Subject: Old Dr Who Question Answered in Canon! (Spoilers)
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Posted on: 2014-11-01 22:46:00 UTC
So there we have it - Time Lords can now regenerate into the opposite sex, canonically. I can't wait until next week's episode!
Don't mind me, just going to dump my thoughts here.
Okay. So. First of all: he escaped. Son of a gun, he managed to escape. It just goes to show that if you don't completely, absolutely, irreversibly destroy a character then they are not dead. Even then, they might pop up again: consider Rory Williams and the Time Fissure. Actually, death has no meaning in Doctor Who. Forget I said anything.
Secondly, how did he escape? We're all pretty sure that the Master was on Gallifrey at the Moment of salvation: otherwise Rassilon would still be in control of the High Council and the universe would be dead because of the Ultimate Sanction. This means that the Master definitely killed Rassilon (and maybe a chunk of the council for good measure) before he was neutralized by guards or whatever. (Which would probably prompt the line said by the General during the Day of the Doctor: "To hell with the High Council, their plans have already failed!") He (now she) must've regenerated during that time and escaped thereafter-- breaking out of the parallel pocket universe Gallifrey is sealed in and into the Doctor's universe (and maybe stealing some tech too, for good measure-- Missy couldn't have just built the Nethersphere-Matrix out of normal things... or could she?).
Thirdly: from the trailers, we know that UNIT get involved. The Doctor manages to escape Missy because he's seen in a hangar with UNIT loading his TARDIS in a plane. Cybermen are all over the place and can now fly Iron Man style with jet boots. I wonder how this will pan out... oh, who am I kidding. UNIT will get curbstomped. H&K G36 are pretty rubbish when even futuristic laser weapons have a hard time slowing down Cybermen.
Lastly and most importantly: if Master-now-Missy broke out, she must know the way back.
Gallifrey might be within reach.
Remember all those theories about 12 being the Master and Danny Pink actually being the Doctor?
You know how the regeneration happened in an instant, like snap? People were saying it could have been a two-way teleport, and if the Master was actually who Capaldi was playing, then the Master would have effectively switched spots with the Doctor. And then Danny Pink was actually the Doctor. :)
Personally I love him though, and I've never liked Danny.
Is that strange?
Two of 'em.
1/ This is not the Master as last seen taking down Rassilon. That was a half-alive, resurrected-from-genes-on-Lucy's-lips, undead monster version. The real Master - the one the Doctor 'left... for dead' (as mentioned in the episode) - was last seen on the Valiant. So Missy knows nothing about Gallifrey, Rassilon, or any of that. As far as she knows, the Doctor last met her 'refusing to regenerate' (yeah, like we ever believed that) after succeeding in conquering the Earth and being beaten by Jesus!Ten.
Another point in support of this: there's a statement in the wildly uncanonical Doctor Who: Unbound AUs that a Time Lord will regenerate into the opposite sex if they commit suicide. What else would you call a refusal to regenerate? ;)
2/ It's not the Master. Seriously, why do we believe anything she says? Rule One applies to other Time Lords, too. She's actually... yes, you guessed it, the same person every female character has been suspected of being since 2005... the Rani! After all, she's a scientist, while the Master definitely is not. And she knows of the Doctor's rivalry with the Master, which she would absolutely make use of. And, perhaps most significantly: Steven Moffat has specifically denied that he has any plans to bring back the Rani. ^-^
Oh, and one for luck (not Missy related):
3/ That face reflected in Pink's iPad in the last shot... we're supposed to think that's The Boy, I'm sure, but to me, it looked a lot like Lalla Ward... Romana's in the Nethersphere. ;)
hS
(Does it need to be said?! Spoilers!)
It would be completely awesome if Romana in any way, shape or form turned up. When I first saw the word 'Nethersphere' my first thought was 'oooh yes, this is E-Space'. Not true, obviously, but when Missy stated the whole bit about Time Lady insistent terminology, I literally screamed out "Romana went evil regenerated escaped from Gallifrey in a Void Ship and thinks she's the Doctor's boyfriend!!" which was followed by a massive sigh when I found out who she really was.
Of course Missy could be lying. It's always possible I was right all along.
Speaking of which, Missy mentioned that the Doctor was her boyfriend. AND we got the kiss scene. Prepare for an overdose of slashfic on the Pit.
~Kitty
Why not bring back another Time Lord villain? The Master's been around for forever, but maybe half of the audience doesn't know about her because she's never been mentioned since Classic.
Also, thank Rowling I didn't sign up for Bad Slash. *shudder*
Sudden thought that can be best explained with a shortfic.
Danny's trembling finger hovered over the 'Delete' button. It was time, he decided. Time to just go. He was dead, anyway, and Clara had practically admitted she wasn't coing for him. His finger stabbed down.
A slender hand caught his arm, roughly twisting it away. The same hand grabbed the iPad, and held it up. The hand belonged to a woman that looked like she was in her twenties. She had long, shoulder-length brown hair that had a halo of friz about it and a scattering of freckles about her face. She was dressed in a simple grey dress and crimson combat boots. Danny stared at her sudden arrival.
"Sorry about that," she told him, still examining the iPad with a distinct air of distrust. "But, trust me, you really do not want to do that."
Danny gaped for a moment or two beore finding his voice. "I'm sorry, I was about to commit suicide here. I'd prefer it if you didn't get in the way! Who are you, anyway?"
She glared at him with a look he had only seen frm the Doctor before. "Like I said, you do not want to do that. You can call me Fred, Mr Pink. And, right now, we need to save Clara Oswald from never existing."
She raised her eyebrows, tucking the iPad under her arm. "Are you with me or not?"
He made up his mind. "I'mwith you.. Miss Fred."
She winced. "Just Fred, please. The Miss makes it sound odd."
It was in the eleventh Doctor's episode The Doctor's Wife, when the Doctor mentioned an old friend who'd been both a man and a woman. Name of the Corsair.
S/he was apparently mentioned by the fourth Doctor according to the TARDIS Data Core Wiki, though since I'm still catching up on Classic Who, I can't vouch for it personally.
I must admit I've not heard of the Rani, and I missed a chunk in the middle of that series, including [i]The Doctor's Wife[/i]. Thanks for the information.
When Ten regenerated into Eleven, he theorised - aloud to an empty TARDIS - that he'd turned into a girl. Unless you claim he was hamming it up for the non-existent camera, that's evidence enough for me. ;)
Also, apparently the Corsair was only mentioned in the novelisation of Shada, the famous 'lost' (because not fully filmed) Four story. Of course, since it went on to become, virtually unchanged, Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (with a bit of City of Death thrown in for good measure), that's not too great a sacrifice.
Anyway, the point is, the Shada novelisation was released in 2012, a year after the Corsair was mentioned on-screen by Eleven. Apparently.
hS
hS