Deep Breath

[Missy @missy]

Thoroughly enjoyed Deep Breath, one of the best I’ve seen from the Master Moffat.

I found it to be very funny and it was good to see all the old faces back.

Also, Murray gold has surpassed himself.

[SuzanneMS @suzannems]

Finally convinced myself to fork over the money to Amazon for season 8. LOVING Capaldi. He is so reminiscent of many Classic Doctors, which is when I started watching. Took a bit to get used to the new music, but I am really liking the way that it plays up the idea of a clock chiming.

Don’t know if anyone has mentioned this — I gave up reading the 651 comments somewhere around 200 — but Capaldi also appears in “Torchwood” as John Frobisher in the “Children of Earth” series in 2009, well after the Dr. Who connection was made.

Those asking whether the Doctor pushed the android or the android jumped — no way to tell. Even logic won’t help. The android says that his basic programming will not allow him to self-destruct; the doctor says that his won’t allow him to murder, then later says that “One of us is lying about his basic programming.” Well, if the android is lying, that means that he can self-destruct and the doctor cannot commit murder — so the android jumped. If the doctor is lying, it means he can commit murder and the android cannot self-destruct — so the doctor killed him.

I lean toward the latter. We know the doctor can kill — and that he has done it before by essentially pushing someone off the edge. Just ask the Sycorax leader.

Now that we all know who Missy is — and we do all know, right? If not, sorry.  I’d just ask what makes you think that this is the first time that this particular Time Lord has been a woman.

[Anonymous @]

@suzannems

hello and welcome to the site, if you’re new!

Yes, reading the comments or even scanning them helps. Well before I joined up, I was a ‘lurker’ (in a good way!) and read pretty much everything. But in the last 18 months, the site has definitely increased in size.

I’m pretty sure most ppl who watch the occasional Torchwood would have recognised  Capaldi as Frobisher. I’m not a real fan of Torchwood though some episodes I enjoyed a great deal. Barrowman is a very energetic actor with quite the charisma.

“Now that we all know who Missy is — and we do all know, right? If not, sorry.  I’d just ask what makes you think that this is the first time that this particular Time Lord has been a woman.”

Is this a question in response to what someone else said upthread? I think this is the first time the Master has been a “missy” although you’ve got me thinking. I’m pretty sure that’s the case. Other TLs have been women, for sure -good and bad alike.

🙂 Puro

[lisa @lisa]

@Purofilion Actually I got to thinking that Missy could have “Chris/Kaitlyn Jenner
mash-up transgender thing going on?? In which case that makes this a remarkable
year for the transgender community!

[Anonymous @]

@lisa

“Chris/Kaitlyn Jenner”  errr: oops, in this day & age, I should probably know who that is !?

Nonetheless, I agree with you about it being a remarkable year for Transg. communities considering the Supreme Court ruling which had a decent  following in some print media (although the Murdoch Press was staunchly opposed, for obvious reasons!) and some reporting occurred on ABC radio national “investigation.”

For example: “Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that….Today, in our extended hour -long programme we’ll be hearing from …..and …….and taking listener’s calls from……and……..”

The listener’s calls were from right wing conservatives who thought “hell was arriving in a hand basket” and we’d “better look to our own backyard and bedrooms.”

No kidding: that was the statement I heard as I was listening whilst driving. My fingers were stuck to the steering wheel in the end. These people want limited government oversight as long as it’s big enough to fit into someone’s bed room or ‘bedroom community’ -usually ‘gated’ but generally not private enough. Anyway, topic dalek could be on the way: ducks head!

Kindest,

puro.

[lisa @lisa]

Correction – I meant to say Bruce Jenner – Big Oops!
Kris is/was his/her wife

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@Purofilion and @suzannems

It’s unlikely that the Master was ever a Missy before, because the Doctor is completely stunned by it – errr… later. I don’t know how far you’ve got in the box set watching.

There was quite a lot of discussion when Capaldi was cast on how they were going to deal with the Caecelius/Frobisher thing. They dealt (off-screen) with his being recast as Frobisher by saying unofficially that Frobisher was one of Caecelius’ remote descendants, rather like Freema Ageyeman playing her own cousin.

But you can’t play that trick when one ‘face’ belongs to a Time Lord. 🙂 Or can they? There’s another case in Series 8 when two entirely different characters wear the same face…

@lisa I’d guess that Time Lord transgenders simply go through a controlled regeneration to the other sex. Or, more generally, it just happens. Though Michelle Gomez has made a couple of jokes along the lines of ‘Is Missy still the Master when you take the skirt off?’ 😈

But from the child point of view, it does mean that Doctor Who has long-running gay characters, straight characters, bisexual characters, long-running interracial relationships and now a long-running character who’s switched gender. If kids do have to be given that little talk about how Uncle John is now Auntie Johanna, it means they’ve already got the conceptual framework to put it in – rather than never having heard of such a thing in their little lives. That is, I think, a good thing. 🙂

[SuzanneMS @suzannems]

Probably ought to move this discussion to the last episode, but, oh well.

Not watching the box set. Watching it streaming on Amazon. I’ve seen them all once. Now going back through. I’ll pay more attention this time to how the Doctor reacts to Missy.

Does the Doctor know every one of the Master’s regenerations? We certainly don’t. We only see the Master when he interacts with the Doctor. Originally, the Master had gone beyond his 13 regenerations and was rather hideously decomposing, while desperately seeking means to reverse that process. Obviously they just ignore that in the new series.

This goes beyond transgender. It gets right to the heart of gender fluidity and the social construction of gender. What does gender mean to a species that can change the structure and shape of its body completely and entirely without medical intervention?  To a truly androgynous species? Ursula K. LeGuin asked these questions in 1969, in “The Left Hand of Darkness.” Dr. Who is just now catching up.

It also raises the question of the relationship between the Doctor and the Master — in particular, the Master’s feelings toward the Doctor. It also should make us wonder whether the Doctor, who so far has been presented as a straight male, would be attracted to men if he were a woman, or would he continue to be attracted to women?

They deal with the “face” in this first episode – the Doctor asks himself, “Why did I choose this face?” and unlike previous regenerations, he initially insists that it is not his face in the mirror, but that it belongs to someone else.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip

yes, thank you; I needed both a reminder and a refresher course in gender-bio-mechanics.  A few more years, and I’ll understand the sonic and its purpose. Whoa, I am baaad if I don’t catch up with the box set again: it’s been a whole year!

I always remembered the Frobisher angle but wasn’t aware of the Master as female -and I don’t believe he ever was (or is that a ‘she’ now?)  🙂

Kindest,

puro

[Anonymous @]

@suzannems

“or would he continue to be attracted to women?”

other than the she-bang with Rose, was the Doctor attracted to women?

There was River but she’s a time-person who regenerates etc…so that’s different. I think that the whole Doctor/female human thing is pretty out-of-the-picture now…though there was that time with Madame the Pomp-of-the- hat.

Alsoooo, with the Nurse in Martha’s series….so maybe I don’t have any evidence on my side 🙂

He was into snogging big-time, then.

U.K. LeGuin? Top class. Excellent indeed.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@Purofilion

It makes a lot of sense if you see ‘sexual attraction’ as something that also changes with regeneration. I’d argue that the Doctor isn’t presented as an invariably straight male – Capaldi’s Doctor certainly seemed to want Psy to give him a call. 😉 Other Doctors have played up the ‘asexual’ angle, to the extent that some fans still desperately insist that the Doctor is asexual (in the face of a granddaughter and four marriages).

