Doctor Who: THE PILOT (S10E1) - Review

What's softer than a soft reboot?

Key to Doctor Who's ability to endure for over 50 years now, is its constant ability to reinvent itself at will. Every time the Doctor regenerates the show is gifted the opportunity to soft-reboot itself. Sometimes it decides it doesn't really need to all that much and we get a Ecclestone to Tennant regeneration and other times its decided the show decides it wants some of its edge back and regenerates Matt Smith into Peter Capaldi. Probably the cleanest kind of reboot Doctor Who can undertake is when its showrunner ups and leaves. Rewatching Davies' run in light of Moffat's only serves to highlight further the marked differences between the two, with Davies' more 'Earthly' style contrasting starkly against the psychedelic fairytale style of Moffat. I suspect this trend will continue when Chris Chibnall takes over and covers the show in bubblewrap to make it extra-safe and less weird. Whatever Chibnall does, it's becoming clearer that a new showrunner in Doctor Who marks practically the beginning of a whole new show.

So what about those other times when Doctor Who gave itself a makeover? Amongst other things, Moffat's tenure on the show has revealed a fidgety disposition to change the rules every season or so. Season 5's electric fairytale magic became Season 6's more serialised arc which became Season 7 putting the whole show on autopilot. Season 8 both beefed up Clara's character and took the excuse of Capaldi's more initially abrasive nature to turn the macabre-dial higher than it had ever gone before, with a main story arc about the afterlife and a Doctor who, on more than one occasion, decided it would be better if he just sodded off and let Clara sort out the rest. Meanwhile, Season 9 decided to soften up Capaldi's Doctor with refreshing results and opened up virtually every story into a two-parter in an attempt to let the stories breathe a little better.

Season 10, on the other hand, makes these attempts to hit the refresh button look pretty paltry in comparison. The show was promised to be stripped down to its most basic elements. Gone is virtually any mention of immediately previous adventures (except for one very effective callback to Clara near the end of the episode). Capaldi's Doctor is even warmer than ever and accompanied by a permanent sidekick in the form of Matt Lucas' Nardole. Crucially, we also get new companion Bill, who was billed (pun intended) quite heavily as a breath of fresh air. Its softer than a soft reboot (I'd call it a marshmallow-reboot if that didn't sound so groan-worthy, though I liked it enough to put it in brackets so hey-ho). The question is: how did it go?

Luckily, it went well.

'The Pilot' is, above all and else, Bill's episode. Roughly half the episode progresses before the Doctor starts penguin-running into action and in that time Moffat dedicates all of his effort into making sure we don't just like Bill, but get her as well. I will openly admit that every bit of promo material for the season had not endeared me to Bill - particularly an early 'demo' scene released roughly a year ago which painted her as a bit too jokey-jokey for the show's own good, made worse by the announcement that the scene would fit into the first episode itself. If you haven't seen that scene, don't bother. It won't help your expectations and the scene as it appears in 'The Pilot' is mercifully edited to within an inch of its life. Instead of leaning into the quirkiness of Bill as would probably have been incredibly easy and tiresome to do, Moffat instead taps into the underlying sadness of Bill and it makes for a much more compelling character. Its a sadness that doesn't always permeate Bill, but its always there - from her own personal insecurity (like the way she says her face is "...always pulling expressions when I'm trying to be enigmatic...") to the early death of her mother. Also tapping into this sadness is Murray Gold who continues to deliver some of his most refined music for the show yet, coming off the back of Season 9's stunning musical soundtrack that STILL HASN'T BEEN RELEASED YET WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT BBC??? Of course, sadness underlies Bill's character but that belays the surface details that Mackie brings to the role. As the Doctor notes, Bill smiles at the things she doesn't understand whilst others look confused and its this sort of personality trait that makes her as endearing to us as she is to the Doctor. There's a fresh, slightly more aware, aspect to Bill that doesn't quite reach Rick and Morty levels of deconstruction (or the tiresome kind of jokes we saw in that year-old teaser scene) but does allow Bill to get out some pretty neat lines. Best amongst them include a bemusement at how the TARDIS is spelt in English if it came from a distant planet, to her protest to the Doctor that she has in fact seen a movie before: "...I know what a mind wipe looks like!" The episode kind of shies away from Bill's remaining family (which has never a big concern of the Moffat-era) but that just helps to keep the focus on Bill and watching her get swept away into the Doctor's world is as satisfying as you'd hope.

