About time: 'Doctor Who' to feature first openly gay TARDIS resident

More than a decade after relaunching in a modern format with its first openly gay showrunner, Doctor Who is finally giving us its first openly gay companion.

Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie, was introduced to fans via a quick video last year. But Mackie only just revealed that Bill is gay -- and more importantly, she will say so in her second line of dialogue when the show returns in two weeks.

For Mackie, as well as Bill, that's a big no duh. "It shouldn't be a big deal in the 21st century," the actress told the BBC Friday. "That representation is important, especially on a mainstream show."

Russell T Davies, who rebooted the show in 2005, was proudly gay and the celebrated creator of Queer as Folk. He brought a new sexual sensibility to the TARDIS. But even he decided against introducing any openly gay characters among the show's regulars.

It was current showrunner Steven Moffat, then just a writer, who introduced Captain Jack -- a time-traveler from the 51st century and Doctor Who's first bisexual character.

Moffat will retire at the end of this season, as will the current regeneration of the Doctor, Peter Capaldi. No word yet on whether his replacement will solve Doctor Who's other diversity problem -- the fact that the main character changes his entire body at regular intervals, but never becomes anything other than a white male.

In recent years, Moffat has laid the groundwork to change that. He made it clear that the Doctor's enemy The Master can regenerate into Missy, and explicitly showed us a member of the Doctor's race -- the Time Lords -- regenerating from a white man into a black woman.

Whether the show takes advantage of this new bit of canon depends entirely on the decision of new showrunner Chris Cibnall.

Doctor Who materializes back on BBC America for its 10th season on April 15.