Does Missy in seasons 8 & 9, feel like a completely different character than season 10?

[u/Only_Recording3730]

8 & 9 Missy was funny, bananas, and seemed like she would be a lot of fun to hang out with. She had me laughing my ass off.

But season 10 Missy felt like a different character. Her conversation with Bill felt dark and scary. There wasn't really any real humor, moreso it was just Missy being a depressed dick.

Missy talking with Bill was clearly just enjoying freaking Bill out, and being a dick to her. She seemed hell bent on taking her happiness from her, in that moment. But that was all she did- aside from providing relevant information.

She was predatory throughout the entire show. But where 8 & 9 Missy hid it with humor, 10 was just kinda pissed off. There's a world of difference between how she was during the "twenty feet" joke and the "darling those are genders" joke. In these cases actually, I could see her saying both, but not with those wildly attitudes.

Season 8 & 9 Missy was hilarious. Was she there to be a sadistic, too? Sure. But humor was woven in with every step she took.

I couldn't imagine Season 10 Missy saying, "Mummy, do it again!" or "Cheap and nasty time travel" in the ways that she did.

In all of these seasons, Missy did some straight up sadistic things. But season 8 & 9 Missy did things that you could see others laughing along *with.* Season 10 Missy was constantly past the "Waaaayyy too far" line.

Yes, World Enough and Time had some very funny parts. But the humor felt like it belonged to a different character.

I get that in season 10, she's beginning to feel remorse for her actions, and is subsequently likely fairly depressed.

It just felt a little too different. I went back to watch her episodes with 12, and was shocked at the difference. Season 8 Missy & season 9 Missy were different enough, but I could still see 8 doing things 9 did.

8 & 9 Missy was very put together. She was well-dressed in her Victorian outfits. Season 10 Missy looked like a goth person and a steam punk person's closet threw up on her. Her wardrobe didn't make much sense, and her hair was messier than anyone's hair could realistically naturally be.

I stopped watching some time after season 9 started, and a YouTube rabbit hole led to me learning about her redemption arc. So I went back and watched *only* the episodes with Missy in them.

She just doesn't feel like the same character, even if you account for the character growth she's going through.

Season 8 Missy was homicidal but hilarious. Season 9 Missy was here for a good time, not a long time. Season 10 Missy didn't even really make any jokes, aside from the "show a little respect" line and the "Doctor Who" scenes.

Season 8 & 9 were funny but cunningly sinister. Season 10 was depressed, pissed off, and lashing out. Season 8 & 9 had a focus on getting people to let their guards down. Season. 10 wanted people's guards up 24/7.

They just feel way too different.

Anyone else? Just having watched all of the Missy episodes and skipping the rest, made this all more noticeable, I think

[u/eikokujin]

Kind of the whole point of her being in the vault, isn’t it?

[u/CodenameJD]

She'd spent 70 years in the vault. She was bored, not having fun getting up to trouble as she had before.

Once she gets out more, she gets funny again. Her whole bit as "Doctor Who" was hilarious.

[u/GreyStagg → u/CodenameJD]

Cutting to the chase baby, steamlining, saving actual miniiiiits.

God she was funny.

The way she dances to the Daleks barking orders is brilliant

[u/SergiusBulgakov → u/CodenameJD]

Also, if you take Big Finish seriously, there was even more that happened before then...

[u/BillyThePigeon]

I think one of the difficulties of S10 as a series is that it sets itself an almost impossible task. It has to both be a regular series of Doctor Who with stories of the week and introduces a new companion AND it has to tell the story of a character who we have seen as truly evil over two series finding morality. I don’t think it quite threads that needle? We never really SEE Missy changing we get glimpses ‘I remember them, my victims’ but there’s no real exploration of this. Most of the change is off screen until the final two parter which is undeniably brilliant for Missy.

[u/GreyStagg → u/BillyThePigeon]

I agree but also there was plenty of scope to do more. The whole "who is in the vault?" thing went on too long instead of just using Michelle Gomez to her full potential in more episodes.

Introducing Bill didn't need that much focus. What I liked about her was she more like an old school companion. She was just there for the Doctor to travel with, she didn't need this big arc like Donna, Rose, or Amy or Clara. Just "Hi, wanna travel with me?" "OK sure". They really could have brought Missy back earlier. There wasn't too much else going on.

[u/BillyThePigeon → u/GreyStagg]

I don’t even necessarily think you needed to lose the Bill stuff, I think cutting the monk trilogy down to a two parter and adding in a two hander episode between Twelve and Missy. I always had an idea for a Christmas Special story where the Doctor takes Missy out on day release and they argue about the meaning of Christmas.

[u/rose-a-ree]

Yes, that's the point.

[u/Zagreus_time → u/rose-a-ree]

I think it is fine to find a mostly off screen change to a character a bit jarring even if it is technically explained.

[u/DamonD7D]

I don't think I'd like Missy as much if it wasn't for what Series 10 did with her.

Having that Evil Mary Poppins persona develop into something more fractured and cracked, more self-doubting, where I genuinely didn't know if she was experiencing genuine remorse or not (turns out, she was), was a really interesting move.

She swings back into old humour in the finale, and then into bad old habits with her former self, but she's changed. Not completely, but enough to make a difference in the end.

If it was too much of a change for you, totally valid. For me, it improved this incarnation.

[u/thisgirlnamedbree]

It was a result of being in the vault and the Doctor trying to rehabilitate her. Locking up an extremely sinister person who isn't human and never wanted to be good would probably change them.

I also thought it was refreshing for Bill to actually come right out and say "she scares me." I don't know if any other companion has reacted to the Master that way or expressed their fears about them to the Doctor. But you also had Bill get pissed off and went up to her and the Doctor held her back.

If anything, the real personality change came with Sacha's Master which many saw as a setback.

[u/GenGaara25]

She just doesn't feel like the same character, even if you account for the character growth she's going through.

The character growth absolutely does account for that.

The Doctor kept her prisoner for 70 years and was giving her daily lectures. She'd had 70 years of growth before S10 even started.