Bill PoTTs
Doctor Who’s first gay companion is proving to be a breath of fresh air
UK Broadcast BBC One US Broadcast BBC America
It helps when an actor just looks interesting. Remember Matt Smith, with his fizzog like a confusingly handsome Easter Island statue? Pearl Mackie’s got the same type of features: attractive but unusual. It’s the sort of face you want to examine from every angle.
It’s an incredibly expressive face, too: eyebrows, mouth and nose all jostling for your attention as Bill blasts out waves of joyful enthusiasm, confusion and sadness. Ever since she joined Doctor Who, the series’ emotions have been super-sized. She has a smile that could make sunflowers bloom. She makes the alien vistas awe-inspiring and the scary bits terrifying. She’s a walking collection of Tumblr GIFs, and you can’t take your eyes off her.
Curious and compassionate, brave and observant, she’s not afraid of challenging the Doctor. She’s straightforward but smart, forever asking questions that are strikingly basic but not, when you actually think
about it, stupid: “Why name your box in English?”, “How much did it cost?”, “Can I use the toilet?” The register of her speech is spot on. Last time Doctor Who tried to create a companion this street-wise we ended up with Ace, a girl with Blue
Peter badges on her jacket and a vocabulary full of “toerag”s and “bilgebag”s. Bill, with her “laters”, “no worries” and “d’ya know what I mean?”s, feels like the real deal. You’ve sat next to girls like her on the bus. Or maybe you are the girl.
There’s an appealing openness to Bill, too. There’s no filter, no front, no presentation. She knows who she is – sexuality and all (an aspect of her identity that’s been handled with commendable matter-offact-ness) – and is just happily, unapologetically
being. There’s something charming and loveable and just a little bit inspiring about that. This year’s season arc has been totally overshadowed. Series ten is all about the Potts. Ian Berriman