Pirates of Dark Water... [SPOILERS! FOR DOCTOR WHO SERIES 8, EPISODE 11]

[jjpor]

...was a fairly whacked-out cartoon they used to show on Children's BBC back in the early 90s. It was about this alien planet (I assume) where there was, well, a lot of ocean. A bit like Earthsea or somewhere. And pirates. And "dark water", which was like this Lovecraftian abomination from the Beyond, one part oil slick one part The Blob, which was

Comments

[akashasheiress]

Of course, I doubt Moffat himself thought too deeply about the gender-identity/politics thing when deciding the gender of Gomez!Master (he likely just thought it was time for a Time Lord to do that), and there is a perfectly doylist explanation as to why the Doctor and other on-screen Time Lords haven't been known to alternate their gender, but there's not much fun in that, is there? ;) So, basically, I'm thinking that the majority of of Time Peeps tend to regenerate into the sex they were born with, like, 98% of the time (estimate pulled out of my backside, obviously), but that there is a minority that does. This could obviously also be due to Gallifrey having similar equality-related issues to Earth. They're definitely not without sexism (again, never mind the doylist explanation).

Knowing the Master, though, zie could have done it just to fuck with the Doctor. Which could, of course, be an Unfortunate Implication of its own, but not necessarily so if played right. Also, the exaggerated femme fatale-mannerisms could just be the Master being the Master. Zie does love playing the stereotypical villain-role to hilt, after all. ;)