does enough with his written interpretation of the story to make it stand out. I feel ultimately, I am just reading a scene for scene retelling of the story which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity as Targets books are typically fun because they can add or put their own spin on a story.

Don’t get me wrong, Powell does try to inject some of his own original ideas into the book which his character dossiers which serve to break down the military personal involved in the mission. These dossiers are often boring however and don’t offer much in the way of engaging elements to make us care for these characters. It doesn’t help that these characters don’t even hold much of a presence in the story besides the main captain and the trademark arrogant solider. It just doesn’t offer much in the way of unique original ideas the other Target books are much better at doing.

The Well is a good story but I would argue it’s far better experienced through its original televised format. The Target novelization isn’t a bad book, it’s a fairly commendable reading experience which does a decent job formatting this story into a prose format. Where it ultimately fails though is offering you a reason to pick it up over simply re-watching the episode in itself. It follows the original script to its detriment all the while offering very little in the way of its own ideas to make it stand out with any unique quality.

[Joe Kessler]

As usual, a strong episode of Doctor Who leads to one of the better novelizations, helped along in this case by a few neat additions that author Gareth L. Powell has sprinkled in throughout. (In an afterword, he mentions that he grew up reading this imprint in the days when home recordings of the show weren't as widely available, and he's clearly relishing the opportunity to write for it now himself.) Thus we get military dossier excerpts and scenes from the enemy creature's point of view that weren't part of the original story on TV, in addition to good insights into the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda Chandra's respective characterizations at this stage of their journey together.

I still think the exact mechanics of how the monster stalks and kills its victims are a bit confusing, especially given the eventual reveal that this is a sequel to a Tenth Doctor adventure where it acted completely differently, but the sinister vibes and bleak ending are as top-notch as they were on television. If you're unfamiliar, this is the one where the time-traveling Doctor and his latest companion arrive on a spaceship in the distant future, only to fall in with a squadron of soldiers investigating a mystery on the planet below. There they find slaughtered corpses and one scared survivor, who seems to have something hiding just out of sight behind her back…

It's a spooky tale told well, while also contributing to the larger plot arc for its season of Bel not being able to return home in the TARDIS like normal. The novel is of course no substitute for watching that yourself, but it's a solid revisiting with its own fun spin and continuity nods, recommended for the kind of fan who likes that sort of thing.

[Content warning for gun violence and suicide.]

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[Finlay O'Riordan]

This novelisation expands significantly on the televised script, with background profiles on Captain Shaya and her troopers, more insight on how the Entity tormented the Doctor, and a few expanded/new scenes not in the episode. There's even a prologue which gives us a little more insight on the Midnight Entity but not to the point that any of the mystery is lost.

I can tell a lot of passion went into writing this one, as Powell frequently shared his excitement on Instagram, and that's something I love - when an author has no restraint and wants to shout and rave about their work. And, in fairness, I think Powell had good reason to. This is a true Target novel, so far as it captures the spirit of and is faithful to the original episode, but also expands on it and offers new treats exclusive to the book.

Parts of Chapter 9 recount the events of "Midnight" and this is good for two reasons; firstly, it makes the story feel more complete and whole, with cameos from the Tenth Doctor and Donna as well, and secondly, it also makes it more accessible to newer fans whose Target novel this may be their first.

I think at times the exposition would get too 'chunky'. As I said, I love the expansions in the Target novels, but in this case, paragraphs and paragraph of exposition would be sandwiched between two continuous lines of dialogue, and sometimes by the time we got back to the dialogue I'd forgotten what the conversation even was. So perhaps the exposition could have been broken up a little better, in the same way that classic series Target novels did.

In the audiobook version specifically, there are a few notable editing mistakes where Dunne's reading skips ahead a couple of seconds, but I acknowledge this is not at all a fault of the book itself so it does not impact my score.

[Michael]

Adapting the third episode of the Fifteenth Doctor's second season, Gareth L. Powell's  Doctor Who: The Well takes one of Doctor Who's most tense and suspenseful episodes and crafts it into a taut psychological thriller that stands strong against the competition. Like the rest of the most recent wave of Doctor Who novelizations, The Well plays out nearly identically to its televised counterpart. But what makes The Well stand out from the other recent Fifteenth Doctor novelizations is that its story is the rare one that works exceedingly well as both a novel and an episode of a TV series. Here, Powell expands the world of the story by offering brief glimpses at the histories behind the various members of the rescue crew, giving some of the tertiary characters some much-needed depth.