So the Tennant Doctor was attractive to anything and anyone. He was also attracted to Rose – but wouldn’t let himself act on it, because of the age differential. The cases where we know he acts on it are a) Nurse Redfern, when he was human and b) Queen Elizabeth, when he thinks she’s a Zygon (poison sacs in the tongue. Just saying).

But I think you could argue that the Tennant Doctor stays away from sexual relationships with humans after School Reunion/The Girl in the Fireplace, when he realises just how badly he hurt Sarah Jane – and then has a particularly brutal re-introduction to the brevity of human life when compared to his lifestyle.

@suzannems – oddly, we’ve been arguing off-screen events on another topic. What happens off-screen? Well, the answer is that we don’t know and have no way of knowing unless reference is made to it on-screen. Missy seems pretty comfortable as a woman, so she might have previously regenerated as a woman.

However, the Doctor is obviously desperately trying to work out who this woman is … and is so blank on the possibility of it being the Master that the thought of the Master changing sex clearly never occurred to him. The Jacobi Master also refers disparagingly to being shot by a woman, which doesn’t sound to me like he’s been one himself.

On the other hand, the Doctor mentions another friend who switched between genders. So is it genuinely fluid and unremarkable? Or is it, in Gallifreyan society, something a bit eccentric? Or is it like the Tennant Doctor regenerating into the apparently-twelve-years-old Smith Doctor – one of those slightly embarrassing regeneration accidents?

Discuss.

[fern8372 @fern8372]

To be honest I’m very disappointed with the new doctor he’s ruthless, he isn’t handsome, he isn’t funny, and the adventures we’ve seen so far in season eight aren’t even close to as fun or interesting as they were with David Tennant or Matt Smith. He’s just a boring Doctor and he always seems kind of depressed. Also, he doesn’t seem to be as brilliant as past Doctors. I think they should have had a younger more handsome doctor because that really brings up viewers. I love the show with or without a handsome doctor but they were doing so well with the actors up until now and I really hope in the upcoming episodes there will be a better story than it is now. Also, in the past, the Doctor’s companions were always on the TARDIS with him but now, Clara is being dropped off on Earth after every adventure. In the past the present time was much less involved and I liked it that way.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@fern8372

To be honest I’m very disappointed with the new doctor he’s ruthless, he isn’t handsome, he isn’t funny, and the adventures we’ve seen so far in season eight aren’t even close to as fun or interesting as they were with David Tennant or Matt Smith. He’s just a boring Doctor and he always seems kind of depressed. Also, he doesn’t seem to be as brilliant as past Doctors. I think they should have had a younger more handsome doctor because that really brings up viewers. I love the show with or without a handsome doctor but they were doing so well with the actors up until now and I really hope in the upcoming episodes there will be a better story than it is now. Also, in the past, the Doctor’s companions were always on the TARDIS with him but now, Clara is being dropped off on Earth after every adventure. In the past the present time was much less involved and I liked it that way.

This post was brought to you by Troll-O-Bot Enterprises, generating posts that contain all your bait needs(1), without that pesky “effort” thing.

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[ScaryB @scaryb]

@bluesqueakpip

So is it genuinely fluid and unremarkable? Or is it, in Gallifreyan society, something a bit eccentric? Or is it like the Tennant Doctor regenerating into the apparently-twelve-years-old Smith Doctor – one of those slightly embarrassing regeneration accidents?

That had me ROFL-ing off the couch 🙂

It’s remarkably on-trend* and topical of the show – almost as if it had access to time travel in real time, LOL

 

*use of on-trend slang to demonstrate just how on-trend I am!! (Yeah, right!! 😉 )

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip

“discuss” Oh no way!  I’ve been discussing this stuff on t’other threads haven’t I?

@scaryb helloo??? Welcome back from busy land.

@pedant where the frell have you been? Oi!  You heard LeGuin didn’t you. Yes you did!! Your computer must be set to certain responses. (Puro’s muttering, muttering).

OK. He has the ability to be asexual. I think our Capaldi doctor does this rather well -the Smith dr does too and yes Sci (sic) was given the “call me” sign. I believe he’s interested in people, if it’s a sexual thing? No, I’m not gonna think too hard on that. It works but then it doesn’t because then we have to assume every platonic interest contains a sexual nuance and no…just no..

Right, well that won’t get me a ‘pass’ but maybe next year….. 🙂

[SuzanneMS @suzannems]

Well, we do know that River Song has always been female — we’ve seen each of her regenerations. We have not seen all of the Master’s, so it is incorrect to claim that the Master has always been male.

The Doctor is also trying to desperately figure out who he is. Besides, doesn’t he — don’t we — all believe that the Master is dead and gone?

If the writers, et al., are not trying to suggest that the Master has been a female before, what is the meaning of her calling the Doctor “My boyfriend?” She says this to the android, so unless it’s meant entirely for the audience, it can’t be a reference to 11 and Clara.

Another possibility, of course, is that the Master has always had, shall we say, certain feelings for the Doctor and engineered this regeneration in order to attract the Doctor? That, of course, assumes that the Doctor is straight.

So far, the Doctor’s companions have been female; the only men along for the ride have been attached to the female companion (I think — can’t remember about Jamie). So, he’s at least performing “straight.”

What I was questioning is whether attraction is determined by gender or if it is something that is a permanent aspect of the . . . soul? personality? Does it change with regeneration so that the Time Lord is always cisgendered? Or is it fixed?

It is also entirely possible that the Doctor is omnisexual, that all Time Lords are.

And I think Capaldi is sexy as hell — and funny — and refreshingly free of cloying sentiment. Practical, pragmatic, and something else that starts with p.

Finally an adult in charge of the Tardis again. Nice of them to remember us old fans who have stuck with it for the past 50 years.

And can someone tell me how to do that @reply thing?

[Anonymous @]

@suzannems

All you need to do is to type @ followed immediately by the person’s name such as @bluesqueakpip  (- who, above, commented on a different issue but which bears some relation to this discussion 🙂  )

That way you’ll be certain of sending a msg to their email box ‘at home’.

As for ‘p’ words: pompous; particular; perfidious (at times, he gives that impression); prolific…. but there’s a word in the back of my mind, that, darn, has left me! It would describe this incarnation perfectly.

Given that personality changes with each regeneration or iteration, then possibly, sexuality and sexual preferences could also change. But I’m with Pip in thinking that what’s on screen is what occurs. Yes, well, I’ve phrased that poorly as it’s quite bloomin’ obvious, innit? 🙂

If it’s not on the page it’s not on the stage. An abrupt comment or adage but it works. As I said up thread a few days ago when a new member was discussing canon and the Judeo, Hebraic-Christian tradition as if effects the Doctor’s decision making, I think this adage helps us to anchor the Doctor in some small, but necessary, way.

The Doctor is a rational being -at times there’s a sense of confusion and almost a lack of lucidity -I’m thinking of past iterations but not wanting to single out a specific one! Certainly rational processes still rumbled about in the muddied depths of his consciousness, even then, and if he appeared confused, it was often a clever façade.

However, when Missy appears, the Doctor simply doesn’t jump to the conclusion that she is, in fact, his ‘long lost’ nemesis.

The Doctor’s personality is at once disarming, frank, mischievous, intoxicating, prudent, euphoric, unfocussed, chill, intelligent and calm. Different iterations fragment and pull out various elements of this vast personality. He relishes trouble and in his questions affects a keen solicitude which appears bewildering and doesn’t necessarily spring from a love of that particular person who is the focus, temporarily, of the Doctor. The latter is so bewitching and, mixed with a romantic temperament,  uses these questions as a disguise to occasionally seek information in order to further a particular cause, or more likely, solve a unique problem.

