//Dooooo not get me started on how TRUE THIS IS.   He was grouchy, he was NOT AT ALL FUN (and his zany childish glee in spreading evil was central to his characterization during the RTD era), he was bitter and tired and way too preoccupied with being a raging misogynist for its own sake (it was pretty obvious to me that his nastiness to Chan-Tho, Martha and Lucy was all part of the Master’s LIFELONG predilection for hitting individual victims where it hurts most, but in Series Ten, his bitchy remarks about “empathy” and “old bras” and “is the future going to be all girl” screamed of contrivance, and I say that as a massive feminist: compare that to the way feminism is handled in Series Eleven and you see the wrong and the right way of addressing systemic misogyny in our society BUUUUT anyway).  

All you gotta do is look through my meta tag, ohhhh my God.  I was so overjoyed that he was coming back, but since then have largely regretted that they ever squandered the actor’s talents and time that way.  It all felt like a convoluted plot device for making Gomez’s Missy seem more redeemable, when she already proved all on her own that she was wonderful.  They didn’t need to take a giant shit on him and render him the Id to her Superego for her implicit value as a character to be obvious!  

None of his development in End of Time was addressed, except the brief moment when, inexplicably, Twelve was very bitter and nasty about him being “on his way to Gallifrey” (while saving your life, dingus, and don’t get me started on how that was ooc of Twelve, too, given the time and love he dedicated to Missy).   To such an obvious extent that I have had to write up an entire backstory explanation for what was basically a retcon between End of Time and World Enough and Time just to justify continuing to write him. 8′( Lordy.  

Moffat apologists (and I love big chunks of Moffat’s era, like, for instance, Missy’s whole existence, so I am not hating on him here) tend to stan his era so vehemently that anything I’ve said about this problem in the writing has been received with amazing vitriol, and the easy solution to the retcon seems to be demonizing Simm Master as “the worst” and “most inferior” of all the character’s incarnations, when less than three years ago he was warmly received by the majority of the fandom.  It has been really difficult to even keep this blog running after Series Ten  because of the hate the character receives (and I sometimes directly receive just for minding my own business in my own happy corner of the fandom writing him).  

So just. Yes? Yes hardcore lol.  Thank you for saying this.  It means a lot coming from a Doctor mun.