Winter is Coming
Fansided

Doctor Who spin-off review: Missy’s own series is a lot of villainous fun!

By James Aggas

facebooktwitterreddit

We’ve seen her cause chaos and destruction in Doctor Who – and that was just when the Doctor was there to stop her! But what did Missy get up to when her archenemy wasn’t around?

Missy was a spin-off I had been looking forward to ever since Big Finish announced it last year. It’s an incredibly exciting idea for a series – focusing on what the evil Time Lady got up to outside of Doctor Who. Plus, Michelle Gomez returning to the role makes it a huge bonus.

Big Finish have had a lot of success with their many spin-off series. Gallifrey, Dalek Empire, Jago & Litefoot, to name just a few. Even Torchwood has officially continued on audio thanks to Big Finish.

But one of my favorites in recent years has to be The War Master. Having the Doctor’s enemy as the main protagonist in a series was a risky move, but it paid off. The War Master was dark, horrifying and thrilling. It was a perfect series that showed how charming, dangerous and scary the Doctor’s worst enemy could really be.

So how would Missy explore the same idea, but with a different incarnation? How different would the series be with Michelle Gomez’s more fun-loving and insane incarnation as the lead?

Let’s find out.

We’ve seen Missy often act like a scary Mary Poppins. But this time, she really does have to play the role of nanny like never before…

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

A Spoonful of Mayhem

The opening episode of Missy is actually a pretty perfect way to re-introduce the character. We’ve seen her act nanny-ish in Doctor Who, and there was definitely a strong Mary Poppins vibe to her, at times. The moment of her teleporting in mid-air while she glides down on her umbrella is a particularly perfect moment.

But despite that, we never saw her in a situation where she had to actually be a nanny. Let’s be honest, a psychopath like the Master just wouldn’t have the patience for it. Not unless they were forced into an incredibly difficult situation where they were basically forced to look after kids.

And that’s exactly what A Spoonful of Mayhem gives us. Stuck in Victorian London, unable to do her favorite things like murder or try to take over the universe, Missy finds a job as a governess, forced to look after two children.

A twisted fairy tale

What really makes this work is that, for most of the story, we see Missy through the children’s eyes. Oliver and Lucy are two bright young Londoners who find Missy to be a very unusual character, to say the least!

Through their eyes, A Spoonful of Mayhem feels like Mary Poppins or Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but just a little bit darker. Missy’s not exactly an anti-hero in this one, but with her under very close observation and required to follow rules (like, for example, not killing anyone), she can’t quite get up to her usual villainous tricks.

Not that that restricts the character, or Michelle Gomez’s glorious performance. She’s a lot of fun to listen to as a nanny, throwing a lot of wit and banter at the kids. She also puts them into a lot of danger on a regular basis, as to be expected.

I think my favorite thing about A Spoonful of Mayhem is how much it feels like a dark fairy tale. This is very openly acknowledged by Lucy, who clearly has a love for such stories. And this episode has so many fairy tale tropes: monsters, magic, and even, in the form of Missy, a wicked witch.

Overall, it’s a nice, fun beginning to the series, and gets Missy’s new spin-off off to a great start.

Rufus Hound’s Monk last appeared in The Rise of the New Humans in The Third Doctor Adventures. He’s used to the Doctor by now, but what happens when he meets Missy?

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated

One of the funniest stories ever written by John Dorney was the excellent The Trouble with Drax. I don’t know if he had a lot of fun writing it, but it’s certainly a fun story to listen to. And that’s still my favorite of his in terms of comedy, but Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated comes very, very close.

This is mainly because it has one of the best ideas for a meeting ever: Missy and the Monk. Especially when those incarnations are played by comedic performers as brilliant as Michelle Gomez and Rufus Hound.

I absolutely love the Monk, and Rufus Hound’s performance is always fantastic. He’s hilarious, but he also feels fleshed out and believable. He’s not your typical Doctor Who villain in that he’s not evil as such. Just reckless and irresponsible. Unfortunately, in this episode, he meets Missy. And he’s not remotely happy about it.

A perfect duo

The dialogue between Hound and Gomez is absolutely fantastic. There are so many wonderfully quotable moments. The best part is that Dorney doesn’t take a long time to build up to their meeting or separate them for too long, because he knows that if you’ve got Gomez and Hound together in the same story, you need to make the most of that.

One of my favorite moments is the Monk’s reaction to Missy referring to him as “the Meddling Monk”. Because, unlike the Doctor, the Master and the Rani, it’s not a name he chose. He’s only been named as such because it was his disguise when the Doctor met him in The Time Meddler! Naturally, Missy has a lot of fun calling him by that exact name.

