Missy

Craig here. It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new guest blogger – @thommck !

Missy Who?

Missy is this series’ big enigma. Who is she, where does she come from, is she a new or returning character?

This blog is me putting forward my bit of bonkers on answering some of those questions. I’ll try to support it with only facts from within the episodes we have seen. It definitely does not contain any spoilers and is purely my speculation. I’ll be really interested on your thoughts and urge you to put forward your own theories on Missy.

missy

The Facts

We actually don’t know a lot about Missy. All we’ve seen so far is as follows – a female dressed like she is from Victorian England despite a more modern spiky bracelet.

  • Deep Breath – The clockwork cyborg, Half-Face Man, was impaled and died in London in the Victorian times. Missy welcomed Half-Face Man into the Promised Land/Heaven, looking out on a lush garden. She claimed the Doctor is her boyfriend and that she’d “keep his accent”
  • Into The Dalek – Gretchen Carlisle was killed while miniaturised inside a Dalek. She then appeared at a table in what looks like an early 20th Century tea room, where Missy offered her some tea.
  • Robots of Sherwood – Alien robots in the Middle Ages were trying to reach a planet called the Promised Land, although this may be different place to where Missy is.
  • The Caretaker – In a white room, we met Missy’s assistant (companion?) Seb, who took care of the recently deceased PCSO, Matthew. Missy appeared but was “too busy” to see him.
  • Flatline – Missy was watching Clara remotely, with what looked like a 21st Century iPad

Top 10 Theories

I tried to make a list of all the current popular theories but I’ve heard so many it became almost infinite! Here is a rough top 10 amalgamation (in no particular order)

  1. The Master
  2. Another Timelord/Timelady (in or out of Gallifrey, Romana, Rani, Scintilla)
  3. A computer/data bank/imagination (CAL, e-Space)
  4. Wife/girlfriend/descendant/ancestor to the Doctor (Susan, River Song, Jenny)
  5. A previous companion (Clara, Adric)
  6. A future Doctor/Valeyard
  7. Robot/clone/doppelganger/replicant/shapeshifter/zygon
  8. An old “villain” (e.g. Miss Mercy Hartigan, Tasha Lem, Madame Kovarian)
  9. A dinosaur 😉
  10. Something new!

“The Woman In The Shop”, who gave Clara the TARDIS telephone number (Bells of St John), is also a popular theory but that could be any of the people above (well except maybe number 9!)

My Speculation

I am putting my money on number 2, a Timelady trapped in another universe.

We have seen/visited other universes and dimensions before in Doctor Who and they have just recently been highlighted in the episode, Flatline, which contained creatures beyond human perception. I think this is enough evidence to point to Missy being in a parallel/pocket/bubble universe/etc. rather than a digital memory bank (i.e CAL).

I had a quick look in to the history of parallel universes in the show as it gets a bit confusing trying to just remember it!

The Tenth Doctor said that there were “billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other.The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing.” (TV:Army of Ghosts) … At one point, travel between parallels was made relatively simple by the Time Lords, but, according to the Tenth Doctor, travel to parallel universes became almost completely impossible after the Last Great Time War, and could only happen under extraordinary circumstances. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) … tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Parallel_universe

The iPad Missy was seen using felt really odd to me. It is such an object of this time, right down to the protective cover it had. This makes me think Missy is now on 21st Century Earth but perhaps has the ability to time travel/dimension hop/phase. This can explain how she got Half-Faced Man from the Victorian era in Deep Breath as well as Gretchen from our future. Miniaturisation may well play a part as that has also been heavily referenced this year. Perhaps the ability to travel between universes is easier if you’re small!

This leads me to believe that Missy has to be a Timelady, one we haven’t seen on screen before. She has a “companion”, Seb, and “Heaven” could possibly be her TARDIS. She was made Guardian of the Nethersphere (a.k.a. Heaven, The Promised Land) by the Time Council as a punishment for a crime. She is on her last regeneration and would interrogate the dead to try and discover the secrets of immortality.

