Theory:Timeline - Missy
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
This page lists appearances of Missy in the order in which she experienced them. It relies on much speculation to fit semi-contradictory sources together, and should absolutely not be seen as representative of this wiki's general policy.
Limiting factors
Any story where Missy primarily uses an English accent should come before TV: Deep Breath, where she decided to "keep" the Twelfth Doctor's Scottish accent. Vice versa, any story where she primarily uses a Scottish accent should take place afterwards.
Missy encounters the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald for the first time in TV: Dark Water. They do not meet each other again until TV: The Magician's Apprentice, therefore all stories featuring Missy with the Twelfth Doctor and Clara must take place after the aforementioned stories.
Timeline
- Previous page: Saxon Master
Early escapades
- The Master has only recently regenerated, but has already chosen her new outfit and begun calling herself "the Mistress", though she adopts the name "Missy" near the end of her campaign against the Scoundrels Club.
- Missy does not have a vortex manipulator and is instead using her TARDIS, but is impressed by River's vortex manipulator and considers getting one of her own. Missy learns that the Doctor survived his assassination at Lake Silencio.
- After spending some time looking for a replacement power source, Missy jettisons the Eye of Harmony from her TARDIS to gain further freedom from the Time Lords once she finds a usable replacement. She is carrying her vortex manipulator, sonic umbrella, and a TCE, and notes that she hasn't used a TCE in "donkey's years".
Acquiring the Master TARDIS
- Missy is exiled to Victorian London by the Wardens for a future crime of hers. She is using her vortex manipulator and becomes the governess for the Davis family when a grandfather clock goes missing from their household, with her receiving the blame for the theft.
- Gallifrey has returned from the stasis cube, and Missy is without a working TARDIS. She steals a component from the Monk's TARDIS.
- Missy recovers the TARDIS she used during the Last Great Time War, but loses her vortex manipulator.
- Missy recovers the Master TARDIS from inside a dead space creature, and feeds her TARDIS from the Time War to its Eye of Harmony using the component she stole from the Monk's TARDIS. She has acquired another vortex manipulator.
- Missy has recently acquired the Master TARDIS, setting this shortly after The Belly of the Beast. She encounters the Lumiat for the first time. Missy decides to start calling herself a Time Lady after stealing the idea from the Lumiat, setting this before Death in Heaven. She decides to go to Earth, leading directly into Brimstone and Terror.
- Missy is reunited with Oliver and Lucy Davis. Her vortex manipulator is now quantum linked to the Master TARDIS, and she uses the TCE, setting this after Lords and Masters.
- Missy becomes trapped on Earth in 1605 following her escape from Mr. Cosmo, setting this immediately after Brimstone and Terror. Missy is teleported aboard the Monk's space station, leading directly into Too Many Masters.
- The Monk attempts to take his revenge on Missy, but they are immediately captured by the Ogrons, who wish to be recompensed for the events of Frontier in Space. They escape in the Monk's TARDIS, with Missy suggesting that this to be the beginning of "a horrible friendship".
Adventures with the Monk
- Missy has extracted the Monk's brain from his body, which he assumes is to bypass the need for them both to pilot his TARDIS. However, she soon returns him to his body.
- The Monk is still recovering from the brain extraction, setting this immediately after Body and Soulless.
- The Monk escapes Missy, but she obtains the coordinates of her TARDIS and sets off in an alien spaceship to find it.
Searching for her TARDIS
- Missy is travelling the galaxy without use of a TARDIS when she falls into a time well and encounters time assassin James Blakelock and steals his vortex manipulator, leading directly into The Bad Apple Brigade.
3W scheme
- Missy acquires three matrix data slices from Lucy Saxon, suggesting that she is planning to set up the Nethersphere.
- (NOTE)
- Missy creates the 3W Institute in order to create a Cyberman army of the dead as part of her plan to rekindle her friendship with the Doctor. To further her plan, Missy arranges for Clara Oswald to join the Eleventh Doctor, (TV: The Bells of Saint John) and that they remain together when he regenerates into his twelfth incarnation. (TV: Deep Breath, Death in Heaven) To finalise her 3W plot, Missy kills Clara's boyfriend, Danny Pink, in a car accident, then returns to the Scoundrels Club to gloat at her successful vengeance. (PROSE: Dismemberment)
- Working from the 3W Institute, Missy aligns with several of her other incarnations against the Doctor.
- Follows directly on from Legacy.
- Missy welcomes the Half-Face Man to the Nethersphere after his death fighting the Twelfth Doctor.
- Missy greets Gretchen Carlisle in the Nethersphere after she is killed by Dalek antibodies.
- Missy is seen by PC Matthew when he arrives in the Nethersphere after being killed by a Skovox Blitzer.
- Missy keeps tabs on the Doctor and Clara as they face the Boneless.
- Missy watches the Earth being protected from a solar flare by overgrown tress.
- After watching the Doctor from afar, Missy meets the Twelfth Doctor for the first time when he and Clara visit the 3W Institute. She begins her Cyberman invasion and reveals her identity to the Doctor, leading directly into Death in Heaven.
- Missy's plan is thwarted by the Doctor and Danny Pink, and Missy is seemingly killed by a Cyber-converted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but in actuality just teleports away using her vortex manipulator.
After 3W
- Leads into True Nemesis.
- Missy encounters Kate and Osgood for the first time since Death and Heaven, and is confused by Osgood's survival. When Kate asks Missy if she killed the Eleven, she replies that she "[might] one day", implying a setting prior to Day of the Master.
- Missy is using her vortex manipulator, which is her main means of travel. She recalls River's method of wiping memories, setting this after The Bekdel Test.
