Sunday, August 24, 2014

WHO IS MISSY?

We finally have new Doctor Who episodes after nearly a year (and really it's been over a year since we had a regular season). I am sure everyone has their own opinions of the new Doctor and Deep Breath. I was thrilled to be watching Doctor Who again, and while I don't think we quite have a sense of what Capaldi's Doctor will be like, I found Deep Breath entertaining and a good start to the new series. It was a bit sluggish at the start, but I think that may be a good thing because overall this episode had a lot more breathing room than more recent ones (it feels like a move away from the whole condensed storytelling thing
while I've enjoyed all the Smith episodes, I do feel the pacing has been a bit too fast lately). I am curious what others think so feel free to share your love, hatred, or indifference in the comments section. 

What I really want to know is the identity of Missy. This is the woman who seemed to revive the half-face clockwork man at the end of the episode and informed him he had reached "the promised land". I am in the dark as much as anyone (in fact probably more in the dark than some of the real obsessive fans) but I have a few guesses.

The first possibility I thought was she is a future version or an alternate version of Clara. Missy did call the Doctor her boyfriend, and this is the episode where the Doctor emphatically stated "I am not your boyfriend" so there seems to be a possible connection there. Given the fact that Clara exists across the Timelord's timeline, this could be any of those versions of her. It seems likely she is the woman who gave Clara the Doctor's number, so there is that as well. She could also simply be Clara in the future, or in the future in another body or state (with Doctor Who you never know). Maybe things get very bad between Clara and the Doctor and in this is the future outcome.

The next possibility I thought of was this is Madame de Pompadour. There is clearly a connection between the clockwork men in The Girl in the Fireplace and the clockwork men in Deep Breath. But when the Doctor last saw Madame de Pompadour he had promised to show her a star and then returned after she died. Just before that she had seen into the Doctor's mind and knew what he knew. So with all that knowledge, it is entirely possible she came up with some clever way to meet him again after her death. She had quite a few years to work on a solution after the Doctor left. And it is also more than a little possible she has been changed for the worse by this process. Plus she does have valid reason for carrying some resentment towards him (though her letter in the end of The Girl in the Fireplace doesn't suggest resentment to me). 

Obviously River Song is another possibility but if it were her, I'd expect she'd call the Doctor her husband, not her boyfriend. She could also be Tasha Lem, but I think she is actually River Song, so again, I would expect her to call him her husband. Though I could always be wrong about Lem's identity. 

I've heard some folks say maybe it is the Master or even the TARDIS. I have to admit, neither of these occurred to me while watching, but some have pointed out that Missy, could be a shortened version of Mistress, which is a female Master. That seems pretty tight in terms of the name. I could also see the Master calling the Doctor his (I suppose in this case her) boyfriend for any number of reasons (most likely because he finds the idea amusing now that he is a woman---if Missy is in fact the Master). Something tells me though it isn't the Master. I suppose it could be the TARDIS. That feels a little strange. When the TARDIS did take human form she was certainly a bit off, but Missy seems a lot more sinister. 

It is also possible Missy is an older character from the original series. 

What are your theories on the identity of Missy?  

2 comments:

  1. I don't like the Missy=Mistress=Master theory. It seems too obvious for Moffat.

    And I can't see it being River Song. She was a) out of regens and b) dead with her soul saved to CAL. The TARDIS doesn't really make much sense - we know the TARDIS is working and is it likely she can be in two places at once?

    I do like the future/alternate Clara theory though. We know she has been scattered all over the place, so there is something of a precedent (for want of a better word that I can't think of now).

    Another theory going around is that someone came out of the picture with Clara in DotD. I had just thought it was bad continuity and the arm had been CGI'd in for some odd reason. But there is no real reason for it to have been added. Also, it's been compared that the rings on the hand were definitely Clara's rings (http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nrqyu&s=5#.U_o3HvldWSo) so, it must have been Clara's hand.

    So, if you link these two theories together, and then add these:
    -We didn't see how a version of Clara saved 10, so what if it was on Gallifrey and then she came through the painting with the others.
    -Deep Breath had other links to 10's era (the clockwork monsters and Peter Capaldi, himself)
    -The bad qualities used to describe Clara in the episode could be attributed to Missy (obviously we can't tell from the little we saw, but it's possible).
    -We know that Clara won't die old because Strax said so when doing his body-scan thing. Missy doesn't look old, but we have no idea of her age and messing about in a The Doctor's time-stream could have an effect.
    -The boyfriend quote. If this is an 'other' Clara then her only doctor had been the one who made the mistake of thinking he was her boyfriend
    -In one of the Q&A sessions during the world tour, PC used "trust no one" as the three words to describe the season
    -Rumours are rife that JLC is leaving at the end of this season.

    Obviously, there are flaws to this argument - Missy's accent for one, what was other-Clara doing during the rest of the events of DotD for another (initial thoughts are could have had her mind wiped when the Doctor's sonic'd the memory-filter thing), but I like it as somewhere to start.

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  2. I agree with you lilybetaldycia! Miss as the Master is just too obvious and Missy as River Song is just too ridiclous.

    Think you might find this interesting it accounts for and then answers to each and every prevailing Missy theory: https://www.hubub.com/199971/202048

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