But mostly, The Well is just a darn effective bit of psychological tension. Powell's novelization is every bit as good as the original episode was, making excellent use of the story's inherent tension. And since the story's villain is inherently unknowable, Powell's given free rein to really lean into the inherent horror in the unknown. It's a quick shot of terror wrapped in a very Doctor Who package that stands as a lovely complement to the original episode. It doesn't necessarily offer anything strikingly new to the story, but it's an immensely enjoyable way to experience the story nonetheless.

Reviewed as part of Geek Vibes Nation's July 2025 Book Round-Up.

[Ian]

A novelisation of a TV episode originally written by Sharma Angel-Walfall and Russell T. Davies, featuring the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion Belinda.
The Doctor and Belinda find themselves caught up in a rescue mission to a remote mining planet, where an entire colony has been mysteriously silenced. There they find a single survivor and have to face a malignant entity from the Doctor's distant past.

This story has lots of potential to be a classic Who story, with an abandoned colony, a tense group of soldiers and a series of grisly murders.
Unfortunately, it never really pays off that potential.

The problems with this story that hold it back (and to be fair to the author, it's the script that's at fault) all revolve around the creature responsible for the horror.
It has a bizarre set of rules that a) make no sense and b) don't even work properly within the story. It's like they were trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Steven Moffat's creation of the Weeping Angels but totally fumbled the concept.
All of this is made much worse [SPOILERS] by the fact the creature is revealed to be the entity from the Tenth Doctor episode 'Midnight', despite its behaviour in no way resembling that creature's. There is literally no reason for this to be a sequel to 'Midnight' except for RTD smugly patting himself on the back for his previous work.

Despite having a few things going for it, this book never gets past its flawed key concept.

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *

[Clare]

An adaptation of a scary episode produces a very atmospheric book, an improvement on the original. Horrors work better in the mind than before the eyes. There are some nice expansions on events and backgrounds for the troopers. We even get to know what the Doctor signs to Aliss which was left untranslated on television. In the episode this served to demonstrate to the rest of us what it must be like for deaf people when we turn our backs or don't take care to ensure they can see our faces when talking. However, it was good to finally know what was said. I especially liked the character of Shaya, with her ruthless dedication to service finding room for compassion and doing the right thing. All too rare in the real world

[Alli_aye]

Great novelisation of the episode. Great episode. The extra info on the soldiers works well. The prologue showing the entity off the planet is done super well, nice and creepy

I’ve never thought about how a sonic works, so I liked this explanation;
p80 if he tried to explain that the sonic worked via a psychic connection that fed his wishes through an internal computation matrix the size of a planet yet encased in something no larger than a mobile phone

[Zac Terry]

I enjoyed this as an audiobook. Whilst not quite as well crafted as others I've recently listened to, it did add extra depth to an interesting story but I found it lacking in the same terror that the original version provided with full cast and visuals, perhaps because the episode itself is very visual heavy and therefore difficult to narrate.

[Kieran McAndrew]

A short hop in the TARDUS to try and get around the temporal block on Earth leads the Doctor and Belinda to a planet he hasn't visited in 400,000 years and an ancient enemy who is desperate for revenge.

A great adaptation of the episode which manages to imbue the story with an excellent, creeping horror.

[James G]

I love this story. I think it's perfectly spooky, and links back to a previous story in a really interesting and unique way.

I also think the adaptation, in particular, is done incredibly well. The tension was kept up throughout the book, and the writing style is easy to get into.

Plus, the cover is gorgeous.

Thumbs up from me!

[John]

It was never going to be able to replicate the sheer spectacle of the episode but I was impressed with how it managed the psychological element. Lots of expanded character work. A solid way to experience the story with great narration from Dunne

[F.R.]

If I'm honest, I don't remember the TV version of this all that well. I think I liked it, but I also remember not digging its aesthetic and the whole thing being way over the top. But I really enjoyed this novelisation. There are a lot of scares to be had here, and Powell really goes for them.

[Mori]

I figured after watching the episode like 30+ times that I should also read the novelization of it

[Calvin Saxby]

This is the best Ncuti Gatwa story in my opinion. This is a fairly standard adaptation. Worth reading but it is not Earth-shatteringly better.

[Holly]

gareth understood the assignment. i read this SO FAST i love