Since The Day of The Doctor we know that Gallifrey is still out there, vanished from our universe but still reachable through a crack. I’m not sure if Missy is on Gallifrey. I’m more inclined to believe she is in Void space or a parallel universe.

Her motive for pushing Clara and the Doctor together isn’t very clear to me at the moment. The easy option is that it was the Doctor who condemned her to her position as Guardian and so she is looking for revenge. The more bonkers version is that the Doctor is her boyfriend so she wants to kill him to bring him to Heaven. She is nudging Clara into a Doctor-type role so someone can relieve the Doctor of his duty, permanently!


82 comments

  1. @purofilion – perhaps she converted the mainframe to her heaven/paradise? as for the silence, they could be anywhere, still? or did the doctor find a way to always remember them? if not, one could be lurking about in the tardis, causing the doctor’s feelings of being watched…

    the biggest reason i don’t think she’s tasha lem is her outfit. i can’t see any reason for her to go so retro in style (though, again, there are so few clues about missy to start with, and just as little is known about tasha lem)…

    going by outfit, alone, i would think missy is a regeneration of romana, or the rani…

  2. @purofilion : the panties line was a joke!  I just meant that I’d be super excited. Don’t get your knickers in a twist 😉

    On a different note, I’m wiling to bet money that Jenny is not Missy:

    1) Jenny is ‘the Doctor’s daughter’. Regeneration or not, that still feels like incest 😛

    2) The actress that played Jenny is (now) David Tennant’s wife. (I’m not saying it’s not her because I’m super jealous or anything because I’m obviously NOT… SHUT UP 😉

    Back to my Missy/Rani theory: In ‘the time of the Rani’, her assistant referred to her as Mistress Rani and then later just as Mistress.

    Then, obviously it’s not a far stretch from Mistress to Missy.

    I’m really not opposed to other theories, but this is just the one that’s screaming in my face.

  3. @CourtK0027 – It’s a very sensible theory, of course.  The only reason why I don’t think she’s the Rani (or the Valeyard, for that matter) is that, when AG-Who has resurrected characters and monsters from BG-Who, they have generally (not exclusively, but generally) been from the Doctors 2-5 sweet spot.  Moff & Co. are certainly not ignoring what happened during Doctors 6 and 7 (and, after all, the GI in NotD mentioned “Valeyard” as one of the names the Doctor has been called by), but I just have a hard time imagining that they would do such a huge call-back to a character from a time period in the show that most people concede was a low point.

    I have, of course, been wrong before.

  4. @DrBen and @CourtK0027 yes I see the distinction. I believe the valeyard is a red herring but I think, ultimately,  it will be quite a shock. Will Missy be Clara? I think we are also led to believe that’s possible….Is Clara in ‘her head’? Perhaps, but that’s too close to ‘it’s all a dream’ & therefore a cop out. I agree that Moffat & the writers will take material from the ‘sweet spot’ -excellent choice of phrase Ben! (CourtK: knickers untwisting! -on your name I saw ‘C’ and ‘K’ and thought ‘B’ and ‘J’ implying Bond, James, then there’s the 007 which is 0027 in your case>>??)

  5. Just wanted to say before the next episode that my feeling is that Missy is a Time Lady – what convinced me were
    the Cyberman/seal of Rasilon-like combo windows behind her on the wall when he was snooping on her ipad – She might see herself as some sort of caretaker of cyberman and of the souls she rescued. Romana also always saw herself as the Doctors caretaker. If I recall the Timelords had her go as the Doctors companion for the purpose of pseudo- caretaking. I have to say also that the fruity Missy bonnet reminded me of 1 Romana wore. Romana also left the doctor to stay behind and help in another ‘E-universe’– plus she was a bit like a girlfriend. I cant stop thinking of the costumes Romana wore which nags at me because the period Victorian outfit on Missy also fits with that costume notion – Finally I know she created the Matrix during the Time War and maybe she is gathering warriors to protect it since that later version of Romana as the president of Galifrey was a bit more militant and built armies
    I used to think there could be a River connection but now not so much so for now I have settled on Romana – I may change that a few times before tomorrow however

  6. @PhileasF yes, as I said on The Sofa great bonkerising. I think you could be right. My fav idea now is your theory: Missy from Nightmare is now re-invigorated as a CyberHuman (hence the red cyber-eye picked up by others in previous episodes located behind her) and locked into Clara’s head. She was once Handles -hence the funny twitchy eye -that comes from having a crack down the middle of Handles face and when regenerated, was ‘healed’ to a point.