My point, by way of digression (I have a romantic temperament as well!) implies the Doctor would be interested in either gender of the species. I have no real evidence from BG (Before the Gap) to internalise and then specify this ‘feeling’ but his vigorous attention to both males and females (see his love for The Master during The End of Time where he cradles his head and helplessly begs The Master to regenerate) suggests this possibility.

Again, though, one can state that his “love for the Master” is part of an incalculable commemoration of past memories, when they were children, running through The Master’s estates, with a red sky framing this rather delightful picture. Tennant’s Doctor is very much alone and at times, frightened and insecure. His feelings for humans and those ladeez for whom he developed (rather quickly) an admiration (Rose, Madame de Pompadour, Nurse…) is evidence of a particular need which remained insatiate. Was it desire? Possibly.

Was it purely a sexual or sensual attraction? I think there were elements of that during this iteration. Certainly the case of Adelaide in The Waters of Mars lends a different patina to this portion of the Doctor’s long and rather lonely existence. Has he ever affected a gay countenance? I haven’t smelt a whiff of it (to paraphrase a rather nasty Australian talk back radio commentator) and so I think that the Doctor’s attention and attraction to human males is left in a murky grey area which we haven’t mined as yet.

So if his personality isn’t inalterable and if his connections with humans (and some time lords) are diverse then it’s entirely plausible for the Doctor to be bi-sexual. I don’t expect we would ever see such connections on screen -it’s a PG rated programme here in Oz- and so with rather fraudulent recollections (as I haven’t mentioned a single episode in BG Who, for example), I really only have memories of recent iterations on which to call and these memories are not exacting -they’re feelings and a sense, rather than something binding or holding an impression of evidence. But in the interests of candour, I’d say “yes, attraction can change with regeneration.”

@cathannabel, if you’re about, I’d love to hear your impressions of this? And @scaryb you’re back!! Do you have some magnificent perceptions to draw upon, here? And @lisa as well.  Whoa, partay!

Kindest, puro

[Anonymous @]

@suzannems

You must forgive my fusty approach to terminology in a discussion of this nature as I’m aware that using ‘bi-sexual’ instead of asexual or other related but not interchangeable terms is problematic (on my behalf) -it’s not a confusion so much as a decision to laminate the Doctor with an ‘idea’ such as ‘bi sexuality’ as opposed to asexuality which is considerably different.  I think we can safely say he isn’t asexual.

I must add that I liked your omnisexual concept very much. But unfortunately it reminded me of one of Malcolm Tucker’s phrases: “From bean to cup you f*** it up”. This would be an excellent description of my own post, above, which is certainly a narration, in the extreme, and which adds nothing further to the dimensions of this wholesale discussion!

Kindest, puro.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip

Pip, I liked these comments:  “Missy seems pretty comfortable as a woman, so she might have previously regenerated as a woman.” and:

“…and is so blank on the possibility of it being the Master that the thought of the Master changing sex clearly never occurred to him. The Jacobi Master also refers disparagingly to being shot by a woman, which doesn’t sound to me like he’s been one himself.”

This suggests that The Master probably hasn’t been female and yet I don’t think the members here would claim he’s only ever been male?  (referring to @suzannems statement)

@fern8372

well halloo and welcome (I always try to say ‘howdy-do-dee’ to any new member…but…), I can see you’ve been given the @pedant welcome. And you’ve come out unscathed. The comment:

“he isn’t handsome, he isn’t funny, and the adventures we’ve seen so far in season eight aren’t even close to as fun”

is so off the wall —–, I am speechless (rare). Handsome for whom???

If I wasn’t married, I’d be fantasising my own version of soft porn with Peter Capaldi; his willowy, elegant form, coupled with cool hair and a lovely, witty smile is cause for serious Corn (Porn mixed with Capaldi, right?). Yes, he’s not Justin Beiber or a snogging Tennant or an in-your-twenties, tween, Smith.  He appeals to a market that is over 40 years old! OMG and LOL and I believe, ROFL, also applies.

As to “bringing up more viewers” LOL, LOL and more LOL. Have you seen the amount of increased viewers with Capaldi? In  Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics,  not to mention Dubrovnik where a brother recently visited, the viewer-ship is gigantic. Even hotel rooms are showing Who on their pay per view channels. People can’t stop talking about it. Cafes and diners have posters and pick-up postcards for patrons to look at/collect. So, I think the viewer-ship is doing very well indeed.

He’s wickedly funny but then you have to be old enough and aware of social mores to get the funnies, possibly. Also, it’s not slap-stick as I recall with Smithy and Tennant. It’s a deeper humour with satire and wit.

Take a look at Deep Breath where he’s talking to a mirror, then to another mirror as well as an old dude off the street. His behaviour during the horse-jack (he nicked a horse) was also super-funny and clever. I think it was a very different entrance to the Smith one three years prior, where he pops out of the lop-sided Tardis, soaking wet and yet smiling and attractive. Here, Capaldi’s in a nightgown, with slippers, sliding over the roof-tops of London without the typical grace one usually associates with Capaldi. But it was very funny and yet poignant.

As for ruthless, he aint Human! He be Time Lord and as your hottie Smith once said in relation to House killing TL’s, “Fear me, I killed them all.”

That is more ruthless than Arnie in True Lies sending an RPG into a crowded building.

Then we could refer to The Battle of Demon’s Run, where, at the beginning,  the Doctor sends Roman Rory with a message: it’s not words but rather the magnificent blowing up of a Dalek fleet (at least I think they’re daleks!)

So,  I hope I’ve made a dent, an impression, and that you’ll persist with the series. It’s not ever going to be the same again (I’m quoting an Australian band here) which is excellent. We don’t need the same old stuff -we need fresh and bright, new, clever and vigorous (but this time, to quote RTD, we don’t get as much running!). This time it’s:

“an idiot in a box”

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip @suzannems

where I said “the Dr has the ability to be asexual”

I then completely contradicted this!

Goodness, I meant to say “the Dr has appeared asexual,” particularly in BG Who, but by the re-boot we have the Doctor strolling away with Tree Lady as Rose looks on bemused (and a little nervous) because the Doctor is clearly attracted to this female of the species.

But bi-sexual or omnisexual, yes, indeed. Though we haven’t seen this -there are vibes, I’d venture to add, but we don’t possess much evidence at this stage.

***apologies to all for totally clogging up this thread with5 posts and rambling! I shall go do something else not Who-ish.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@suzannems  @purofilion  @bluesqueakpip

I don’t hold a strong view either way, but I do recall Nine being pretty flirty with Jack Harkness in the “Are you my Mummy” two-parter. 

And if gender can change with regeneration (and it has now been made specific) I can’t imagine sexual orientation being unchangeable (if TL’s aren’t as you say more malleable than the notion of sexual orientation suggests.)

Personally, though, my own sense is that gender change is not the norm upon regeneration. Immediately after his regeneration, Eleven acknowledged the possibility that he had become a woman, but he did seem taken aback by it.

I’ve always felt that Ten was the Doctor who most wanted to be human, having lost his own people. I like Pip’s idea that his encounters with Sarah Jane and Madame du Pompadour served to remind him of the bitter reality that he could never be human. I was always struck by his response to Rose when they thought they were trapped in one time in “The Impossible Planet”. She was still imagining that they could be together; he realized that they could not.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@suzannems

If the writers, et al., are not trying to suggest that the Master has been a female before, what is the meaning of her calling the Doctor “My boyfriend?”

