The Pilot (airs April 15) SPOILERS ON BROADCAST
May 2, 2017 22:07:58 GMT
whiskeybrewer and number13 like this
Post by constonks on May 2, 2017 22:07:58 GMT
Got this review back from my TV History & Critique teacher the other day and he didn't hate it so I'll spoiler tag it here:
{Spoiler}DOCTOR WHO: THE PILOT Review
The series 10 premiere of Doctor Who starts with a shot of the Doctor’s desk at a university, with two picture frames obscured by sunlight. “I bet the pictures on the desk are either River or Susan,” I said, “Maybe both.” With twelve years of Who behind him, how could Steven Moffat possibly surprise me at this point? Well, I was right about the pictures, but I was wrong about the rest of the episode!
While Moffat has written solid intros in the past (2011’s “The Eleventh Hour” shines particularly bright), there’s an element of Doctor Who he’s often missed – the Doctor as a mystery to the companion. Gone was the ornery unknowability of the First Doctor, the ancient enigma of the Seventh or the unspeakably dark memories of the Ninth. For too long, Moffat’s Doctors have always been the one figuring out the big questions and the companions (Amy, Rory, River and Clara) have been the source of mystery.
But this time, our new companion, Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), is just an ordinary girl. She’s chatty, curious and ambitious - lower status but interested in higher learning - and in “The Pilot”, Moffat makes sure we see the world through her eyes. The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) is an enigmatic professor with a weird (robotic?) butler named Nardole (Matt Lucas) and a 1960s police box in the corner of his office – he’s been at the same university for over fifty years. His lectures are legendary (what we see is equally engaging and meaningless) and when Bill attends, despite working in the cafeteria, he offers her the chance to be privately tutored. Between lessons, she follows the Doctor around and discovers that he’s been protecting a massive futuristic vault underneath the university for all these years. Why? We don’t know. The Doctor remains a mystery and the season arc becomes far more compelling because we enter it at ground level, through the perspective of an ordinary girl, rather than via the Doctor.
The actual plot of the episode, involving a love story for Bill and a sentient oil puddle, is well-executed but is essentially window-dressing for the character and arc work being done. In that regard, it’s also echoing the revived series opener “Rose”, where a plot about malignant shop dummies is there to draw Rose into the world of Who more than anything. That’s not something you can get away with every week, mind, but in this case, it lands.
Peter Capaldi continues to dazzle and intimidate with only twelve episodes remaining in his all-too-short tenure as the Doctor, while Pearl Mackie hits it out of the park right away. She’s instantly likeable and brings the same sort of nervous energy that Clara (Jenna Coleman) brought in her debut season. Even Matt Lucas is given a chance to thrive and as a result, a steady rhythm is established between the three companions and I’m left wanting more Nardole (another huge surprise).
All in all, “The Pilot” is a breath of fresh air. It appears that both Stephen Moffat and Peter Capaldi will be going out on a high, and after twelve years, nothing could more impressive than leaving the fans wanting more.
The series 10 premiere of Doctor Who starts with a shot of the Doctor’s desk at a university, with two picture frames obscured by sunlight. “I bet the pictures on the desk are either River or Susan,” I said, “Maybe both.” With twelve years of Who behind him, how could Steven Moffat possibly surprise me at this point? Well, I was right about the pictures, but I was wrong about the rest of the episode!
While Moffat has written solid intros in the past (2011’s “The Eleventh Hour” shines particularly bright), there’s an element of Doctor Who he’s often missed – the Doctor as a mystery to the companion. Gone was the ornery unknowability of the First Doctor, the ancient enigma of the Seventh or the unspeakably dark memories of the Ninth. For too long, Moffat’s Doctors have always been the one figuring out the big questions and the companions (Amy, Rory, River and Clara) have been the source of mystery.
But this time, our new companion, Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), is just an ordinary girl. She’s chatty, curious and ambitious - lower status but interested in higher learning - and in “The Pilot”, Moffat makes sure we see the world through her eyes. The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) is an enigmatic professor with a weird (robotic?) butler named Nardole (Matt Lucas) and a 1960s police box in the corner of his office – he’s been at the same university for over fifty years. His lectures are legendary (what we see is equally engaging and meaningless) and when Bill attends, despite working in the cafeteria, he offers her the chance to be privately tutored. Between lessons, she follows the Doctor around and discovers that he’s been protecting a massive futuristic vault underneath the university for all these years. Why? We don’t know. The Doctor remains a mystery and the season arc becomes far more compelling because we enter it at ground level, through the perspective of an ordinary girl, rather than via the Doctor.
The actual plot of the episode, involving a love story for Bill and a sentient oil puddle, is well-executed but is essentially window-dressing for the character and arc work being done. In that regard, it’s also echoing the revived series opener “Rose”, where a plot about malignant shop dummies is there to draw Rose into the world of Who more than anything. That’s not something you can get away with every week, mind, but in this case, it lands.
Peter Capaldi continues to dazzle and intimidate with only twelve episodes remaining in his all-too-short tenure as the Doctor, while Pearl Mackie hits it out of the park right away. She’s instantly likeable and brings the same sort of nervous energy that Clara (Jenna Coleman) brought in her debut season. Even Matt Lucas is given a chance to thrive and as a result, a steady rhythm is established between the three companions and I’m left wanting more Nardole (another huge surprise).
All in all, “The Pilot” is a breath of fresh air. It appears that both Stephen Moffat and Peter Capaldi will be going out on a high, and after twelve years, nothing could more impressive than leaving the fans wanting more.
