“The Pilot” is episode one of season ten of the new Doctor Who.
This episode opens with a study and a squeaking noise approaching. The door opens and a very squeaky Nardole shows a woman into the room. Then a bolt drops off him. There’s a police box in the corner of the room with an ‘Out of Order’ sign. On the desk are photographs of River Song and what looks like Susan. There’s also a tub full of sonic screwdrivers and, just as the woman is about to touch one, a guitar sounds. The guitarist is, of course, the Doctor.
The woman is Bill Potts and she’s at a university. She works in the canteen and isn’t a student, but she keeps attending the Doctor’s lectures. He asks her why, and she tells a story that has no real connection. Which she acknowledges. Just what is he lecturing on? It seems he actually lectures on anything he feels like, and has been there for over 50 years. He seems intrigued by Bill, and offers to be her personal tutor. She asks what his actual name is. Doctor What? The first lecture we see of the Doctor’s is, of course, on the nature of Time. And Relative Dimension in Space.
So, the Doctor is at a university, but when? And where? And why? Is the TARDIS actually broken? It’s quickly revealed that it can’t be. At the moment a bit of a confusing start.
Bill follows the Doctor and Nardole and discovers them doing – something. What, isn’t clear, but it apparently involves a vault. Afterwards she bumps into a girl, Heather, she had seen in a pub, who has a defect in one eye. This girl shows Bill a strange puddle, a puddle that’s oddly permanent and shows something wrong with your face (this can be figured out before the Doctor points it out). It’s also not just a puddle – something is on the other side of it looking out. Months later, Bill is telling the Doctor about the odd puddle, which is still there, to find him running off to look at it. The puddle is also surrounded by a strangely symmetrical pattern of scorch marks.
At this point it isn’t clear what’s going on, except that the puddle isn’t a puddle and something inside it is looking for a pilot. And a passenger. And it probably isn’t water. Then Bill has a very creepy experience in the bathroom of her flat.
In order to avoid the strange liquid creature the Doctor takes them to a war zone, a war between the Daleks and what appear to be the Movellans – an enemy of the Daleks that hasn’t been seen since the classic series episode “Destiny of the Daleks”.
Bill’s initial reaction to the TARDIS is rather unusual. She compares it to a knock-through, a kitchen and then a lift. It’s still not clear what the Doctor is doing and why, or what the vault is.