Doctor Who 10x01 "The Pilot" Review

SPOILERS

Doctor Who is back and it was pretty pretty good. This season is going to be amazing, hopefully with fewer clunkers than in the previous two seasons. “The Pilot” gave us a lot of information. We are introduced to Bill and she is in turn introduced to The Doctor and the TARDIS. There’s a lot to go over, so I’ll keep it to the main points.

I can’t tell you how much I loved the first half of the episode. Even without adding in the “weird girl becomes ‘pilot’ for random space alien” subplot, there were so many little details. For example, we could see Nardole has a robot body. The Doctor is still playing guitar and he is spending his time lecturing about anything and everything. On his desk is a picture of River Song and a picture of (I can’t believe how long it took me to figure it out) Susan, along with all his old screwdrivers. When Bill tells him she has no pictures of her mother, he creates some for her. So much love and little hints. I really liked Bill, and Capaldi was just his regular awesome self.

The Doctor and Bill run from Heather.

Second half of the episode got us into the first alien of the season. I’m sure I’m not the only person who thought this was a mix of Midnight and The Waters of Mars. How do you make a scary new alien? Combine two previous scary aliens. This was a genuinely creepy alien; I was a little on edge throughout the whole thing. The fact that it could move so quickly was scary, and the bit when it was mimicking a Dalek was chilling (I figured out this would happen before it did, since I specifically remembered this from one of the trailers). Despite being creepy, the alien was a little sweet (?), since it still had a bit of Heather inside of it and Heather wanted to wait for Bill, so the alien was trying to bring Bill along with it. So it wasn’t completely malicious; it was just something who wanted to get home but needed a “pilot” to get there.

The end of the episode had the most emotion attached to it. I couldn’t believe The Doctor was tempted to wipe her memory (obviously he wouldn’t because we know she is the season companion, but it was still interesting to watch), though I appreciated the fact that Bill saw what was happening and stopped him, asking him if he would like it if someone did it to him. Clara’s theme played a bit during this, recalling that scene at the end of last season. Twitter pointed out this is a nod to Donna as well. So he doesn’t and invites her along, apparently after some time. And TARDIS apparently means ‘what the hell’. The rest of the season looks amazing. We’ve got a dabbing Missy and, oh yeah, JOHN SIMM! Allons-y, fellow Time Lords!

10/10

Just a quick plug here about Class: I watched it. I loved it. It played Ten’s theme and name-dropped Buffy and OUAT. What else would I want? However, for this season anyway, I will be just watching for my own enjoyment.