Doctor Who review: Witches and complex time travel combine in The Witch from the Well
By James Aggas
The Eighth Doctor and his companion Mary Shelley face both a powerful witch and witch hunters in Doctor Who audio story The Witch from the Well!
Before The Witchfinders was broadcast, we took a look at the First Doctor novel, The Witch Hunters. That story was more of a pure historical, where the focus was almost entirely on the witch hunts themselves. But there have been other stories in Doctor Who that have used witch hunts as the focus of the story.
One in particular that leaps to mind is 2011’s The Witch from the Well. Set very early on in the Eighth Doctor’s lifetime – before his first audio story, Storm Warning, in fact – the Doctor is travelling with his good friend Mary Godwin, as he takes her through time and space to show her the wonders of the universe.
Of course, it should come as no surprise that Mary sees the horrors of the universe, too. Particularly as she’ll later be known as Mary Shelley, writer of one of the most influential novels in both horror and science-fiction, Frankenstein. And this particular adventure is no exception.
It’s difficult to describe the plot of The Witch from the Well. Partially, it’s because it’s definitely a story where you don’t want to give too much away. This is an audio with a lot of great twists and turns, and there are a lot of neat little surprises that you don’t want to spoil.
How the Eighth Doctor met Mary Shelley was revealed in audio anthology The Company of Friends – where he also met an older version of himself!
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Witches and time travel
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But honestly, it’s also because the plot is more than a little bit complicated. Because writer Rick Briggs doesn’t just focus on telling a story of witch hunts in the seventeenth century. He doesn’t just explore the themes of outsiders and being targeted because of who you are with a mixture of both history and science-fiction.
But time travel is also a key aspect of The Witch from the Well. Make no mistake, this is definitely a very timey-wimey story, and we’ll be introduced to many consequences before we find out their causes. Timey-wimeyness can be tricky to get right, and even trickier to present that story in a very straightforward way.
But Rick Briggs has written a very tightly plotted script that presents all of these little complexities in a very straightforward way to the audience. And he does it when giving a story that’s a mix of historical, science-fiction, horror, and even aspects of fairy tales, particularly the Brothers Grimm. Definitely not a bad mix when you’ve got Mary Shelley as the companion.
Overall, The Witch from the Well is a very strong and rather overlooked Eighth Doctor story. A more successful mix of genres than The Witchfinders, this handles similar subject matter while also telling a great Doctor Who story. Definitely worth a listen.
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Have you listened to The Witch from the Well? What Doctor Who story focusing on seventeenth century witch hunts would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below.