Friend from the Future (TV story)

Friend from the Future was a short promotional mini-episode broadcast during Match of the Day and later released online in 2016, which introduced the character of Bill Potts to the world. Originally, this scene was produced as a stand-alone episode to reveal the casting of Pearl Mackie, similar to 2017's Meet the Thirteenth Doctor.

	The Pilot
	Twelfth Doctor
	Bill
	Daleks
	Dalek-Movellan war zone
	Steven Moffat
	Lawrence Gough
	Peter Bennett
	23 April 2016
	3 minutes
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However, when writing TV: The Pilot, Bill's introduction episode, Steven Moffat's intuition was to make Friend from the Future "fit" into the series. Because of this, The Pilot's plot carefully sets up the conditions of the mini-episode, although only copying part of the exchange from the scene due to the rest being cut for pacing. Moffat jokes that Doctor Who fans knew when the story took place, and that they "could all sleep at night now."

Synopsis

The Daleks are following the Twelfth Doctor and Bill through a corridor. Will they get out alive?

Plot

The Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts are running from Daleks. They hide behind a wall, and Bill repeatedly questions the Doctor as to what a Dalek is. He hurriedly explains to her. Then he receives a notification via the psychic paper and insists that they need to go back to the TARDIS, convinced that the future, specifically 2017, needs them. As they leave their hideout, a Dalek shoots at them and states that it detected humanoids.

As they turn around a text hits the screen that says "Introducing Pearl Mackie as Bill".

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
• Bill - Pearl Mackie
• Heather - Nicholas Briggs

Crew

• Director - Lawrence Gough
• Designer - Michael Pickwoad
• Costume designer - Hayley Nebauer
• Producer - Peter Bennett
• Executive producers - Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin

Notes

• The promo teaser was shot on 13 April 2016 in a matter of three hours.
• The BBC promoted it as "an exclusive scene from a future episode".
• The scene presented was the filmed version of Pearl Mackie's audition.
• The trailer was originally intended to just be an introduction to Bill Potts, but Moffat tried to make it a part of the final product of the first series 10 episode TV: The Pilot. In a BBC post-interview, Moffat noted that ultimately this did not work because, by the relevant part of the episode, Bill had already been properly introduced and the focus on her character at that point "didn't work". Thus, almost all of the scene was deleted from the final version of the episode. Moffat still noted that he made it clear when the short was meant to take place so that the fans interested in timelines could know "where it fits," and that "[they] could all sleep at night now."
• The first few seconds are re-used footage from TV: Into the Dalek.
• As becomes clear in TV: The Pilot, Bill and the Doctor are in a Dalek-Movellan war zone, where they have fled to free themselves from some sentient oil, who was pursuing Bill through time and space. The Dalek confronting the Doctor and Bill at the end of the clip is retconned in the episode to be the sentient oil disguised as a Dalek. This required to change the Dalek's "humanoids detected" remark into something compatible with the nature and objectives of the sentient oil.
• Bill wears a t-shirt featuring the inner sleeve artwork of the Prince album Purple Rain. Coincidentally, the short was broadcast just two days after Prince's death. Pearl Mackie stated this to be entirely coincidental.