Doctor Who: 10 Questions Raised By Deep Breath

By JG Moore / August 27, 2014

2. Who Is Missy?

One of Series 8€™s several interconnected mysteries is the identity of Missy; a woman also known as the Gatekeeper Of The Nethersphere. Based on the end of Deep Breath, all we€™re really getting from what€™s shown onscreen is that she€™s a strung-out Mary Poppins-type figure with an excellent landscape gardener. While the fact that she calls the Doctor her boyfriend is interesting (and the cue for a lot of €œShe€™s River Song€ theories), the most intriguing aspect of her identity comes from a single line:

"I do like his latest accent though. I think I€™ll keep it."

From this we can draw two important nuggets of information about Missy. Firstly, she has encountered more than one Doctor and is familiar with Regeneration. And secondly she is somehow intrinsically linked to the Doctor, having involuntarily changed her accent (and possibly more) along with him. While her name has sparked a persistent theory that she is the Master along with linking her to the constant theories about the return of the Rani, the last scene of Deep Breath implies that she is a much more ethereal being that has an incredibly strong and long-standing connection to the Doctor. Like an embodiment of the Tardis for example. Though Steven Moffat has always said that it€™s more fun to create new monsters and villains, and there aren€™t really any established characters that match up to Missy. The most likely answer to who she is at the moment is some kind of St Peter figure for robots. Though whether or not she€™s good or evil is still fairly ambiguous. Answers on a postcard please since we€™ve got nothing solid on this one.