I quite simply thought that he (the Doctor) had been his (the Master’s) boyfriend. Men can have boyfriends. Besides, ever since the Simm Master, I’ve thought (and said) that the Master was basically ‘that ex-boyfriend who turns out to be a psycho stalker’.

Of course, since they’re flat-out playing Missy as the Doctor’s very own stalker, it’s possible that the ‘boyfriend’ bit was entirely in his/her head; the Doctor only ever saw the relationship as a very close friendship.

[Anonymous @]

@arbutus @bluesqueakpip @suzannems

thank you arbutus (our tree lady!) for joining in! I completely overlooked the statement:  “If the writers, et al., are not trying to suggest that the Master has been a female before, what is the meaning of her calling the Doctor “My boyfriend?”

I agree that the Master was always interested in the Doctor to the point of obsession. I can imagine them as young lads, arms interlocked, running across the Estates I mentioned above….red sky…delightful picture…and so on.

I also think that whilst changing genders can occur, and that certain people on Gallifrey might well be bi-sexual or gay, I don’t think there’s much evidence to back that up, as yet. I assume that it’s possible. It’s not out of the question, anyway. As Pip suggested, “… in Gallifreyan society, something a bit eccentric?”

I imagine that there’d be many viewers who would find gender changing or bi-sexuality in the Doctorr ‘upsetting’ -in fact, I’m sure of that! And that’d be a real shame -certainly, colleagues of mine who enjoy Who have posited this theory and claim “that’s the day I would stop watching.” Tossers.

Being Missy and following the entire play acting -the make-up, the era of dress, the hair and generally the whole sartorial she-bang, screams “slightly mad” (or even totally loony toons). Saying “my boyfriend” would simultaneously irk the Doctor, confuse and annoy him which is perfect for the Master. He loves attention. This is one way to get it. No doubt, upon seeing the previous incarnation of the Doctor (from wherever he/she was): cute, professorish, cool with bow ties and fez and an alluring twenty-something, Missy saying “my boyfriend” could upset Clara; make her a tad jealous…because that’s how The Master works. The fact that Clara is desperate to locate the love of her life is immaterial to Missy: she still wants to create tension, envy, and confusion.

It’s her/his MO.

I was thinking of that ‘p’ word which describes the Doctor:   palimpsest! (at last she recalls. Problem is, my spell checker has gone out for a smoke and consequently, I’ve no idea if I receive an ‘A’ for spelling, here)

Kindest, puro.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

The answer for why the Master regenerated as a woman is stunningly obvious if one just watches the past season, other than perhaps she could have been a bit younger so as to be clearly of fertile age — but perhaps things are far different for Time Lords.  It is given right in an episode of the past season Time Heist where it was shown with a male and female of a species there is always hope for the species to continue.  It was also shown that for the sake of a species survival, many would do almost anything, and that that was not necessarily a bad thing.

 

 

 

[lisa @lisa]

@Purofilion @bluesqueakpip @arbutus @suzannems

I am still wondering whether this was a regeneration or a download after the
fashion of the downloaded people into the Matrix and into the Cybermen? Whether it
is a download why chose a female body? So what sort of a statement is Missy or
the writers trying to make about the sex switch?
Was it about trying to reduce the amount of suffering she had experienced being a male
Master? She suggests that she wants her companion/friend back so maybe she’s trying
to use the female body thinking that she can then achieve this more effectively?
Maybe she is going with the nearest form that she thinks in terms of social roles might
create better chemistry.
So we don’t know if this ‘happened’ to her or if it was a choice. I think it was a choice.
Why? For me it all goes to the relationship Missy is after. A new level of connection that
wont be possible as long as she is a Master ‘form’. Although she has shown she still is as
bananas as ever but in her deranged and delusional strategy she thought she may have
discovered power and low risk.

[lisa @lisa]

@jphamlore I agree this might also be a possibility especially if it turns out that
there are no other timelords in the neighborhood. Of course if they do save Galifrey
at some point then its not survival its another thing 😉

[lisa @lisa]

It occurs to me that Missy can create lots of new little Time lords as long as
she can get access to some DNA from herself and the Doctor.
Remember 3W ‘Death is not the end”
Missy was up to all kinds of experiments as if she wants to continue something
and it could be some Time lords? But she does possess all sorts of technology
so I’m not entirely sure she wants to personally procreate. But Who nose?

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@purofilion

where the frell have you been?

Still peripatetic, but tantalisingly close to being able to put a stake in the ground.

[Anonymous @]

@pedant

Hot damn, that’s the other ‘P’ word I was going to use to describe the Doctor.

Wow! It has been a long time for thou wandering in deserts and across moors.

Stakes: very unwieldy things. Let us hope you find  home soon.

[Missy @missy]

When I saw this on TV, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I liked it or not. It was so different.
By the time the second episode was due, I had the set and watched Deep Breath again – and really liked it.
PC has a way of jumping from one subject to another with great ease. One minute he’s talking about his eyebrows ceding from his face, and the next breath he says “Give your coat.”

I think that his Doctor has more human in him than the other three.

[SuzanneMS @suzannems]

@purofilion @bluesqueakpip @jphamlore @lisa @IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @missy

Love it! Take a day off to do that thing called “work,” and look what is waiting for me!

Just to be clear — this is all speculation (the home page does say that this is the place for it) and I realize that the writers, etc., can and will do whatever they like.  But to just leave it at that is no fun, is it?

I do think there is a difference between trying to argue that something that was shown “on the stage” really didn’t happen or was reversed “off the stage,” and suggesting that something that was not shown “on the stage” might have happened “off the stage.” We know that the Doctor has only ever been male — we know all of his generations. We do not know this about the Master. We do not know that we have seen all of his generations, and in fact, we know that we have not, unless we are going to disregard the original series. The Master, in the original, was already on his umpteenth regeneration.

We also know that our ideas about sexuality are restricted by our human view of it. We are coming around to the idea that it is not solely an issue of biology/anatomy, but we still tend to see it as relatively fixed and stable. We see bisexuals as always bisexual, homosexuals as always homosexual, heterosexual as always heterosexual. Transgender people say that they have always felt like the other sex -not that they felt like their biological sex until a certain point.

For most of us, our experience makes it very difficult to imagine a kind of free-floating sexuality. I suppose that bi-sexual comes closest, but even that term insists that there are only two sexes.

And certainly most viewers would react very badly to a Doctor Who is not straight — hence, the Master becomes Missy and the Doctor is confounded.

So, now, we and the writers can really play around with the question of sexuality for a species that can and does change gender — and knows it. Do all change gender? If not, why not? What determines if and when? Certainly can make for some interesting storytelling!

IIRC, the Jacobi Master did not know who he was when he referred to being shot by a woman. It’s 6:38 in the morning and my husband would not be pleased if I were to turn on Netflix to refresh my memory! Besides, a little thing like that never stopped the writers before and no one is claiming that the Master is a stable personality!

Missy says that the Doctor is her boyfriend and “loves me so much” to the android, not the Doctor. Does she say this to Clara? Looks like I’ll have to watch it again — so sad! Of course, it is all part of one of the themes of this episode, which is exploring different kinds of love and clarifying relationships.

Oh, yes, she’s the ultimate psycho-stalker — through time and space. And it is entirely possible that, when she found herself a woman, she re-cast their relationship in those terms. That certainly is the most parsimonious explanation. Or that she regenerated as a woman specifically because she wanted to interact with the Doctor as a female. It is a new twist on their relationship, which had become rather formulaic.

