Was a female Master a good idea?
Sora2311
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After all this arguing and bickering I have decided to make a big poll about Missy and whether or not she works well. Michelle Gomez plays her brilliantly in my opinion and is the best Master since Delgado
Should The Master have been brought back as Missy 111 votes
Yes
58%
65 votes
No
41%
46 votes
0
Comments
By having her cameo in every episode, and feeding in just enough red herrings to make it plausibly deniable she was the Master, it created a social atmosphere that helped cusion the blow of any fallout that might have occurred from that decision.
Dunno if it was necessary, but it was a clever choice.
Now Time Lords changing gender isn't such a big deal to most people, so they don't have to worry about too much backlash if they want to cast a woman Doctor in the future
The concept of Time Lords changing gender on regeneration was already established.
It was only a matter of time before we saw it for ourselves, and why not with the Master?
It would be good to find out one day if "he" had the gender change forced upon him, or it was a conscious choice.
"She" certainly seemed to be very happy about it, which implies the latter!
It does not set any precedent that the Doctor himself will inevitably one day be a woman.
Although I wouldn't want a woman to play the Doctor. That role to me (as a woman) should just stay male. A female Doctor just wouldn't be the same.
It's like humans, just because a few of them change gender, doesn't mean they all do!
Was Missy a good character? Yes. Crazy, ruthless, unpredictable, funny and charming - the hallmarks of a brilliant Doctor Who villain.
Did Missy ever feel like the Master? Right, I was adamant I'd say no to this, from the view of someone who's seen all the stories he's been in, and having grown up with him in the 80s. But the more I think about it the more logical it seems: he started as an urbane if megalomaniac kind of chap. Then he became a survivor, in all the worst ways you can survive. After that he just seemed to be trying to get the Doctor's attention - the Master's schemes were always far too elaborate to succeed. And then, by Survival, you got a real glimpse of his psychosis. And this psychosis, madness, whatever it was, was brought to the forefront in the new series, exacerbated by the things that happen to him, and it's escalated.
So I've talked myself round. Missy seemed too out-there to be the Master, but it makes total sense to me now.
It doesn't seem that gender is as big a part of personal identity for Timelords as it is for us humans. There's also, apparently, a random element to regeneration (unless you're in the hands of the Sisterhood of Karn), meaning that any Timelord could end up the opposite gender simply by chance at the next regeneration. Some Timelords are better at controlling it than others. The Doctor is not good at it. Certainly the Master isn't unhappy being female, but neither is he transgendered in the human sense. I.e, I doubt he ever thought he was a female born into a male body. His transformation/regeneration into Missy is just a fact of Timelord life.
Gender identity for Timelords is not the same as it is for us humans.
Well, she couldn't very well keep calling herself the Master now could she
SHE is an absolute brilliant villain against the 12th Doctor!! He has met this era's 'Moriaty' hasn't he? Love it!!
As for the Doctor becoming female - that is still a NO- NO !!! It will NEVER HAPPEN!
Or not.
Who knows... who nose?
She acted a great role but should have been her own villian.
I think that's what was great about it. She had a ready-made connection and antagonism with the Doctor so it didn't need to be established, and yet the change in gender gave her the opportunity to stand apart from her predecessors.
Personally, I wouldn't have done it myself but at the same time, I think Michelle Gomez has been excellent in the role so far but I'm still not sure myself if it should've been done.
I have always found it highly amusing when people want an UNSURE or a DONT KNOW option.
By not voting that is your don't know option
But changing the sex of characters in anything is, like 3D, a gimmick. And it will always be a gimmick. I loathe gimmicks just for the sake of it. If it's not necessary to change, it's necessary not to change.
For that reason, I voted no.
Thinking about it, apart from Delgado, I've never really been a fan of the Master. He's just so... pantomime.
So to me she seems like a separate character entirely. It was, however, a great performance by MG and a fitting antagonist for series 8.