Michelle Gomez Confirms Missy Returns in 'Doctor Who' Season 10

The Doctor’s longtime nemesis (and best friend) the Master — lately known as “Missy” — will definitely return in the new 2017 10th season of Doctor Who.

Last seen on the planet Skaro cavorting with the Daleks in the Season 9 episode “The Witch’s Familiar,” Missy (Michelle Gomez) will be bothering the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his new companion Bill (Pearl Mackie) very soon. Gomez confirmed her return in an interview with Music.com on October 14: “I can officially say that I will be starting back on Doctor Who soon.”

In her last appearance, Missy briefly teamed up with Clara and the Doctor, only to eventually betray them. Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean Missy will be a villain in the new season. From the reintroduction of the Master (John Simm) back in the David Tennant era of Doctor Who, the character has been rendered somewhat more sympathetically than in the classic era of the show. Sure, Missy killed poor Osgood in “Death in Heaven,” but it was later reveled in “The Zygon Inversion” that maybe that was the shapeshifting Zygon Osgood double and not the real Osgood. Do we forgive Missy for zapping an alien doppelgänger?

In the overall story arc of Season 9, Missy was in possession of the Doctor’s “confession dial,” an object which he would only give to someone right before he assumed he was going to die for real. In the events of “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent” we learned the Doctor was actually imprisoned in a confession dial by the Time Lords. Did the Master/Missy play a part in this? Because she was conspicuously absent from the planet Gallifrey in “Hell Bent” we can only assume she’s still out in the universe wreaking havoc. And because the Doctor had his memories erased of ever having known Clara, could he briefly have forgotten Missy, too? Either way, the return of the deliciously diabolical and sometimes evil Time Lady — the Mistress — will certainly make the next season of Doctor Who explosive, over-the-top, and hilarious.