Not so sure about Missy being Eve. Kind of dangerous to have a psycho as the mother of a new generation of Time Lords. And the Doctor clearly is not interested. Besides, if all we want is a new race of Time Lords, the Doctor can do that using only his DNA — remember?

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

@suzannems But I think part of the point that Missy is trying to make with her very appearance, the time period she chose, is that the Doctor might not have love for her, but that he has duties as a member of the aristocracy and must remember that in the end he must be of a higher level than the servants, ie, humans.

Thus the manipulations of Missy into the Doctor and Clara’s relationship.  I suspect Missy is trying to manipulate things so that the Doctor will realize that he may have a million adventures with a servant, but eventually he must grow up and realize he is aristocracy.  So Missy has been trying to make the Doctor and Clara’s relationship as intense, as exciting, as possible, but the Doctor must realize it must eventually end, probably badly.

Missy’s appearance I interpret is the last era where one could argue this with a perfectly clear conscience.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jphamlore – Missy’s appearance isn’t aristocratic. It’s Victorian governess. Now, let’s see – who’s the governess/nanny/teacher around the Doctor. Oh, yeah. It’s Clara. 🙂 Personally, I’m going for ‘Space Dad’ and ‘Space Mum’ for Clara – in that Clara has two perfectly human parents; but she would never have existed if the Doctor and Missy hadn’t interfered in her life. But in honour of @juniperfish, who is firmly insistent that Clara is the Doctor’s daughter/granddaughter, I’ll make the following points:

1. Clara is so like the Doctor, she can actually be the Doctor when she has to be (Flatline).
2. The Doctor describes Clara (mistakenly, because Missy set up the restaurant meeting) in Deep Breath as an ‘egomaniac needy game player sort of person.’ Which means that, without realising, the Doctor’s just described Clara as being very like Missy.
3. Throughout Series 8, we see that Clara is quite capable of lying to and manipulating the people she most loves.
4. She’s also capable of going damn near insane with grief; she’d willingly kill herself and the Doctor to punish him for not bringing Danny back.
5. In Death in Heaven, Missy treats Clara very much the way she treats the Doctor; dumps her in a dangerous situation and leaves her to get out of it by herself. 😉
6. In Listen, the TARDIS takes Clara to the children’s home where Danny is staying. The Doctor, who has investigated her entire life, appears perfectly happy that a little baby Clara might be in the children’s home and has just forgotten about it.
7. We never did see Clara’s mum in hospital just having given birth. We first saw Clara at home, a few months old. It’s compatible with adoption.
8. In Night Terrors, we also see that adoptive parents can forget that they are adoptive parents.

And finally: Moffat has played this game before; it’s not the first time he’s had the adult child turn up before the parents become the parents. 😈

[ichabod @ichabod]

THIS MIGHT BE SPOILER-ISH — ?  SO, WARNING FOR THOSE WHO WANT NO POSSIBLE SPOILING.  I’d go over to the spoiler thread, but my comments below won’t make any sense without previous comments, above — by @suzannems @missy et al on this thread.

 

 

 

@jphamlore

. . . Missy is trying to manipulate things so that the Doctor will realize that he may have a million adventures with a servant, but eventually he must grow up and realize he is aristocracy.

It’s more like an aristocrat with his pets, though — MissMaster even uses that term for humans, pejoratively, in DB.  But the TLs aren’t, strictly speaking, a “race” that has to be bred, is it?  My understanding is that It’s a class of the dominant species (which looks like humans, at least when we’re looking at them) on Gallifrey.  The Doctor and MissMaster could produce new Gallifreyans, by one means or another, but it would take the Time Lord Academy to turn those offspring into Time Lords, if the kids made it through the training (which doesn’t exist any more in our universe).  MissMaster might still want to do the Adam/Eve thing with the Doctor, of course, since she’s been driven crazy the looking into the Time Vortex, so your theory could hold up in *her* mind and could have led her to maneuver the real last hurrah of the Doctor’s adventures, with Clara, before expecting him to settle down and make Gallifreyans with her crazy self.

@bluesqueakpip  . . . Clara has two perfectly human parents; but she would never have existed if the Doctor and Missy hadn’t interfered in her life.

Do you mean that Clara as a part-mystical companion (who jumped into the Doctor’s time stream to protect his life) would never have existed, right?  Because she already exists, as normal human girl, when that leaf-thing happened, didn’t she?  And the leaf-event, whatever it was, is what you mean by the Doctor and Missy “interfering in her life”?

Or are you saying that they interfered in her life *before* the leaf-event, as in “Clara was *born to save the Doctor*” (which sounds as if she was not human even before being born), and the leaf-event was a trigger for that mystical saviour-Clara to take over her previously human life?

Or was she never human but a time-savvy alien all along, adopted as a young child by her human parents?  She’s the (future) daughter of Missy and the Doctor, grown to adulthood and traveling back in time to get adopted and then leafing out, so to speak, into Clara the Vortex-diving Doctor-Saviour.  And *then* becoming very human Clara in S8, puppet-mastered by Missy to bring the Doctor back to Missy so the two of them can engender Clara, their future child and present backwards-time-traveling adult offspring?

Ye gods.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@ichabod

Because she already exists, as normal human girl, when that leaf-thing happened, didn’t she?

Not exactly… it’s a Moffat loop, I’m afraid. Clara leaps into the time-stream and, among other things, causes the leaf to blow into Dad’s face. Which means her parents meet, and marry. If Clara had never leapt into the time stream, her parents would never have met.

There was never any ‘normal human girl’, not really, except insofar as she thought she was a normal human girl – because she really was only born in order to save the Doctor. Missy gives her the TARDIS phone number, so Clara meets the Doctor, which means she leaps into the time stream to save him, which enables her to blow the leaf into her Dad’s face, which means he meets her Mum, which means there is a Clara to meet Missy, who gives her the phone number…

If Clara’s human parents are her biological parents, she’s a genetically human girl. The Doctor and Missy are her metaphorical, not biological parents, because they’re jointly responsible for Clara ever existing. Without Missy and the Doctor, Clara would never have been born. If you like, they’ve jointly inserted into the time-stream a person who never should have existed; an ‘Impossible Girl’. That’s my bonkers theory.

However, another popular theory is that Clara is the Doctor’s biological daughter/granddaughter. Since everyone on-screen keeps insisting that Clara is human, definitely human, perfectly normal, nothing to see, move along please 😉 …

… we’d be needing the Chameleon Arch. Which has, of course, been used by both the Master and the Doctor – and Missy/Master is just bonkers enough to use it on a baby. Since no one has ever mentioned adoption, you’d also need some kind of Tensa-like ‘forget she’s adopted’ field. Missy, of course, is very good at hypnosis.

[Either theory would explain why Clara has these amazing powers to save the Doctor, change his minds about Gallifrey, and persuade the Time Lords to give him a new set of regenerations. Because either way, she’s the product of the future where Gallifrey exists and Missy can escape from it to meet her in the shop – which is also the future where the Capaldi Doctor exists to give the final touch to the calculations. ]

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

By the way, speaking from a characterisation point of view, I can’t really see Missy caring tuppence about continuing the Gallifreyan race. Especially since she now knows that the Time Lords emergency survival plan involved sending her seven year old self round the twist. For all we know, the Doctor really is The Last of the Time Lords, because the Simm Master succeeded in killing the entire High Council of Time Lords. 😈

However, I can very easily see her realising the immense potential for manipulation that being the mother of the Doctor’s only not-missing, not-presumed-dead child would give her.

