Doctor Who: Missy paved the way for a female Doctor, according to Steven Moffat

The first female Doctor will debut on Doctor Who later this year. And according to Steven Moffat, Michelle Gomez’s female Master is a big part of the reason why.

The decision to cast Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor was a groundbreaking moment for Doctor Who. And it was one that took many fans by surprise. (Yours truly being one of them.) But maybe it shouldn’t have.

Because Doctor Who has been dropping a lot of hints about gender in recent years. And it spent the past three seasons regularly featuring a female Time Lord who had once been a man.

The Doctor’s nemesis – or frenemy depending on what day you ask – the Master regenerated as a woman in 2014, when we were officially introduced to Michelle Gomez’s Missy during Season 8. And this event did more than provide several seasons’ worth of interesting story and give Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi a great scene partner. No, Missy pretty much changed the future of the show.

At least according to outgoing Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat. He claims that Missy’s existence is probably the reason we’ll have a female Doctor in Season 11.

Moffat explained it thusly while chatting with The Showbiz Lion at the Edinburgh TV Festival:

"“I mean I suppose we’ve been heading in this direction for a while with the Master becoming a woman. I always thought the moment the Master became a woman, the Doctor would NEVER allow that to stand without having a go at the same.”"

To be fair, recent seasons of Doctor Who all contained hints that we might see a female Doctor one day. Way back at the start of Matt Smith’s run in “The Eleventh Hour,” the Doctor questioned out loud whether he might be a girl immediately after his regeneration, indicating that this was something that was an actual possibility. Season 6 episode “The Doctor’s Wife” contained a reference to a Time Lord named The Corsair changing genders upon regeneration. And in the Season 9 finale, “Hell Bent,” the Doctor killed a Time Lord known as the General, who then regenerated from an older white male into a black woman.

To be fair, recent seasons of Doctor Who all contained hints that we might see a female Doctor one day. Way back at the start of Matt Smith’s run in “The Eleventh Hour,” the Doctor questioned out loud whether he might be a girl immediately after his regeneration, indicating that this was something that was an actual possibility. Season 6 episode “The Doctor’s Wife” contained a reference to a Time Lord named The Corsair changing genders upon regeneration. And in the Season 9 finale, “Hell Bent,” the Doctor killed a Time Lord known as the General. Who then regenerated from an older white male into a black woman.

Of course, all these examples are peanuts next to Missy. The Master has been one of the Doctor’s longest-running adversaries, and a character that anyone who’s watched the show would probably be familiar with. Turning any male Time Lord into a woman was always going to be a big deal. But it can’t be overstated how important it was that the show made that particular Time Lord a woman. At the time, it was the next closest thing to actually having a female Doctor.

And it’s worth mentioning, obviously, that Missy is fantastic. Her character is not only entertaining in its own right, but builds on the previous iterations of the Master that have come before her. Missy isn’t a new female character calling herself the Master. She’s just the Master, who happens to now be the Mistress. It’s an important distinction, this continuity of character. And one which laid much of the groundwork for what will come after her, when the Doctor regenerates as a woman.

Perhaps a female Doctor on Doctor Who was always inevitable. (I hope so.) But, a big part of the reason it can happen now is because Missy went first. And proved to everyone that when Twelve regenerates into Thirteen this Christmas, she’ll still be the Doctor, even though her gender will be different. After all, we’ve already seen it before.

Next: David Bradley will play the First Doctor in new Doctor Who audio plays

Doctor Who returns this December with Christmas special “Twice Upon a Time”.