So, there were lots of old friends in the new Doctor Who special “The Giggle,” but in amongst all the callbacks and fun references, there was the return of a minor Whoniverse player whom we hadn’t seen since 2009 … Trinity Wells, played by actress Lachele Carl.
There was Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, of course, and her family. There was a companion from the distant past, Bonnie Langford’s Mel Bush. Oh, and there was even sort of an appearance from Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, and Bill Potts! But why did Trinity stand out?
Who is Trinity Wells?
Trinity Wells is an icon.
She’s the news anchor who’s reported on all the big Whoniverse stories: the spaceship in the Thames (“Aliens of London”), the mind-control of the Sycorax (“The Christmas Invasion”), the harrowing events of Torchwood’s “Children of Earth,” and many more. Trinity Wells appearing onscreen, calmly reporting an alien invasion, was one of the hallmarks of showrunner Russell T. Davies’ Doctor Who and its spinoffs.
The presence of Wells in so many stories makes Lachele Carl the only actor to play the same, named character in Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures. A trinity, indeed! She’s also the only character apart from David Tennant’s Doctor to appear in every season of the show until Steven Moffat took over in 2010.
No wonder everyone was so excited when Carl’s name appeared on the cast list for the third Doctor Who special “The Giggle.”
What happened to Wells in the new episode?
Trinity Wells appeared in a short clip the Doctor and Donna saw at UNIT HQ. They’d just witnessed the use of the Zeedex, a device that stopped people from succumbing to the angry madness the Toymaker corrupted the world with. Donna asked Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) why they couldn’t just give everyone a Zeedex, but Kate responded in the negative and gestured towards the big UNIT television screen. Trinity Wells popped up. Oh nice, she’s got her own show now! Wait, what’s she saying?
“They are using this to control us and monitor us and microwave our brains!” the onscreen Wells declared, holding up one of the Zeedex devices. “I am anti-Zeedex!” No prizes for guessing what Davies is satirizing there.
Yep, Wells has become a conspiracy theorist … or has she? Bear in mind that everyone on Earth (beyond a handful of TARDIS travelers) are victims of the Giggle at this moment and not acting rationally. Therefore, there’s every chance that Wells is not usually the Whoniverse’s equivalent of an anti-vaxxer and is just a normal TV presenter with a normal show. Alas, that brief cameo is all we get of Wells in “The Giggle,” so we don’t know.
But whether Wells has turned to conspiracy theories or not, Doctor Who fans were delighted to see her. Her appearance in “The Giggle” led to several excited posts on X (formerly Twitter):
And now consider: the next Doctor Who season, starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, is fast approaching. Surely the Earth is going to be in danger again, and soon? And when it is, maybe we’ll hear Trinity Wells, seated on the set of her new self-titled show, reassuringly informing us of the details.
(featured image: BBC)
