Bill Potts is introduced in the tenth series premiere, "The Pilot".[1][2] While posing as a university professor, the Doctor begins tutoring Bill Potts. After her romantic interest, Heather (Stephanie Hyam), is absorbed by a puddle of sentient oil, becoming the Pilot that pursues them across time and space, the Doctor reveals his identity and invites Bill to travel. This draws criticism from Nardole (Matt Lucas), who insists the Doctor stay in Bristol to guard the Vault.
In subsequent episodes, Bill learns about the Doctor’s Time Lord nature and the rules of time travel. In the series finale, "World Enough and Time" / "The Doctor Falls", the Doctor’s companions are responding to a distress signal on a Mondasian colony ship that is reversing away from a black hole when Bill is shot through the chest and is carried away by patients. Due to gravitational time dilation, ten years pass for Bill while only minutes pass for the Doctor. Bill’s life is saved, but ten years pass before the Doctor is able to reach her, during which time she is converted into a Cyberman. During this decade, she is manipulated by the Master and subjected to a full Mondasian Cyber-conversion; however, due to the experiences she gained while travelling with the Doctor, she is able to temporarily retain her humanity. Following the Doctor's apparent death in the final battle, Bill is rescued by Heather. Transformed into the same type of cosmic entity, Bill returns the Doctor's body to his TARDIS before choosing to explore the universe with Heather.
Mackie makes a final appearance in "Twice Upon a Time" as a Testimony avatar—a sentient construct of Bill’s memories harvested at the moment of her death. Though the Doctor is initially sceptical of her nature, this "Bill" provides him with companionship and returns his memories of Clara Oswald.
In April 2017, three new novels were released, featuring new companions Nardole and Bill Potts. They are titled The Shining Man, Diamond Dogs and Plague City.[4] Before her premiere episode was broadcast, Bill made a cameo appearance in a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, titled "The Daft Dimension", alongside Nardole in Issue #511 (May 2017).[5]
Paul Cornell's novelisation of "Twice Upon a Time" reveals more details about Bill's experiences following the events of "The Doctor Falls". It states that Bill and Heather explore the Milky Way together for a time, until Bill suggests they try being human again. As they spend time together on Earth – magicking up enough money to rent a flat and adopting cats – Bill grows to know and love Heather as a person. Years later, they decide to live by the sea and grow old as humans. On her deathbed, Bill tells Heather to leave her and resume her astral form. After accepting a human death, Bill finds herself part of Testimony. When it encounters the Doctor, Testimony temporarily restricts Bill's access to some of her memories so that she can interact with the Doctor as he knew her, to test his trustworthiness; this limitation is lifted at the end of the story.[6]
Casting and development
"Bill is cool – she's quite young, doesn't really know much about the world. She's very real – she's not had a very easy upbringing and whilst she doesn't really let that affect her day-to-day life, it's there under the surface – she can be quite defensive. She's fun, she's excited, she's a bit geeky – she quite likes sci-fi stuff, she's into space and that type of thing so when she does go on adventures with the Doctor and discovers aliens are real and that kind of stuff it blows her mind which is really cool."
In April 2016, it was announced that Pearl Mackie would portray the newest companion, Bill Potts, after the departure of Jenna Coleman. To avoid leaks while casting the new companion, the production team used the word "Mean Town", an anagram of "Ten Woman"; this is a reference to the fact that Bill is the companion in the tenth series, and was revealed by the casting director Andy Pryor to Radio Times.[8][9][10] Producer Steven Moffat said Mackie's ethnicity was a factor in the decision to cast her, as he wanted to make the cast more diverse: "We decided that the new companion was going to be non-white [...] because we need to do better on that".[11] Bill is also the show's first openly gay companion.[12]
A preview scene was filmed in April 2016 as part of a promotional clip shown on 23 April 2016 on BBC One, during the semi-final half-time of the 2015–16 FA Cup. Titled "Friend from the Future", it introduced Bill and the Doctor in an encounter with Daleks.[13] Despite initial doubts that this scene would be included in the series itself,[1] parts of it were incorporated into Mackie's debut episode, "The Pilot".[1][2]
Mackie describes Bill as "cool, really fun and really excited", and that she is "really young and doesn't really know much about the world". Capaldi describes her character as coming into the series as "very much as a regular human being from the real world, to whom all of this stuff is extraordinary, she knows nothing about it".
On 23 July 2017, a trailer for the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time" was released, revealing Mackie's involvement in that episode.[14] On the same day, Mackie officially announced at San Diego Comic-Con that she would not be returning for the eleventh series.[15]
Costumes worn by Bill during the series, on display at the Doctor Who Experience
Though the character shares a name with William "Bill" Hartnell, who played the First Doctor (and whose wife, like Bill's girlfriend, was named Heather), creator Steven Moffat has said that this was a coincidence. The character's name was in fact inspired when Moffat overheard David Tennant, who portrayed the Tenth Doctor, offhandedly call out to Billie Piper by the name Bill on the set of "The Day of the Doctor" in 2013.[16]
Reception
Before the episode was broadcast, an advance screening was given for critics. General reviews for Mackie's character were mixed.
Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times described Pearl Mackie as "instantly winning as fledgling companion Bill".[17]Den of Geek's Simon Brew also gave a positive review of Mackie, praising the humour in Mackie's performance.[18] However, Catherine Gee of The Telegraph gave a more negative review, saying that Mackie in her premiere episode "lacked the charismatic spark of Jenna Coleman" and that Mackie's character was a "muddle", but praised the fact that Bill was not middle-class.[19]
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