The Pilot (Doctor Who)
"The Pilot" received mostly positive reviews, with praise on the introduction of Pearl Mackie, and how the episode served both as a soft reboot and as a series premiere.
It is the first episode to feature Mackie as the new companion Bill Potts, after the departure of Jenna Coleman at the end of the previous series.
The episode also sees the brief return of the Daleks, their last major appearance being that of the previous series' premiere, "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar", in 2015.
[2] The sequence was originally written as an audition scene for casting the role of Bill, but the production team included some of the footage in the final edit of "The Pilot".
[3] From a hidden corner of a corridor inside a spaceship, the Doctor attempts to answer Bill's questions about their enemies.
Months pass, and Bill develops a mutual attraction to a student named Heather, who has a defect that makes it look like there is a star in her eye.
The Doctor speculates that the substance is a living fluid from an alien ship, and that it made Heather its "pilot" because she wanted to run away.
The Doctor keeps framed pictures of his wife, River Song, and granddaughter, Susan Foreman, on his desk,[4] along with a collection of his sonic screwdrivers from both the classic and revival series.
[6] When Bill asks The Doctor how he would feel having his memory wiped, Clara's theme plays in the background, referencing events of the Series 9 finale "Hell Bent".
[13] Stephanie Hyam's character Heather appears again at the end of the season in the episode The Doctor Falls.
[14] The episode was watched by 4.64 million viewers overnight, a slight increase on the opener for the last series, and came third in the ratings behind All Round to Mrs. Brown's and Britain's Got Talent.
[22][25] On Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 17 reviews are positive and the critical consensus states, "'The Pilot' successfully reboots the final season of Capaldi's Doctor Who and deftly introduces Pearl Mackie with fresh character development.
[23] TV Fanatics's Kathleen Wiedel described Mackie as "brilliant" and also praised the episode's pace, Nardole's comedy and the villain.
She also praised the emotional resonance of the scene in which the Doctor went back in time to take photos of Bill's deceased mother.
He also praised the visual presentation and "taut direction" but felt the show lost its way to some extent in the last 10 minutes and that Nardole was somewhat superfluous to the story.
