Had to be. We saw the Master fall, literally at the Master’s hand in 12’s penultimate episode. The Master died in that generation ship caught near that black hole, by the master’s own hand.
It was done as an epic tragedy where in the end, Missy did change, “turn good” and intend to go back and help the doctor, which enraged the John Simm master so much he’d rather kill herself than allow it, meaning the doctor succeeded in fixing his friend, and yet he will never, ever, know.
Any new Master we see now, without a lot of exposition, has to be assumed to be the Master between John Simm’s and Missy. The connotation of that death scene was very explicit.
On the one hand, yes. And it does make a good tragedy.
On the other? We’ve seen the Master be turned into a cat person, exterminated by the Daleks, sucked into the Eye of Harmony and be dragged back into the Time Locked end days of the Time War (although I suppose that could be where he regenerates into Dhawan and kills all the Time Lords).
Don’t rule out Missy’s successor returning, is what I’m saying…
Edit: oh, also, since Missy has at least vague memories of meeting herself when she was Simm, she’s had a while to figure out a solution.
I agree its possible, but from a narrative sense tread carefully because if Missy survived that moment she’d have to be a changed person, at the very least a frenemy of the doctor if not a full on ally, not burning his favorite world just to get a rise out of him, or it would undercut Missy’s entire, multi season arc of being rehabilitated.
Why bring her back from that epic high, when you can pull from post simm, just to stunt her back to being a rabid, unrepentant sociopath, and retcon the doctor’s hard earned victory. Literally an entire season revolved around her trying to earn the doctors friendship back as a sociopath, and then the entire season after next revolved around her facing her own execution and being changed by the doctor until she herself acknowledged it to himself, meaning it wasn’t a lie.
I might be in the minority here, but I think retconning hard earned, character defining/shaping/progression arcs is a bad thing. I actually disagree with the decision of undoing the doctor’s decision to genocide his own people for the good of the universe. It was beautiful in the moment, but that was a core trauma of the revived show, and deflates the shadow of the great time war he spends his days living in survivor’s guilt under imho.
I might be in the minority here, but I think retconning hard earned, character defining/shaping/progression arcs is a bad thing.
No, I agree with you, I’d just never really thought it through with The Master/Missy. And we don’t know how many extra regenerations they were given in the Time War, so there’s plenty of room if we assume the great (and tragically underused) Derek Jacobi was “reset” to One, Missy could potentially be Thirteen, and then there’s plenty to play with in the middle.
I do at least think the genocide thing with the Doctor was handled well - because of some “you don’t really remember future events” shenanigans when meeting multiple versions of yourself, all of the Doctors from John Hurt to Matt Smith “remembered” making that decision, and it was compassion from that experience that led him to go back to be there when he did it, and finally realising he could have a second chance at it. It doesn’t undo anything Ecclestone or Tennant went through.
And while it was a good couple of Doctors, lifting that shadow means that Gatwa can be more cheerful and optimistic, but still with the dark side of having fought in the war and knowing he COULD have made that decision of he’d had to. It stops the Doctor just getting potentially grimmer and grimmer as more and more terrible things keep happening.
Had to be. We saw the Master fall, literally at the Master’s hand in 12’s penultimate episode. The Master died in that generation ship caught near that black hole, by the master’s own hand.
It was done as an epic tragedy where in the end, Missy did change, “turn good” and intend to go back and help the doctor, which enraged the John Simm master so much he’d rather kill herself than allow it, meaning the doctor succeeded in fixing his friend, and yet he will never, ever, know.
Any new Master we see now, without a lot of exposition, has to be assumed to be the Master between John Simm’s and Missy. The connotation of that death scene was very explicit.
https://youtu.be/Xd2NNNKXeZo?si=LZpU7J56JOKmjMmS
On the one hand, yes. And it does make a good tragedy.
On the other? We’ve seen the Master be turned into a cat person, exterminated by the Daleks, sucked into the Eye of Harmony and be dragged back into the Time Locked end days of the Time War (although I suppose that could be where he regenerates into Dhawan and kills all the Time Lords).
Don’t rule out Missy’s successor returning, is what I’m saying…
Edit: oh, also, since Missy has at least vague memories of meeting herself when she was Simm, she’s had a while to figure out a solution.
I agree its possible, but from a narrative sense tread carefully because if Missy survived that moment she’d have to be a changed person, at the very least a frenemy of the doctor if not a full on ally, not burning his favorite world just to get a rise out of him, or it would undercut Missy’s entire, multi season arc of being rehabilitated.
Why bring her back from that epic high, when you can pull from post simm, just to stunt her back to being a rabid, unrepentant sociopath, and retcon the doctor’s hard earned victory. Literally an entire season revolved around her trying to earn the doctors friendship back as a sociopath, and then the entire season after next revolved around her facing her own execution and being changed by the doctor until she herself acknowledged it to himself, meaning it wasn’t a lie.
I might be in the minority here, but I think retconning hard earned, character defining/shaping/progression arcs is a bad thing. I actually disagree with the decision of undoing the doctor’s decision to genocide his own people for the good of the universe. It was beautiful in the moment, but that was a core trauma of the revived show, and deflates the shadow of the great time war he spends his days living in survivor’s guilt under imho.
No, I agree with you, I’d just never really thought it through with The Master/Missy. And we don’t know how many extra regenerations they were given in the Time War, so there’s plenty of room if we assume the great (and tragically underused) Derek Jacobi was “reset” to One, Missy could potentially be Thirteen, and then there’s plenty to play with in the middle.
I do at least think the genocide thing with the Doctor was handled well - because of some “you don’t really remember future events” shenanigans when meeting multiple versions of yourself, all of the Doctors from John Hurt to Matt Smith “remembered” making that decision, and it was compassion from that experience that led him to go back to be there when he did it, and finally realising he could have a second chance at it. It doesn’t undo anything Ecclestone or Tennant went through.
And while it was a good couple of Doctors, lifting that shadow means that Gatwa can be more cheerful and optimistic, but still with the dark side of having fought in the war and knowing he COULD have made that decision of he’d had to. It stops the Doctor just getting potentially grimmer and grimmer as more and more terrible things keep happening.