Hello and, nearly, goodbye on ‘Doctor Who’
The series returns with a new companion for Peter Capaldi’s final season
Season 10 of “Doctor Who” brings with it a new companion.
Bill Potts — played by Pearl Mackie — serves food in the cafeteria at the university where the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) has been apparently teaching forever.
“Imagine time happening all at once,” he asks his students, basically giving the audience something of the premise of the show.
Not a student, Bill has been auditing the class, and the Doctor summons her to his office, which is complete with his famous blue police call box, his time-traveling machine called the TARDIS. He claims he had lifted it with a crane. She’s not so sure.
After some off-the-wall chitchat, the doctor notes this about Bill: “Most people when they don’t know something frown. You smile.”
He then offers to be her tutor.
“You must be on time,” he warns her. “I’m very particular about time.”
This goes along well for a while, but soon the Doctor’s fantastical extraterrestrial reality seeps into the equation.
It looks like this will be a fun season. The first episode is called “The Pilot,” and in its way reintroduces us to the Doctor by seeing him through Bill’s uninitiated eyes. She is curious about things but has little formal education, which gives her a different perspective than most people.
“I can’t just call you the Doctor,” she says. “Doctor What?” she asks, undermining the series’ standing joke.
Bill is soon introduced to some of the other touchstones in the Doctor’s life, including the Daleks, his robotic-looking enemies. They aren’t the real foes in the episode. BBC America wants to keep things spoiler free, but it’s fair to say you can see future adventures emerging in the plot.
Mackie, a relative unknown, proves instantly likable, and the character distinguishes itself from the other companions in the series, which has brought in some notable actors for the roles of the Doctor and his companion, as well as provided career boosts for some of the actors who’ve played either of the roles, including David Tennant, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Jenna Coleman to name a few.
Matt Lucas returns as Nardole, the Doctor’s bald alien assistant. You get the feeling his role will grow this year, which is Calpaldi’s last in the role of the Doctor.
This is also the last year for lead writer and Executive Producer Steven Moffat, who has won an Emmy for “Sherlock.” He, too, will be missed. Underneath the flightiness of the sci-fi, Moffat has always kept the series grounded and the alien Doctor more human than he would possibly even like to be.