I might be in the minority here, but I think retconning hard earned, character defining/shaping/progression arcs is a bad thing.
No, I agree with you, I’d just never really thought it through with The Master/Missy. And we don’t know how many extra regenerations they were given in the Time War, so there’s plenty of room if we assume the great (and tragically underused) Derek Jacobi was “reset” to One, Missy could potentially be Thirteen, and then there’s plenty to play with in the middle.
I do at least think the genocide thing with the Doctor was handled well - because of some “you don’t really remember future events” shenanigans when meeting multiple versions of yourself, all of the Doctors from John Hurt to Matt Smith “remembered” making that decision, and it was compassion from that experience that led him to go back to be there when he did it, and finally realising he could have a second chance at it. It doesn’t undo anything Ecclestone or Tennant went through.
And while it was a good couple of Doctors, lifting that shadow means that Gatwa can be more cheerful and optimistic, but still with the dark side of having fought in the war and knowing he COULD have made that decision of he’d had to. It stops the Doctor just getting potentially grimmer and grimmer as more and more terrible things keep happening.
No, I agree with you, I’d just never really thought it through with The Master/Missy. And we don’t know how many extra regenerations they were given in the Time War, so there’s plenty of room if we assume the great (and tragically underused) Derek Jacobi was “reset” to One, Missy could potentially be Thirteen, and then there’s plenty to play with in the middle.
I do at least think the genocide thing with the Doctor was handled well - because of some “you don’t really remember future events” shenanigans when meeting multiple versions of yourself, all of the Doctors from John Hurt to Matt Smith “remembered” making that decision, and it was compassion from that experience that led him to go back to be there when he did it, and finally realising he could have a second chance at it. It doesn’t undo anything Ecclestone or Tennant went through.
And while it was a good couple of Doctors, lifting that shadow means that Gatwa can be more cheerful and optimistic, but still with the dark side of having fought in the war and knowing he COULD have made that decision of he’d had to. It stops the Doctor just getting potentially grimmer and grimmer as more and more terrible things keep happening.