From the point of view of that awkward problem that faces all producers with regard to the Master/Missy – namely, why does the Doctor keep letting him live when he knows the Master’s a mass-murdering psycho – ‘she’s the mother of my child’ might be a more credible excuse. We’ve already seen that the Doctor has now recognised that he has to kill her; it might be handy to come up with something besides ‘I escaped!’ 🙂

[Anonymous @]

Hi @bluesqueakpip

speaking from a characterisation point of view, I can’t really see Missy caring tuppence about continuing the Gallifreyan race

Good point. It makes more sense Missy would be trying to stop the Doctor from saving the TLs.

As always, good logic for the Clara Moffat loop theory.

Just to present a theory for the non-loop fans, I don’t think it’s certain that Clara blew the leaf into her dad’s face. So it’s possible Missy blew the leaf to make Clara get born, just like Missy gave the TARDIS number to make Clara meet the Doctor.

If that happened then no loop required.

We’ve already seen that the Doctor has now recognised that he has to kill [Missy]

It’s true the Doctor really looked like he was going to kill Missy, but it might have been another moment where he didn’t know of any other options.

The Doctor deciding to kill again so soon after DotD doesn’t seem to fit, and makes me think that maybe 12 really hasn’t saved Gallifrey yet. That could explain why he has forgotten the lesson he just learned in DotD. So maybe we will see 12 save Gallifrey and then decide not to kill Missy afterwards.

I gotta get some new time lines if DotD hasn’t happened for 12 yet, so I’m still hoping DotD already happened.

In that case the Doctor might have only looked like he was going to kill Missy. But I agree he really looked serious, so that doesn’t seem likely.

Instead maybe he will figure out there is other options for dealing with Missy, now that he has more time to think about it. Just like he learned there was another way to end the time war.

From the point of view of that awkward problem that faces all producers with regard to the Master/Missy – namely, why does the Doctor keep letting him live when he knows the Master’s a mass-murdering psycho

Master/Missy has to be given a lot of credit for being really good at escaping. The Doctor always thinks he stopped the Master/Missy.

Even if the Doctor does kill Missy, it wouldn’t be certain she wouldn’t come back still.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@bluesqueakpip  Thanks for the diagram — it works, until I look away from it . . . told you, I have trouble with time travel stories.  So I’ll stick with the simplest explanation I can find, until The Big Reveal — whenever that comes (and it better be in S9, or there’s gonna be trouble).

@barnable  Well, the Doctor is supposed to use brains, not violence, to crack a problem, so when he loses it and wipes out a whole species, say, that’s a shocker; but face to face intentional murder, even under abundant provocation — ?  That’s a really tough one, for him.  Missy “won” by pushing him to that point and slightly beyond the place that he refuses to go — the ultimate resort to lethal violence against an individual standing right in front of him.

Apparently, under those conditions with this particular evil and destructive person, the Doctor is only human.  He *did* mean to kill her.  That’s why the Brig did it instead — as a favor to an old friend, a favor that costs the Brig nothing, morally speaking.  Determining who the enemy is and killing it has been his whole career.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip @suzannems @lisa @ichabod  @jphamlore @barnable

I was watching the Tensa in Night Terrors yesterday and the idea of adopted parents being shown a low level perception field (it’s often low level, isn’t it?  <*\*>) is extremely interesting to the discussion pertaining to Missy, Clara and the Doctor.

Indeed, Clara was governess; indeed Missy was dressed exactly like one. She didn’t possess the aristocratic dress: the expensive garnets around the neck, for example, and the slightly more ‘on trend’ bonnet. Instead it was a more modest ‘outfit’ that matches Clara’s own -at that point in time. Clara’s ability to ‘fit in’ to the Victorian era was interesting. No major panic! Particularly when she thought the Doctor wasn’t returning for her? She took up the offer of a room with the Super ‘3’ Heroes (the lizard, the lady, the lap dog)

It was only when I re-read your timey blog, Pip, that I fully understood the Moffat loop and how this is related, @ichabod, to  “Clara being blown in on a leaf.”

But @juniperfish, I’m getting very close to sitting down with this theory or verdict of yours and having a coffee.

I like it.

Still vaguely confused and about to watch The God Complex, Puro. (the devil/Christian/faith thing is niggling me)

[Proxy @proxy]

@suzannems Certainly can make for some interesting storytelling!

I totally agree! It’s very topical for what’s been happening in the world in recent years and in the evolution of general attitudes. I suppose it’s easier to explore some tough/sensitive questions through stories.

Weddings are apparently a ‘thing’ for TLs, so if it means the same to them as to us, i.e. pledging love and commitment to someone else for as long as you both shall live, would that be asterisked by “but only during our current regeneration”? …seems like a heavy conditional to me. Even without a gender-swap regeneration, we’ve seen fairly severe personality changes. I much prefer Jenny’s attitude. When Clara asked her what if the person you liked changed, her response was, “I don’t like her, ma’am. I love her.” No asterisk. Granted Jenny wasn’t talking about a Time Lord, but still valid. Then again, the Doctor was afraid Clara might not like him anymore after regenerating.

Maybe this is why the Doctor has so much internal conflict regarding Missy. She was his friend. Good friend? Best friend? (More than friends?) But she changed.

As for the Doctor himself, he may not have been a woman in any of his previous incarnations, but we don’t know that he won’t have had been one in his future in the Past. To steal from Red Dwarf, it may be going to have happened; it may be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. 🙂 To put it another way, could he ever be a mom?

Re: Repopulating the species:
I’m not familiar with BG Who, but does it ever explain how Time Lords, um, procreate? Anyway, the thought of a bunch of little Masters/Mistresses running around is… petrifying.

@ichabod – You mentioned “training”. Isn’t that what the Doctor is doing with Clara? If she does happen to be their “space child”…

@bluesqueakpip – Re: Clara. Nice diagram! I have a lot to say on Clara, but I need to wrangle my thoughts together first. (The thoughts, the thoughts! They go so fast!)

(Oh look at that. In the time it took to write this post, you guys have moved on! Sorry about that… I’ll get the hang of it eventually.) 😳

[Anonymous @]

@proxy

Oh no, I haven’t “moved on!” The timey whimey issues are really my undoing, I’m afraid, and it’s why @juniperfish and @bluesqueakpip‘s explanations have been very helpful through out these past 12 or so months.

The idea of Clara being the one who blows the leaf into her parent’s face thus causing her own birth leading to Missy being the one to connect the Doctor with Clara seems especially neat but also exciting as an idea. It fits as the probable explanation but then again…..Clara being ‘more than human’ is also a penetrating theory and I like that too.

“I much prefer Jenny’s attitude. When Clara asked her what if the person you liked changed, her response was, “I don’t like her, ma’am. I love her.” No asterisk”

I think that’s a splendid piece of evidence or author-voice for whilst they’re not TLs they’re sufficiently different enough that there’s a feeling (an arrow from the quote above) that in TL society, a  marriage/mating/coupling could continue beyond 1 or more regens. But then monogamy might not be Gallifreyan style at all. It may be purely human. Most probably is. 😉

Scratching Head, Puro.

[Anonymous @]

@suzannems @barnable @bluesqueakpip

We’ve discussed on the Deep Water 2-parter that the attitude Missy displays to the Doctor is one of playing with him and his sexuality. Missy is using “my boyfriend” as well “kissing” (“were there tongues?” asked Clara, mischievously) to manipulate the Doctor.