    I wonder too about Clara and the ‘dream state’ which could be seen as a cop-out. I recall thinking that Clara, good with literature, creates ‘scenes’ which make sense in that world: desperate for a romantic, dashing Robin Hood, she makes one up. Having always thought the moon was an egg (even in some pre-teen, pre-school ‘romance’ with the moon), she inspires a moon story where she gets to save the world. I mean, who hasn’t had that fantasy! She’s pretty rubbishy at science, though?

    As for Dan, is he involved with Missy now? Does he know much more than he’s letting on about the Dr and is he the connection point between Clara, ultimately, and this Doctor?

    @Lisa I like your theory too! I knew the bonnet Missy wears reminded me of something! Romana was formidably intelligent and if she’s a foe, then the Doctor’s in trouble!

     

  7. @purofilion and @lisa Ooooh no – I hope Missy is not Romana (I don’t think so) – she was such an amazing companion I don’t want her reduced to someone who thinks of the Doctor as her “boyfriend”. She always regarded the Doctor with affection disdain in some respects!

  8. @lisa   You have referred to Missy’s costume as Victorian, as have several others, but strictly speaking it isn’t; it’s Edwardian – the  kind of everyday outfit worn outdoors by ordinary women such as my grandmothers around 1905-1912 and perhaps up to the start of the Great War.  The distinction may not be significant, but it would tie in with the predictions of a possible link between the finale,  the anniversary of that war and Remembrance Day on November 11th.

    As for the identity of Missy, my head is spinning trying to take in all the ingenious and sometimes off-the-wall suggestions.  I rather like the idea of her as a personification of Death; the Doctor is, after all, closely acquainted with death in many forms, and her statement in Deep Breath that ‘…he loves me so much’ could refer to a subliminal death wish on his part, or to the fact that his activities so often involve people coming her way, or both.  I hasten to say that I don’t think that is the answer and I doubt whether I would be happy if it were – although it might be interesting to see how Moffat dealt with the concept 😕

  9. @phileasf nice theory linking Handles to Missy but would that mean Missy can’t be the WitS? Not sure if she could go back on the time stream like that?

    @mudlark good call on the outfit being Edwardian. Makes me think of how Captain Jack was sent back in time and fought through the wars. Maybe Danny is a bit like Jack, sent back in time (as Orson). Maybe we are being blind sided by Missy when we really should be looking at Danny?

    I have a horrible feeling Missy might end up being a nobody, just like Madame Kovarian. Done and dusted with by the finale. That would be a great loss after all this speculation!

    I’m starting to think that the finale might be yet another reboot to straighten things out. Lots of time being rewritten and crossed time lines that make people pop in and out of existence.

    @lisa, yay! What a fine avatar. The doctor has assembled an army of jelly babies to defeat Missy!

  10. @purofilion – I had some trouble fitting Danny into my latest theories. Orson looking the same as Danny might fit in with the Clara-as-unreliable-narrator-of-adventures-that-mostly-really-happened idea. She may be sufficiently fixated on Danny that another random character looks the same in her dream/memory of the events surrounding their first date. We thought it was odd that the Doctor didn’t notice they looked alike; but maybe the Doctor’s right, and they didn’t look anything alike.

    If there’s any truth in this idea, I feel sure the show’s makers will work hard to make as much of the season ‘true’ as possible, to appease the many people who’ll be bothered by an ‘it’s all a dream’ resolution. So I presume Danny’s a real person, and Clara really had/has a relationship with him.