Really, when it comes to reviewing 'The Pilot', this is Bill's episode that we're talking about. As mentioned previously, a lot of time is spent getting to know her before the sci-fi really kicks in. On the one hand, this means Bill gets a far better introduction than Clara was lucky enough to get back in Season 7. On the other hand, this means the weakest and most under-developed part of the episode is, unfortunately, the Doctor Who-y part.

Now, this isn't to say that the episode tanks halfway through. Far from it. But this is the part of the episode where the 'reboot'y nature of 'The Pilot' becomes clear. The episode is designed so that anyone who's never seen the episode before can drop in and get what's going on. To that effect, the episode succeeds. But, if you have been watching the show for a while now, like me, you're probably going to notice where the episode scales itself back for the newcomers. The Doctor, as mentioned earlier, is warmer than ever before which works beautifully. But gone is the deep-dive into the Doctor's nature that has been the custom for the last few seasons or so. Granted, not everyone liked this particular element of Moffat's Who. I personally, though, found it utterly thrilling whenever the show would go deeper into the Doctor and start to look at what makes him (or maybe, one day, her) tick. It's part of the reason why Heaven Sent is my favourite episode of the show. So there's a sense of whiplash to see the show scale its ambition regarding the Doctor right back in 'The Pilot'. There is a crucial moment referencing the Doctor's forgotten memories of Clara that, along with Murray Gold's music cue of 'Clara's theme' makes for a tremendously effective moment, but its mostly the exception rather than the rule. Now, obviously this is probably a necessity given what the episode is really trying to do and I don't think its particularly bad in and of itself. I'm just hoping that the rest of the season will start to get back around to this once we've established the groundwork*.

What else is there? Oh right, so the main enemy of the episode is an alien spaceship-puddle thing that ensnares Bill's crush, Heather, using her as a pilot for the ship to go somewhere or something. Its an enemy that works well in practice - mostly because of the way it plays more to emotional logic than it does to hard logic. However, its not one of Doctor Who's most defined creatures, almost to the point of not making any sense. Is it a serious problem? Not really. Its mostly emblematic of where the episodes focus really is.

Oh and I should probably mention Nardole. Matt Lucas' Christmas role, now stretched out to accommodate companion-level membership has thrown quite a few people. We don't really get any more of a reason as to why he's sticking around in 'The Pilot', but I must admit that despite his somewhat superfluous role, I actually quite liked the potential of his dynamic. We've not had an alien companion before and certainly not one who's role is as yet unclear and its one of the few parts of the first episode (along with the vault that the Doctor guards) that hints at how strange the rest of the season will become**. Plus, I quite like the idea of a larger TARDIS crew so I'm intrigued as to what Nardole will eventually bring to the table.

Ultimately, viewed alongside other episodes of the show, 'The Pilot' is a noticeably odd affair. It is, in essence, probably the most the show has rebooted since Matt Smith crashed into Amelia Pond's garden and as such, for a long-time viewer things can feel a little odd. However, I don't think I'm the target audience for this one - not really, anyway. That would be the people who have either never seen Doctor Who or haven't watched it in a good while now. 'The Pilot' is banking on Bill winning you over and its hard to deny by the end that she has and to that effect, the episode is designed to be a window back into the crazy world of Doctor Who. Mission accomplished I would say. If the rest of the season can take the stabilisers off (which, judging by some of the synopsis' for the later episodes, it will do), Season 10 could be on to something really special.

*Oh man, listen to me here - I'm sounding like Clara-haters back in Season 8 and 9. I want to be clear on two things here. One: I like what they did with Clara in Seasons 8 & 9. Two: I get that the companion is really the main character in Doctor Who most of the time, so obviously I don't mind the show spending its time to develop Bill. What I'm saying is, I hope it doesn't leave everything else by the wayside. I like my Doctor Who to be a little weird and daring. Luckily, this Season looks like it's got some strange stuff lined up (including a three-parter) and some episode concepts that are way stronger than most of Season 9, so this hopefully shouldn't be an issue.

**We also get other potential hints of other things, such as maybe finding Heather again. Plus the episode kind of drops the whole thing with the Doctor taking photos of Bill's mum so Bill can see more of herm leading me to wonder if that'll get brought up again at any point. We'll have to wait and see if and how these plot points get brought up again.

Also, how great was that TARDIS reveal???. It's amazing how some well-time lighting and a camera pull can make the TARDIS feel more expansive than it has before:

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