- Missy comes out of hiding to reveal that she is still alive to the Doctor and Clara.
- Missy meets Davros for the first time in the Dalek City.
After Skaro
- Missy has just escaped from the Daleks, setting this immediately after The Witch's Familiar. She repairs her TARDIS after it is damaged during a collision with a Gryphon ship, and briefly encounters the Thirteenth Doctor.
- Missy recalls her life up to the events of The Witch's Familiar.
- Follows on from The Abominable Showmen.
Causing mayhem in the universe
- Missy is travelling via vortex manipulator.
- Set before Missy on Trial. Missy has made a home for herself on Vartagen, but has to seek out the Doctor's help when the Daleks invade the planet. She sees the neon control room design in the Doctor's TARDIS for the first time, and has not seen the Doctor in shock since Dark Water. After they stop Freya from converting Londoners into Daleks, Missy slips away, setting course for Viridia.
At a loose end
- Missy claims she has not had much excitement since escaping Skaro in The Witch's Familiar. She knows the Doctor is currently on Darillium, meaning that all of her encounters with the Twelfth Doctor prior to Extremis should take place before this.
- After she fails to gain the powers of Iarbus, the same powers are used by Daphne Nollis to force Missy into becoming "nice", however briefly.
- Missy is familiar with the Lumiat, setting this after The Lumiat. She mentions having a TARDIS, and refers to the Doctor using female pronouns, setting this after The Liar, The Glitch and The Warzone. She questions her morality when pressed by Jo Grant.
- Missy encounters the Thirteenth Doctor and appears to be aware of her identity, setting this after The Liar, the Glitch, and the War Zone.
- Missy arrives in Leadworth due to her faulty vortex manipulator and contemplates using Amy Pond as a means of summoning the Doctor for help, however comes to realise that she has arrived too early in Amy's timeline for the Eleventh Doctor to show up.
Imprisoned in the Vault
- Missy is captured by the "Enemies of Life" to stand trial, and is sentenced to be executed, leading directly into Extremis.
- Missy is saved from her execution by the Doctor and Nardole. She is placed in a Quantum Fold Chamber.
- (NOTE)
- Missy is taken to St Luke's University in the 1940s to be imprisoned by the Doctor, who hopes to rehabilitate her. (TV: Extremis)
- Missy is being held in the Vault, and is beginning to reform her ways, though still insists on doing good in a sadistic way.
- In 2017, Missy realises the Doctor had begun traveling again, and bangs on the Vault doors.
- Missy is still in denial about being redeemable.
- The Doctor has dinner with Missy after his ordeal at 11 Cardinal Road.
- Missy meets Bill Potts when the Doctor comes to her for advice on how to defeat the Monks.
- Nardole releases Missy from the Vault, for the first time since her imprisonment, so she can help him return the TARDIS to 1881 Mars to retrieve the Doctor and Bill.
- Nardole says Missy cannot be let outside of the Vault again, setting this after Empress of Mars.
- Follows on from The Great Shopping Bill. Missy is given emergency access to the TARDIS controls, and the Doctor is considering allowing her to accompany him, Bill and Nardole on adventures in the future.
- Missy is asked to do maintenance on the TARDIS by the Doctor, hoping that she can learn to be good by watching him on his travels. His plan is beginning to work, and the two think of becoming friends again.
- Though he doubts she is ready for it yet, the Doctor reluctantly allows Missy to accompany him, Bill and Nardole on a trip in the TARDIS, and his suspicions are confirmed after she kills several people on the trip. Missy recalls having learned about crying, setting this after The Eaters of Light.
- Missy is beginning to change her ways, testing herself on her self control by not killing those she has the power too.
- The Doctor sends Missy on a mission to obtain the key to the Key to Time, which she does successfully using his TARDIS. Missy suggests to the Doctor that she woud "make a fabulous Doctor Who", implicitly leading into World Enough and Time.
- Missy is identifying as "Doctor Who" when she meets Doom. She visits Stormcage Containment Facility where one of her previous incarnations is still held. A member of Stormcage staff recalls her previous visit to the prison in The Master Plan.
The final test
- Missy is taken to colony ship to test if she can truly be redeemed, but instead finds herself face-to-face with her "Harold Saxon" incarnation, leading directly into The Doctor Falls.
-
- Set during World Enough and Time, when the Doctor, Nardole and Missy are taking the lift to Floor 1056.
- (SEGMENT)
- Missy is forced to flee to Floor 0507 with the Doctor, the Master, Nardole and the cyber-converted Bill. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
- Set after the prologue of The Doctor Falls.
- Despite a relapse in personality, Missy decides to join forces with the Doctor after fatally wounding the Master, but is killed by her past incarnation before she can.
- (NOTE)
- As she dies, Missy, tired of being evil, creates an Elysian field in order to kick start a new regeneration cycle and reconstructs her body into a distillation of all her goodness. This new incarnation takes on the name "the Lumiat" and seeks to do good in the universe, inspired by the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Lumiat)
- Next page: The Lumiat
Currently unplaced
- These entries are placed here due to being part of ongoing storylines that have yet to offer sufficient enough evidence to be placed in a specific part of Missy's timeline, unless further evidence arises in the stories to come.
Awaiting placement
- These entries are placed here until a suitable position in the timeline can be determined based on the available evidence.
- Missy has been allowed out of the vault, but only into the TARDIS, suggesting a setting after Empress of Mars. Missy tries to convince the Doctor to allow her to accompany him on trips, although he isn’t convinced that she is ready for that. She is determined to prove to the Doctor that she is serious about her redemption. She indicates that Death in Heaven was the last time she was truly antagonistic towards the Doctor