Both showrunners had sown the seeds with the odd comment that implied the Doctor had once been female - despite other occasions in which it was confirmed that we'd seen all the Doctors there were to see - but it was only with The Doctor's Wife that we learned that a Time Lord could have both male and female incarnations. This was in the form of references to one known as the Corsair. Whilst the Doctors often made flippant remarks about their past, designed to provoke a reaction, it certainly sounded as if it was a simple statement of fact that the Corsair had changed gender.
The revived series had stated that the Time Lords were gone, and the Doctor was last of his kind - until RTD introduced the concept of the Chameleon Arch, which could mask a Time Lord's biological identity by rewriting it to make them physically and psychologically human. Thus, it was possible to have the Master survive.
John Simm played the role opposite David Tennant, and pretty much ruled himself out of further appearances by claiming he was associated with Tennant and when he left, so would he. (He would change his mind by 2013, as he was a little upset not to be asked to participate in the 50th).
Meanwhile, fans were continually clamouring for the return of other Time Lords, now it had been shown how it could be done without messing up post-Time War continuity.
Top of the list, for some unfathomable reason, was the Rani.
Personally, I've never understood this. She only featured in two stories - an okay one with Colin Baker in which she was rather side-lined by the pointless addition of the Master, and then the debut story for Sylvester McCoy, which is rubbish.
The character had worked in Mark of the Rani as she was clearly more than just a female Master figure. She had no designs on ruling the universe, but was instead an amoral scientist whose villainy derived from her low opinion of human beings. We were just lab rats to be experimented on and exploited.
Time and the Rani, despite being written by her creators, changed her character for the worse. Whilst still engaged in unethical experiments and treating lower orders as lab rats, she was presented as just another megalomaniacal super-villain. She had become the very thing which the Bakers had avoided last time - a female Master.
When he decided to bring the Master back in 2014, Steven Moffat knew he had carte blanche to do something new with the character. He could have considered bringing back the Rani - using the old Chameleon Arch trick or some weird science of her own. He could also have created an entirely new female villain character, but he elected instead to have the first female incarnation of a major Time Lord figure.
In Dark Water, he actually toyed with us first by having her use the acronym RANI when pretending to be an AI construct to the Doctor - Random Access Neural Integrator.
It had previously been claimed that Time Lords were supposed to recognise each other, but this rule seems to have been set aside. The Doctor clearly doesn't recognise that this is his old enemy. She has to point it out to him, stating that she could no longer call herself "Master" - hence Missy.
(Actually, as an academic title she could have continued to use her old nom-de-guerre, but the word has other usages relating to the ownership or control over people, where it is very much a male title).
The Rani would never have been as mad as Missy, so the characters would never have been interchangeable - so she doesn't necessarily preclude the Rani from making a return some day.
If RTD2 chooses to do this, then he really needs to make sure she isn't simple a clone of Missy - otherwise what would be the point? Besides, Michelle Gomez has had a break from the character for a few years. It would be interesting to see how she reacted to a new Doctor (a pity Chibnall never had her meet a female Doctor, but then I really liked Dhawan's incarnation). Imagine what a Thirteenth Doctor, River Song, Missy story would have looked like?
If the Saxon Master can make a comeback years after his departure, then so might Missy.
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