It wasn’t sexual, rather it emerged from a place of dominance and of arrogance. The racy outfit -arguably-  as well as placing his hand on her breast was designed to make him uncomfortable: the Doctor is her plaything, “they are black eyes, slightly protuberant, shiny like the beads of an abacus; shiny and always in motion, as she makes calculations of her own advantage” (yep, OK that was H. Mantel talking about Boleyn, but it works for Missy!)

Certainly, if you have time, the last few posts about this belief are interesting (DiH). Missy, like Peter Singer, would be a consequentialist -the end justifies the means. And if the means involve dominatrix behaviour to pick at, humiliate and play with the Doctor, then the Mixmaster would deploy them.

Whilst the discussion is interesting, I fear it leads to the ‘personal is political’ distinction which is a bit too Carol Hanisch-ey for me 😉

“I do think there is a difference between trying to argue that something that was shown “on the stage” really didn’t happen or was reversed “off the stage,” and suggesting that something that was not shown “on the stage” might have happened “off the stage.”

I agree, insofar as if anything is clearly shown on telly we can’t argue that it didn’t actually happen. Because, eerm, it did? 🙂

“I suppose that bi-sexual comes closest, but even that term insists that there are only two sexes”

At no point could we presume there’s anything other than two genders on Gallifrey and also in TL society. Again, this comes to close to the ‘Identity Politics’ of an earlier -and very interesting – age and leads to atomised thinking. But as I said before, I liked “omnisexual”

Interesting what @lisa said: “For me it all goes to the relationship Missy is after. A new level of connection that wont be possible as long as she is a Master ‘form’. Although she has shown she still is as bananas as ever but in her deranged and delusional strategy she thought she may have discovered power and low risk.”

By creating herself woman, Missy was able to discombobulate the Doctor just enough to ensure her plan worked. The fact the Doctor was so shocked implies he’s never seen the Mixmaster iteration. But I’d randomly place a bet that the Master has only ever generated as the male of his species. Until now.

But As Pip says, “I can very easily see her realising the immense potential for manipulation that being the mother of the Doctor’s only not-missing, not-presumed-dead child would give her.”

Hmmm!

One question that I find interesting is: should the Doctor or the Master be female because it’s art to ‘do this’ and certain artistes need a new formula/paradigm as the old paradigm is paternalistic. I’m sure I read, somewhere, that Moffat was paternalistic

[SuzanneMS @suzannems]

@jphamlore @bluesqueakpip I agree — Victorian governess. I see a mad, evil Mary Poppins. And, no, there’s absolutely no sense whatsoever that Missy has any idea of becoming Mum. She just likes being the one in charge. In addition to Clara as a governess, we had Matron Cofelia in Partners in Crime and, of course, the ice governess in The Snowmen.

I think this is all a bit of a stretch :

Clara is so like the Doctor, she can actually be the Doctor when she has to be (Flatline).

So is Donna Noble. Far more than Clara. Donna really IS the DoctorDonna. And Clara is only pretending to be the Doctor to people who do not know the Doctor. It’s called “acting” — and most of us can do it.

The Doctor describes Clara (mistakenly, because Missy set up the restaurant meeting) in Deep Breath as an ‘egomaniac needy game player sort of person.’ Which means that, without realising, the Doctor’s just described Clara as being very like Missy.

And Clara thought the Doctor was talking about himself. I think this is giving far too much weight to what was meant to be comic relief.

Throughout Series 8, we see that Clara is quite capable of lying to and manipulating the people she most loves

Aren’t we all? How does this establish that Clara is related to the Doctor anymore than she is related to Missy or Queen Elizabeth or Alison Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart?

She’s also capable of going damn near insane with grief; she’d willingly kill herself and the Doctor to punish him for not bringing Danny back.

Again, how is this different from most people? And not only is this not unique to the Doctor, I can’t recall anytime that it was even characteristic of the Doctor.

In Death in Heaven, Missy treats Clara very much the way she treats the Doctor; dumps her in a dangerous situation and leaves her to get out of it by herself.

S/he treats everyone that way, not just Clara. It says far more about Missy than it does Clara.

In Listen, the TARDIS takes Clara to the children’s home where Danny is staying. The Doctor, who has investigated her entire life, appears perfectly happy that a little baby Clara might be in the children’s home and has just forgotten about it.

The Doctor has not investigated her entire life; the Tardis started to, but then it got it wrong. It went off onto Danny’s timeline. This Doctor is more deliberately and visibly alien; he’s more deliberately and visibly arrogant and dismissive of humans as merely intelligent apes. He is more than willing to accept that Clara has forgotten about it because, well, she’s human and they aren’t the brightest crayons in the box.

We never did see Clara’s mum in hospital just having given birth. We first saw Clara at home, a few months old. It’s compatible with adoption.

We also never see the wedding between Clara’s mum and dad. Does that mean it didn’t happen?

In Night Terrors, we also see that adoptive parents can forget that they are adoptive parents.

In one specific and particular circumstance and only because the Tenza was making them forget. We have no reason to believe that Clara is a Tenza — or any other alien.

If you want to convince me that she’s the Doctor’s daughter, let’s start with two hearts.

And for a nice, big plot hole — how did Clara get the leaf back? She gave it to the Old God in Rings of Akhaten.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@proxy  I admire you adventurousness with tenses!  When I talked about training for Clara, I didn’t mean an informal apprenticeship (traveling with the Doctor), but going through the formal training that the Doctor and the Master did at the Academy on Gallifrey — which is no longer accessible (?) since the Doctor wouldn’t know where to send her, Gallifrey being currently tucked up in its pocket universe.  I doubt anyone can *officially* become a Time Lord without graduating from that schooling — like, not a “wizard” without wizard school, only a “hedge” witch?

@purofilion  I haven’t moved on either, since I too get my head snarled up around time travel and its paradoxes.  And I’ve always been uncomfortable with the whole idea of TL marriage being more or less human marriage, with minor modifications.  It works fine for the original young kid/family audience for DW, of course, but really, once your series has gained a huge and diverse viewership including grown ups and even old people, a species with an aristocracy of regenerating m/l immortals with nothing but a plain old human marriage set up is kind of a waste of possibilities, isn’t it?  Literary SF itself has come up with better alternatives than that for (future) humans with extended lie-spans — serial marriages by 10-year contracts, stable marriages with multiple partners who wander in and out of the child-rearing core, female living centers with seasonal visits from males that are otherwise out-dwelling hermits, etc.

Could DW afford, at this point, more (mild) exploration of alternatives to one man, one woman, til death?

“Omnisexual” or “pan-sexual” might work (or not; see recent weird news story about a guy in Florida arrested for “capturing” an alligator and, yes, um . . . ).  I don’t think these words actually fit a person who is attracted to the whole LGBTC (?) spectrum as we know it, but not to, say, large, sentient pumpkins (or large non-sentient pumpkins, for that matter, which would be included in the “pan” or “omni” part along with aliens as well as alligators in the DW universe).  The Doctor himself felt he had to draw the line with that dinosaur lest she get the wrong idea, but of course he wasn’t in his right mind at the time . . .

Yeah, some feminists charge Moffat with being “paternalistic” and all round “sexist” because DW (an at least partially publicly funded “family” and “youth audience” show) isn’t progressive enough for them on gender issues.  As Philip Sandifer points out in an essay on Moffat’s feminism, compared to most of what’s on TV whether commercial or not, Moffat is (cautiously) a whole lot better than the common run of writers who are *not* in a position to write, say, “Queer as Folk”.  This feminism-based criticism is passionate but, IMO, ridiculous.  The sexuality in the show is framed as conventional because of the basic target audience; yet there we have Jenny and Vastra, Captain Jack, MissMaster, in spite of all the flap and flutter from some fans around these variations (let alone the howls of protest at the idea — clearly *not* rejected by Moffat, only not tried yet — of a female Doctor).