  11. @thommck – If the Handles theory is right, I think Missy could still be the Woman in the Shop. I see no reason she couldn’t go back in time and visit Clara before she met Clara in Nightmare in Silver, and give her the phone number. There would be no logical contradiction involved. Just more ‘timey-wimey’.

  12. All this talk of it being in Clara’s head made me have a nice bit of bonkers as I made my coffee.

    I remembered how a line in the last episode made me think of how Donna wanted to save at least one family from Pompeii. This turned out to be the one where this doctor finds his current face.

    What if Clara is actually a figment of Donna’s imagination? Maybe Donna’s mind copes with all that Doctorness by creating a whole new world for the Doctor!?

    Now that really would upset a few viewers!

  13. Hi all.

    Although I will figure out how she’s the Papal Mainframe (let it go whisht, let it go…) how about Missy as The Master from the Land of Fiction?

    I know others have suggested it before, but it just now seems more likely, with Moffat riffing on themes of heroes, myths and truth, canon and ownership in fiction.

    Missy in this way becomes an embodiment of the (ahem) “crazed” fanfic writer.

    Who may be shipping a bit.

    So far so good.

    I just don’t have any idea how this works as an actual plot!

    🙂

  14. In the last window of opportunity before most of you (possibly) learn the answer, I will finally take a stand!

    I am going with the theory that Missy is a Time Lord. I don’t think that she is either the Rani or Romana, because to me she doesn’t behave as either character would behave. The Rani was rather humourless and goal-oriented, and Romana’s personality was much more understated. Missy seems to me to be too flamboyant to be either.

    I don’t think she is the Valeyard, mainly because he was supposed to have existed between at the end of the doctor’s regenerations, and I’m not sure what the new set would have done to his potential existence. My guess is that that timeline has been rewritten.

    She could be the Master as her personality matches his very well, and some kind of convoluted plot to get at the Doctor through Clara would suit his style. My only problem to this is that I would rather be surprised and amazed, and at this point, no one will be surprised or amazed at that solution!

    So I am guessing that she is a Time Lord, but someone completely new to us, or possibly someone who has appeared in the past but not necessarily in a context that would make him/her an obvious candidate.

    @lisa   Tasty avatar!
    @Mudlark    Good point about the Edwardian costume possibly tying in to a Remembrance Day theme.
    @thommck   The whole of Capaldi’s run is the dream of a companion from two Doctors ago? Love it.

  15. I’m going with Missy being the Matrix (I stuck my flag in that particular idea a very long time ago) because ‘Matrix’ can be a feminine term. No reason, especially dealing with Time Lords, that the Matrix doesn’t have its own embodiment, especially considering we’ve been shown the Moment in female form.

    When Gallifrey was timelocked, I’m not altogether sure the Matrix (the Gallifrey Hades) wasn’t timelocked too, and escaped when the Doctor was given new regenerations.

    They keep tossing cookies to those of us who liked The Thick of It, so might Seb be The Master, stuck in the Matrix but somehow making himself useful until he can hijack a new body?

  16. Hi all – it occurred to me this morning that if it is Romana  then she might also have the Tardis key-  in which case when the Doctor said in the

    beginning of the Forest episode that when he turns on the terrestrial navigation then other functions shut down it makes me wonder if

    Missy/possibly Romana ?  is getting access  into the Tardis  and messing with the controls etc……  so why ?? Why would you sabotage

    the Tardis in that peculiar way -to what purpose ???  7 ish more hours to the next episode for me —–  aaaahhhhh  !!!   lol

  17. GUYS DONT SKIP THIS COMMENT I THINK I KNOW WHO MISSY IS
    there was a female soldier in nightmare in silver who was called missy yes missy and she died there and it was a cybermen episode proof enough i think

  18. Okay, (probably) the last bonkers theory before we find out (unless they delay it until next week).

    ‘Missy’ is the woman from the scene at the end of Listen. The probable schoolmistress who knew that the little Billy Hartnell Doctor didn’t want to join the army. So she created Clara, to make him a Time Lord.

