Doctor Who Season 10: 6 Big Questions We're Asking After 'The Pilot'

4. Is There More To Bill Potts Than Meets The Eye?

Doctor Who The Pilot Bill
BBC

At first she seems like an ordinary girl, an old school companion in the mould of Rose or Donna in contrast to the exceptional Amy Pond and Clara Oswald who both started out as mysteries for the Doctor to solve. But safe conventions such as using the assistant as the audience identification figure aren’t the Moffat way. There are signs already that Bill Potts, knowingly or unknowingly, has her own remarkable secrets to set her apart from the crowd.

There has to be more to the Doctor’s fascination with Bill than the fact that she smiles in his lectures. Whoever she is, the Twelfth Doctor was moved enough to go back in time to take photographs of her Mother. It’s not like him to get all sentimental. Then there’s that very odd cut to Bill when the Doctor is reminiscing about Susan. Whatever the link, the Doctor is clearly associating the two.

Bill laughs at how the Doctor runs "like a penguin with its arse on fire". But just a few scenes later, we see her running almost as awkwardly as the Doctor. Could it be a genetic trait, passed down from grandfather to granddaughter?

If that sounds farfetched, then consider the hidden vault. Its location is supposed to be only accessible to those with a personal connection. How then did Bill Potts get through the door?

And finally, there’s that tear which isn’t hers. The logical conclusion is that it belongs to Heather, but whoever it belongs to, it’s a signal that Bill is not quite as straightforward as we thought.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.