August 8: "The Pilot"

Some big news happened between Christmas 2016 and April 2017.  We lost a Doctor, as Sir John Hurt passed away at the age of 77, and Peter Capaldi announced a few days after that (on 30 January, to be precise) that series 10 of Doctor Who would be his last.  In other words, the twelfth Doctor is now on borrowed time.

Series 10 Parts 1 & 2 (UK edition)

It's also Steven Moffat's final series as showrunner, but he decided that rather than make things seem like they were ending that he was going to act like it was a brand-new beginning, with new companions (including an overt and admirable attempt to address the issue of diversity in the show by making sure they cast a black actress) and an effort to keep things fresh.  Which is partly why he's cheekily chosen to call this episode "The Pilot".  But it's clear from the outset that they intend for this to be a good jumping-on point for any new or casual fans.  This episode is squarely from new companion Bill Potts' point-of-view.  Which isn't to say there aren't little references and in-jokes here and there (pictures of both River and Susan, a pencil holder full of sonic screwdrivers), but they're not the main point.  The point is Bill.  And from the outset, Pearl Mackie knocks it out of the park, from her rambling non-answer to the Doctor's question ("I was hoping something would develop") to the casually awkward-yet-comfortable way she holds herself as she responds to the Doctor's questions.  Bill is a bit quirky and a whole lot of fun, and the episode does a good job of easing her into things, with it initially being simply a student-teacher tutoring relationship between her and the Doctor (for actually quite a very long time, based on the amount of time that passes during this episode) before circumstances require a bit more.

And that slow development is something to admire here.  They haven't really attempted an introduction like this since "Rose" -- even "The Eleventh Hour", Moffat's own soft relaunch, focused on the Doctor over the companion.  But this decision puts Bill front and center and gives us a better understanding of her character, being tutored by the Doctor (mainly in physics, based on the papers we see), dealing with her foster mom Moira (Jennifer Hennessy, who was in "Gridlock"), and being interested in a particular girl named Heather, who has a defect in the iris of her eye that makes it looks like a star (hence the working title for this episode, "A Star in Her Eye").  The first time around, I did wonder if that was going to be significant, if it was going to turn out she was an alien or something, but no, just a girl with an unusual eye.  She does discover the weird alien mimicking puddle and ends up getting pulled into it though, so she's inadvertently the catalyst for this episode's events.

It's also worth noting how relaxed the Doctor is here.  Peter Capaldi's come a long way from the cold and distant Doctor of "Deep Breath" and "Into the Dalek", and his natural chemistry with both Bill and Nardole is really lovely.  He's in one place for a while, guarding some mysterious vault (more on that in future episodes), but he doesn't necessarily seem frustrated and incredibly bored by it, the way (say) the eleventh Doctor would have been.  Indeed, if what Bill says about his having been there for fifty years is true, he seems to have settled in remarkably well.  But the point is that that slightly eccentric professorial thing seems perfectly natural for Capaldi's Doctor at this stage in his life.  It works well for the character.

Bill and Nardole step out onto an alien world. ("The Pilot")
©BBC

The other cool thing this episode does is, yes, start with a slower build, but the ramp up to the second half of the episode also feels natural, rather than sudden or jerking.  We get one of the greatest TARDIS reveals ever, with the interior in darkness and the Doctor and Bill at the door, and then that pan into the room as the lights start to come on -- it's just so gorgeous.  And Bill's slow reaction as she starts to put the pieces together, along with the sly dig at the TARDIS anagram, is fantastic.  And then we're off to the races, as the TARDIS heads to a different part of the university, and then a different part of the planet (Australia, for I believe the second time ever (after 1967's The Enemy of the World)), and then an alien planet in the future, and then a different alien planet in the past -- in the middle of the Dalek/Movellan War (from Destiny of the Daleks), in fact!  (And they haven't changed the design of the Movellans at all, which is great.²⁷⁵).  The narrative turns into a chase (much like, er, The Chase), allowing us to get a bunch of different locales and for Bill to get all the "oh my, it's a different planet/time" stuff out of the way more or less immediately.  It makes for an exciting viewing experience without necessarily plodding down the same familiar paths.  (Oh, and yes, a little bit of "Friend from the Future", the Bill intro scene, is used here.)

And the final nice thing is that the weird puddle thing taking Heather's form (or is it Heather herself?) isn't pursuing Bill because of evil designs or anything, but because Heather made a promise to Bill before she was sucked into the puddle that she wouldn't go away.  "What, in the end, are any of us looking for?" the Doctor muses.  "We're looking for someone who's looking for us."  It's nice to have a monster that's not actually monstrous, and while Bill lets her go, she admits afterwards that she refused because she was too scared, but you get the sense she was still a bit tempted by the prospect of travelling the universe with her.  And while the Doctor initially tries to wipe Bill's memory, Bill refuses to let him.  "Just imagine how it would feel if someone did this to you," she says, and we get Clara's theme on the soundtrack, reminding us that that's exactly what happened to the Doctor at the end of last series.  It's a nice, understated touch.

So "The Pilot" is a story that's both bold and understated, and it's a smashing season opener.  If you could level any criticisms at it, the main one is that it's not the deepest or most nuanced story.  But that's OK; sometimes a breezy, fun episode is just what you want.  And Pearl Mackie is a sheer joy as Bill, full of energy and fun without being annoying or frustrating, while Matt Lucas is so much fun as Nardole, basically providing the comic relief but without him being annoying either.  And with Peter Capaldi anchoring them both, the TARDIS team is in excellent shape.  It might not end up being regarded as an all-time classic, but it's difficult to imagine how "The Pilot" could be any better.







²⁷⁵ Oh!  But the Daleks are different; these are the bronze versions that we'd previously assumed were only introduced in the Time War, not the grey ones that were standard through most of the original run.  Here's an effort to resolve any possible continuity problems: the bronze versions were initially introduced during the Movellan War to see if they were any more effective against the Movellans.  They weren't, so the Daleks didn't make a huge switch en masse, but they later found the bronze shell was useful against the Time Lords, so that's when they made the switch.  But I'm sure you can come up with a different in-universe explanation if you want.