    🙂

  19. My 10year old isn’t sure, he’s switching between Missy being God to Missy watching the Doctor like a TV program collecting all the dead characters. That fits my original Fangirl theory (@whist).

    My 13y/o thought she was an older Clara when we first saw her, now he thinks she’s a completely new character

    20 mins to go!

  20. I admit to not having a clue!! (Well lots of clues (and theories) – to the point where it could be almost anything!

    (Hi fives @PhileasF – fellow dalekised Doctor theorist (I liked that theory, thank you for bringing it out for a little hug!))

    I agree with those who think she is probably a time lord. And I’m sticking with my War Games riff theory.

    Sidetrack to Danny. Maybe we should be looking more at Orson than Danny. The gunless soldier links Orson and Rupert. Danny is never seen with it.  Is Danny a red herring? And WHY does Orson have a TARDIS spacesuit?

    Unless… Dark Water and Missy’s comment about liking surprises made me think of River…

    Right…! Time for some wine, jelly babies at the ready.

    Enjoy everyone, and see you on the other side.

  21. I have a theory about Missy.
    In the episode Flatline Missy leaves us with a parting comment saying  “Clara, my Clara. I chose well.”

    I believe that Missy did choose Clara. In the episode The Bell’s of Saint John Clara calls the doctor for help with her internet password. It is later revealed that Clara got the doctors phone number from a mysterious woman in a shop. Could this woman be Missy?

    Your Thoughts

    Aprillia

  22. I’ve watched the latest episode 3 times and I still don’t believe it (not at face value, at least). It was far too anti-climactic :/ The Doctor asked her several times who she was… But isn’t he supposed to have some timey-whimey 6th sense for when there’s another Time Lord close?? They talked about it when The Master came back the first time (first time since classic Doctor) and they explained it with the subliminal drumming that was in the cell phone Archangel network. So, why could the Doctor not tell that there was another Time Lord standing RIGHT next to him??

    Is he playing dumb?

    Or what is it that concealed his/her identity for so long?

    It’s not that I’m obsessing over it because my prediction was wrong… This Missy/Master business just seems too simple.

    I hope part 2 leaves us with a satisfying explanation and not just a giant cliff hanger… My back already hurts from sitting on the edge of my seat all season.

    Am I alone in this or does anyone else feel immensely unsatisfied?

  23. @courtk0027So, why could the Doctor not tell that there was another Time Lord standing RIGHT next to him??

    my guess… he’s just distracted, trying to figure out what’s going on? taking missy at her word, that she’s only an android? when she puts his hand on her chest, i think he knows then (!), and is just playing dumb from then on, trying to piece together many different clues all at once. trying to figure out who this mysterious time lady is might explain why he missed all those little cyberclues for the next half hour, too!

    also, simm’s master was very  over the top, and loudly advertising himself (especially in ‘the end of time’). maybe missy is disguising herself in a subtle way, putting up some sort of distraction field? teasing the doctor, not wanting him to figure out the gender change too quickly, else it’ll ruin the big surprise…

    i love gomez’s take on the master, especially the “android” version. kooky enough to unsettle, but not “burning up and turning into a cannibal monster” insane… 🙂

  24. @court0027 Well, Missy could be a solid hologram – so the Doctor’s normal ‘Time Lord Detector’ isn’t working. In reality, Missy is trapped in the Matrix.

    Or, that ring she’s wearing could be a BioBlocker. Or it could be that he simply didn’t get close enough to play ‘spot the Time Lord’ until she kissed the hell out of him and while he then knew it was a Time Lady (she’s old fashioned), he didn’t know who.

    His sheer shock does suggest that while a regenerative sex change happens, it’s quite rare.

    I think that the reason Master/Missy seems too simple is that the keen fans were being given time to figure it out for themselves, and thus get used to the idea. Rather than ‘wha… huh… the Master’s now a woman?’ it was several weeks of ‘Missy… has the Master regenerated as a woman?’

    Good teaching technique. Let them work out a complex idea for themselves, rather than hitting them over the head with it.

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