Doctor Who: Should Missy’s regeneration be left unexplained? Sacha Dhawan and Steven Moffat think so

Both Sacha Dhawan and Steven Moffat think that a key part of the Master’s back story is best left unexplored in Doctor Who. Something that we can’t entirely agree with.

Ever since Sacha Dhawan was revealed as the Master back in Series 12’s opening story Spyfall, one question that all Doctor Who fans have been asking is this: How did he regenerate from Michelle Gomez’s Missy? When we last saw her in Series 10 finale The Doctor Falls, she had been killed by her previous incarnation, as played by John Simm. Her body was so badly damaged that she was unable to regenerate. So how has the Master able to come back?

For Sacha Dhawan, it wasn’t something he was too concerned with, as he revealed in an interview with Radio Times.

"I didn’t question it too much. I was more focussed on, as soon as the Master appeared, it’s like right – let’s get back to business. He doesn’t quite dwell on the past."

More interestingly, former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has his own thoughts regarding such a huge gap in mythology.

"I don’t necessarily want all the gaps to be plugged. Kids out there are making up their own stories about how Missy escaped that place and regenerated into Sacha. They’re doing their own version of it. And that’s much more exciting to me than actually filling all those gaps."

Missy’s death in The Doctor Falls at the hands of her previous incarnation was a pretty huge moment in Doctor Who, and the series should address how Missy survived at some point.

(C) BBC/BBC Worldwide – Photographer: Simon Ridgway

More from Winter is Coming

• For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
• Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
• Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
• Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
• Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”

A gap that needs exploring

Personally, I have mixed thoughts on this. Steven Moffat does raise a good point of how sometimes, it can be more fun to imagine what happens in-between such gaps than find out what happens on-screen. And he makes an excellent point about kids imagining their own explanations of how Gomez regenerated into Sacha.

But while it’s OK to leave this story point unexplained for a while, it would be nice if it’s explored eventually. Missy’s death was a huge moment for Peter Capaldi’s era, especially since Michelle Gomez had been a key part of it since Capaldi’s first full episode as the Doctor. Leaving her regeneration into Dhawan completely unexplored feels too big.

And while Steven Moffat claims that some things are better left unexplored, this is the same man who gave us the Eighth Doctor’s long overdue regeneration. Even while he initially left the regeneration from Simm to Gomez completely unexplained, he did reveal how Simm’s Master was killed in The Doctor Falls. So on some level, even he’s aware that some gaps are too big to be left unexplained.

I’ll admit, I’ll be OK if the origins of Dhawan’s Master weren’t explored for a little while longer. Certainly, it’s one more thing for the fans to speculate over. But I do hope that it gets covered at some point.

What are your thoughts? Should we find out how Missy regenerated into the Master’s current form? Or do you think it’s better left unexplained? Let us know in the comments below.