Warning: Spoilers ahead forDoctor Whoseason 15, episode 3, “The Well.“Doctor Whoseason 15, episode 3, “The Well,” returns the Doctor to a familiar location, but the stealth sequel quietly goes against a throwaway line from the planet’s 2008 debut.“The Well” reveals itself as a continuation of “Midnight"when a sizable portion of the episode has already passed. I was thrilled by this twist, as"Midnight” remains one of my favoriteDoctor Whoepisodes, not just fromDavid Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, but of all time. However, showrunner/writer Russell T. Davies forgot about a line he included in the original script while he was penning the sequel.
Of course, the primary focus in “The Well” is on the return ofthe monster Ten encountered in “Midnight.“The nameless entity has changed a lot during the 400,000 years since its last run-in with the Doctor, soNcuti Gatwa’s version of the Time Lord is left almost as powerless as Tennant’s was. Unsurprisingly, the returning villain isn’t the only thing that has changed during this period. The creature’s homeworld, now called Planet 6767, looks very different compared to its time known as Midnight, which is where the plot hole comes in.
Doctor Who Season 4 Claimed No One Could Ever Touch Midnight’s Diamonds, But “The Well” Says Otherwise
The diamonds are gone by the time of Fifteen’s visit to the planet
AlthoughMidnight’s shimmering surface is filled with eye-catching diamond formations, the 2008 episode reveals that they are forbidden treasure. They’ve absorbed so much galvanic radiation from the planet’s X-tonic sun that no one should ever be able to touch them. Still, “The Well” has evidence to the contrary. Caoilfhionn Dunne’s Shaya Costallion states that once the X-tonic sun collapsed into a grey star, “the wars came, they stripped all the carbon off the surface and left it ruined.”
“Look at all those diamonds. Poisoned by the sun. No one can ever touch them.”
-Doctor Who, season 4, episode 10, “Midnight.”
Shaya’s explanation in “The Well” could mean two different things. Firstly, she could mean that the wars she mentioned were so severe that all the diamonds were destroyed. Alternatively, she could mean that the diamonds were a spoil of war and were harvested for financial gain. The second one makes no sense because irradiated diamonds would only ever be lethal to those who used, held, or wore them, and the first option seems a little too thorough. So,Davies either regretted the line from “Midnight,” or he had an explanation in his mind that changes things.
Explaining Doctor Who’s Midnight Diamonds Plot Hole
“The Well” is set long enough after “Midnight” for impressive new technologies to exist
Although “The Well” doesn’t provide much context for Shaya’s explanation of the diamonds' absence, it’s reasonable to assume that the sheer length of in-universe time that has passed between “Midnight” andDoctor Whoseason 15, episode 3, could account for how the diamonds were stripped from the planet’s surface. In other words,technology could have been developed since “Midnight” that can rid the diamonds of the galvanic radiation, which would make them safe to handle without being poisoned.
Without more information, it’s impossible to come up with a canonical explanation for why the diamonds are gone in “The Well,” but the lack of detail leaves the door wide open for various possibilities.
Another possibility is that the diamonds were harvested for their radiation during the wars.The “Midnight” diamonds could have been used in the construction of weaponrythat was used during the conflicts Shaya references in “The Well.” If so, the fact that there is still a diamond mine on Planet 6767 is worrying, as even those beneath the surface are still soaked through with radiation. Without more information, it’s impossible to come up with a canonical explanation for why the diamonds are gone in “The Well,” but the lack of detail leaves the door wide open for various possibilities.
Doctor Who’s “Wars” Might Have Been Caused By Humanity Not Existing
“The Robot Revolution” revealed that Earth is gone
Most of my best theories about what happened to Midnight’s diamonds all come back to the wars Shaya mentions in “The Well.” Regarding said wars, I have another theory, this time about them. “The Well” reveals that Earth’s destruction, which was revealed at theend of “The Robot Revolution,“is as real as it seemed. Because the planet was reduced to rubble in 2025,the human race never managed to become part of the interstellar community, and therefore is unknown in the universe at large.
When the Earth was still intact deep into what is currently an alternate future,humans were major players in the cosmos. They went on to establish colonies throughout the universe over numerous centuries and influenced major events. So, the wars may only have happened because of the causal effect of humans being wiped from existence, leading to a much different version of the future. If the Doctor had visited Midnight’s future in theDoctor Whoreality where humans hadn’t been scrubbed from the timeline, he may have found it still littered with diamonds.
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An alien from the planet Gallifrey travels through time and space to explore, solve problems and fight injustice while also making friends with human beings. His spaceship, called TARDIS, resembles a police box, but it is much more than it appears to be.
Doctor Who: Released on August 02, 2025, this series follows the Doctor and their companion as they journey across time and space, encountering a range of extraordinary friends and adversaries, expanding the universe of the long-running British science fiction series.
