10 Most Meta Doctor Who Moments EVER
3. Missy Roleplays As The Doctor
The two-part finale to Series 10 is one of the best and most immersive stories in the show's history, so it's only fitting that it begins with a fourth-wall breaking, suspension-of-disbelief shattering scene in which Missy roleplays as the Doctor, mocking him and the show in the process. "Hello" she says, stepping out of the TARDIS, "I'm Doctor Who". Just a few minutes in and Missy has already gone meta, referring to herself by the name of the programme rather than the character, reflecting the way the actor who plays the Doctor is often credited as "Doctor Who". She takes this joke even further when she states that Doctor Who is the Doctor's real name, simultaneously poking fun at fans who get riled up when the Doctor is referred to that way and at the obsession with the Doctor's true identity.
Missy goes on to introduce her "plucky assistants" in a hilarious tear-down of Doctor Who's formula, calling Bill "Exposition" and Nardole "Comic Relief". As if that wasn't meta enough, when an alarm sounds Missy remarks "Oh, someone's watching!" in a knowing reference to the viewer's role in this self-parody. This is one of Missy's finest moments, one of many in which the first female Master paved the way for the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, who's unfortunately not quite so brilliantly self-aware as Missy is here.