@lisa, love your idea as quoted by puro, of “Missy” as a coldly reasoned attempt by the Master to re-set the relationship with the Doctor for a different power dynamic and maybe outcome (have I got that right?).

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod @Purofilion So yes, I think Missy is self selecting this
new female role. In fact did you notice the small detail of the stud bracelet she
wore? To me that speaks to a touch of the bdsm type of “mistress” and she does
like imposing discomfort and pain. In fact she feeds on the traumatic and abusive!
She gets an adrenaline and endorphin rush. (Apparently Galifreyans get that too 😉 )
But it seems to be the new approach for her in the dysfunctional relationship issues
between herself and the Doctor. Maybe its her idea of personal growth? lol – no idea.
She was never particularly successful in any of her domination efforts as the Master so
perhaps in her psychotic logic she finds some new confidence and feels less vulnerable
as a Missy?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@suzannems

So is Donna Noble. Far more than Clara. Donna really IS the DoctorDonna.

As a rejoinder to Juniperfish’s theory, saying that Donna is more like the Doctor is a bit like saying ‘well, his sister’s more like him than his daughter is.’ 😉

The point isn’t that Clara is trying to behave like the Doctor in Flatline – the point is that she can do it. In the face of an utterly new alien menace, a bolshie supervisor who thinks they should be in charge, and having to rescue a trapped Doctor.

That isn’t acting. Just because I play a character on TV, it doesn’t mean I can actually do that character’s job. Just because Clara is asked to play the Doctor … oh, hang on, she can do the Doctor’s job. It’s a different thing; the one is acting, the other is apprenticeship.

In terms of giving too much weight to characteristics – you should try and find something that actually contradicts the argument, rather than saying ‘I think that was just comic relief.’ When I was contradicting your idea that Missy might have been female before (off-screen), I used two examples from the on-screen text: one that the Jacobi Master refers disparagingly to women, the other that the Doctor is visibly stunned.

It’s always possible that the entire scene was purely comic relief; it does already serve two functions – one being ‘comic relief’ and the other warning us that there’s an egomaniac needy game-player around town. The third possible function is that it points up that Clara is an egomaniac needy game-player. This may have been a long game for the rest of Series 8, where Clara is going to have a disastrous relationship which will highlight all those egomaniac, needy, manipulative characteristics that she has. Or it may have been an even longer game.

Again, how is this different from most people?

Again, if you want to use this line of attack, you need to find specific examples. You can’t just claim that ‘most people’ are manipulative liars who go nearly insane with grief and try to kill their best friend because, for example, Rory isn’t terribly good at lying, isn’t very manipulative and doesn’t try to kill himself and the Doctor when Amy dies. Very practical bloke, Rory. River, equally, takes it out on a Dalek when she thinks her husband has just died, then trots back to join the rest in trying to save the universe.

And not only is this not unique to the Doctor, I can’t recall anytime that it was even characteristic of the Doctor.

It’s characteristic of Missy. Or at least, the insanity and the taking out your own pain on people you like or love is very characteristic of Missy. Sorry if I was unclear.

S/he treats everyone that way, not just Clara. It says far more about Missy than it does Clara.

Um, actually, Missy doesn’t. She actively kills at least five people during the story. Clara, on the other hand, gets dumped with a bunch of Cybermen and has to find her own way out. Then later on, Missy does probably the slowest-motion, most heavily telegraphed murder attempt ever.

The Doctor has not investigated her entire life; the Tardis started to, but then it got it wrong. It went off onto Danny’s timeline.

The Smith Doctor investigated Clara’s life, not the Capaldi Doctor. It’s in the opening scenes of Rings of Akhaten. He has investigated her entire life, from her parents meeting to her graduation from university and first job.

We also never see the wedding between Clara’s mum and dad. Does that mean it didn’t happen?

We do, however, see a gravestone that refers to Ellie Oswald as ‘beloved wife and mother’. In that case, the off-screen action is supported by on-screen text. In the case of baby Clara, we first see her a few months old. We don’t see a pregnant Ellie, we don’t see a hospital scene, we her and baby Clara in a situation which leaves natural child/adopted child open.

Personally, I’d reckon it was deliberately left open only as part of the Impossible Girl plot, if it wasn’t for Listen bringing up the ‘adoption’ possibility again.

If you want to convince me that she’s the Doctor’s daughter, let’s start with two hearts.

No, let’s start with Chameleon Arches. They’re Gallifreyan technology, come from the Tennant Doctor’s era, and are a way that a biological Gallifreyan with two hearts can be changed into a biological human with one heart. They first appears in Human Nature/Family of Blood.

And for a nice, big plot hole — how did Clara get the leaf back? She gave it to the Old God in Rings of Akhaten.

Why does Clara need to get the leaf back?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@purofilion

I’m sure I read, somewhere, that Moffat was paternalistic

I’d say it’s fairly difficult to be paternalistic and/or sexist in a company (Hartswood, which makes Sherlock) where your line manager is your wife and your boss your mother-in-law. 😉

If you notice, though, he is fond of playing with gender roles; Missy is probably part of that. In the Amy and Rory partnership, for example, Amy was the outgoing, assertive, adventurous one and Rory the gentle, caring, stay-at-home one. And quite a few people didn’t like it; I’m not sure how consciously people realised that Moffat had switched gender roles (right down to it being Amy who tries to celebrate the night before her wedding by sleeping with someone else) but the complaints did often centre about Rory being a ‘wimp’ and Amy ‘too assertive’.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip @suzannems

“I’m sure I read, somewhere, that Moffat was paternalistic”

“I’d say it’s fairly difficult to be paternalistic and/or sexist in a company (Hartswood, which makes Sherlock) where your line manager is your wife and your boss your mother-in-law. “

Exactly! It’s why I was being ironic. Reading back, though, it looked as though I’d suddenly turned into a Moffat hater. But some Aussie papers and even talk-back shows have demonstrated the usual comments: “Moffat can’t write for women. Moffat loves the welfare state. Moffat’s a Communist. Moffat is gay”

ooo yes, I heard the last one just last week in listening to some tween students talking.

Whoa.

Puro clocked.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@bluesqueakpip @purofilion

As well as those excellent examples of gender swapage he also made the head of The Church of the Papal Mainframe (the ‘Pope’) a Mother Superious. Surely one of the biggies in Gender roles?

He also had Pagen equivalents of the King and Queen of the Trees declare that women are strong and men are weak, which as far of longevity\survival of DNA (Mitochondrial) is certainly true. Nature is no respector of equal opportunities.

Just on Missy\Master, I think the line “well I could hardly keep calling myself the Master, could I?” indicated they were dealing with a new concept.

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod @Purofilion BTW – I think someone mentioned a long while back on some post
about the correlation between the character in Prachett’s novel Hogfather. She was
a goth Mary Poppins sort very similar to Missy. That story must have been an influence.
But the thing about being a governess in Victorian or Edwardian England is that they
straddled the threshold between servant and marginally better standing in the community.
It was one of very few solutions to be an independent woman in a patriarchal society
but there was the isolation of never being totally accepted into any particular class
so that had to have a lot of pressure on emotional health. Which brings me to the
Missy costume. I think there is a correlation in the choice of presenting her in that
outfit. Pressure of acceptance, poor emotional health and sense of self. Also,sometimes
these governesses were also mistresses.

[Author]

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