The story is light-hearted, but fun, with the Monk disguised as Henry VIII and wrecking history! (It’s kind of embarrassing for the Master that they once used a shapeshifting android to change history, and the Monk is doing a way better job than they did!) We even find out exactly what the Monk got up to in the Time War!

But while the plot is enjoyable and fun, it’s Gomez and Hound who really make this story, especially when aided by John Dorney’s excellent dialogue. Another hugely enjoyable episode.

When you’ve got the writer of one of the most bonkers, meta and brilliant Doctor Who stories ever made writing for Missy, you know you’re in for a treat.

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

The Broken Clock

This was the episode that I was looking forward to most, even more so than the idea of the Master and the Monk meeting each other. Not because of what was going to happen in the story, but because of who was writing it: Nev Fountain.

In terms of story, you can never be quite sure what you’re going to get with Nev Fountain. Oh, you can expect it to be funny, clever and utterly bonkers. But that’s it. Fountain is great at giving the listener a lot of surprises, and The Broken Clock is no exception.

It takes a while to get going, as we’re introduced to Dick Zodiac’s America’s Most Impossible Serial Killers! The show that we listen to is exactly as over-the-top as you expect. There’s heavily stylized narration and flashbacks, with reconstructions of the crime being described. It’s funny, but you also begin to wonder where exactly it’s going. Then Missy finally arrives, and that’s when the story really gets interesting…

I really don’t want to give too much away with this episode. Like I said, Fountain likes to include a lot of little surprises in his work, and I certainly don’t want to spoil the ones he’s got here.

What I can say is that The Broken Clock is gloriously meta. It really plays with the listener’s head, and just when you think you know exactly what’s going on, something else comes along that completely pulls the rug from underneath your feet. It’s a really fantastic story, and I’m already eager to listen to it again to see what I missed.

A more secretive Missy

I also enjoyed how Missy was used in this episode. She gets to be noticeably creepier than in previous episodes, and she’s more openly ruthless, too. She’s still fun, but it’s good to get a reminder that, generally speaking, she is the villain of the story.

Speaking of which, what also works is that we don’t know what she’s up to. That’s true of the previous two episodes, but it’s even clearer here. She’s not just secretive, but has a lot of fun making people paranoid about what she’s up to. It’s another key aspect of the plot that leaves you guessing, and provides a satisfying answer, too.

Like Peri and the Piscon Paradox, The Broken Clock is another absolute gem of a story. It’s a very clever and carefully plotted episode that both entertains and deals with some interesting themes. Especially the clash between story and reality, even when the story is supposed to be based on fact. It lived up to my expectations, and once again shows us exactly why Nev Fountain is one of the best writers out there.

Missy completes her evil scheme in The Belly of the Beast. Just how far is she prepared to go to get what she wants?

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

The Belly of the Beast

I’ve mentioned before how Missy becomes steadily more openly villainous across this box set, and that’s especially true of the final episode. With slavery, monsters, and a huge body count, The Belly of the Beast features Missy at her most villainous yet.

Again, one reason that this story works is that Missy isn’t the main point of view. Each episode gives us different perspectives on Missy – the children in A Spoonful of Mayhem; the Monk in Beheaded, Divorced, Regenerated, and the detective in The Broken Clock.

In this episode, it’s her slaves who are the main point of view. And unsurprisingly, their perspective is the least sympathetic towards her. But what is Missy using slaves for? And what terrible secret is she keeping from them?

Missy unleashed

Missy is gloriously evil in this episode. Jonathan Morris pulls absolutely no punches with this episode. She’s still both fun and funny, but she’s also absolutely cold-blooded and ruthless.

More from Winter is Coming

This isn’t surprising, as Jonathan Morris has written for the Master a few times before. Not just with Missy in last month’s The Diary of River Song: Series Five, but also on his own with Mastermind. He knows how to make the Master work as a villain protagonist. How to make us strangely root for the character, even when they’re doing terrible things.

And this is definitely Missy at her darkest yet. By the end of this story, she’s left a lot of carnage in her wake. She’s also left us eager for the next series.

Overall, I adored all four episodes of Missy. It’s very different to The War Master, but then again, it should be. Just as Ten’s adventures are very different to Seven’s or even Four’s. It’s fantastic that we now have more than one series dedicated to the adventures of the Doctor’s greatest enemy. If you loved Missy in Doctor Who, then you’re definitely going to love her in her own series. I can’t wait to hear what she gets up to next.

dark. Next. Frenemies – looking at the Doctor’s and the Master’s unique relationship

Have you listened to Missy yet? Did you enjoy listening to her own adventures? Which was your favorite episode? Let us know in the comments below.

Home/Doctor Who