This would have been a better premise. So much to play with there.

Some people have been saying a female Doctor would ruin the show. It might be interesting to see if many of them keep that opinon if it happens. I say that because i know someone who is adiment that he will switch off if it happens. He is also someone who was not up to the fact of the Doctor passing his 13th life. I'm one in the opinion of if the Master can change gender why not the Doctor.

Going back to the Ecclestone series and moving onwards

How relevant were the Autons in the first story to the new audience? Or the Daleks?

What about the relevance of Cybermen, Silurians and Sontarans with Tennant? Or indeed bringing Sarah Jane and K9 back for a story.

Or Ice Warriors and Zygons in the Smith era?

Bringing back the Rani would have introduced another character from the Doctor's past, and also possibly been able to be worked into a better storyline for the possible survival if not of Gallifrey then of other timelords some of whom might not be so antagonistic to the Doctor.

Right. In other words, not something they want to do at the moment.

OK, I was a bit OMG at the female Master at first. I was hoping for the Rani too!
But, on reflection, I've quite to taken to Missy now! Kate O'Mara WAS The Rani - and could never be replaced in my eyes!
Long live The The Master/Missy

No, not everyone.

But the master was the grand reveal of series 3, and most new who only viewers would have known nothing about him then, yet it still worked because they did the reveal in a way which showed it was a big deal, then after took time to explain exactly who he was and why he was so important, and even gave a little bit of childhood history between them not known by any viewers. That case proves that it could work any other time too. My point being any character old or new, can be introduced or reintroduced in any scenario at any point in the series be it episode 1 or as the series finale reveal. The key to making such a thing successful lies in how well it is written.

I think considering we lost Kate O'Mara this year it would have been a nice touch for Missy to have been the Rani.

The female Master was just a publicity stunt like most things in Who these days. Its sad but thats the world we live in now.

Missy turning out to be the Master was no more a publicity stunt than Professor Yana turning out to be the Master.

If people over-reacted to it, then that's their damn problem. The show made absolutely no big deal out of it.

Was it? Really?
There was the usual publicity for the episode, and the usual publicity for the return of a major character, but the change to Missy was barely touched upon, beyond saying that the Master was now played by Michelle Gomez. No different to a few years ago when we had similar reports that the Master was played by John Simm. The change of gender was simply not milked for publicity at all.

“Whenever I arrange skullduggery, no-one ever buggering notices,” he moaned. “We thought ‘everyone’s bound to overhear that’. Deaf bunch of bastards.”

It’s not the first time Moffat has tried to prank the audience with an old villain:

“When we did Day of the Doctor, we went to the trouble of having John Hurt’s character [an earlier regeneration of the Doctor] referred to as Omega throughout," he said. "Is nobody stealing scripts these days? What’s the matter with people?”

Both quotes from Moff; the first about The Rani (when Gomez, during live filming said she was a Random Access Neural Interface).

You got trolled by Moff.

But that's just the thing - the Rani isn't a big deal. She never was. She appeared in two stories, both as a comedy villain, once overshadowed by the Master and once as a last-minute placeholder in what is widely regarded as one of the worst episodes ever broadcast.

Not only were there about 4 people watching when the Rani last appeared, she has no real relationship with the Doctor. Can you honestly tell me why, other than the fact she's a Time Lord which has now comprehensively been done in the new series, the Rani returning would be a big deal? She has none of the history that the Master does with the Doctor, she has never appeared in a decent story and she doesn't really do anything that a female Master wouldn't do better.

Give me something concrete. Why would the Rani work better than a female Master, for the 2014 audience?

I like Michelle gomez's potrayal of 'missy' and couldn't care either way about the Rani's return, my point in my last post was just to say, as I actually did in the post itself, that it was perfectly possible to successfully bring back the rani in a way which made the character popular in this day, just like you could with almost any character. Not saying I particularly want a Rani return or that it is needed, just that I could easily imagine it being done in the same way every classic who character that has been brought back has been done successfully so, most notably the master in series 3. I was challenging the perception that 'it couldn't work because no-one in this day and age have heard of the character' which alot of people seem to have said, even though they have seen the successful return of an old character to an audience who would have largely not heard of them time and time again in new who.

Well they may not have heard of The Master, but once he was back it was a very easy sell. They were able to expand on the huge history between them, tie it into the Time War arc and because The Master was the only other Time Lord out there at the time there was a very large shock factor.

But with the Rani - Time Lord? Been done. Enemy of the Doctor? Been done. Was she involved in the Time War? Probably, but been done. What's her history with the Doctor? Virtually non-existent.

Honestly there would be no difference at all between bringing back the Rani and making Missy a new character, because other than two dreadfully-received appearances nearly 30 years ago, she would be. She wouldn't be bringing anything new to the table, unlike the Master's initial return did. The Master is now an established character that the audience know well and it's just a no-brainer to go with that character instead.

This is the same reason I disapproved of the Ice Warriors returning and personally don't think it worked - what did they add that couldn't have been achieved with a new monster? I felt the same about the Silurians, Sontarans and Macra. I even question whether the Cybermen should ever have returned as there's been so many twists on the idea since the classic series that they now seem a little cliched. The Daleks and the Master are the only alien returns I've ever approved of.

Still think Moffat missed a trick when he didn't have Madame Kovarian turn out to be the Rani.


Someone had to have provided the Time Ships (that looked very TARDIS like) that the Silence used to travel into Earth's past from Trenzalore.

She had to have at least some knowledge of Time Lord biology/Genetics to know it was possible to create a Time Lord from a human baby conceived in the Time Vortex.


Both things pointed towards her being a Time Lord Scientist and then there were the last 4 letters of her name