This series finale has been a real roller coaster of a ride, with UNIT storming back onto our screens, a Cyber Danny Goodbye, Clara.
.
.
and a showdown between the Doctor and the Master.
Say something nice.
So get comfy for this final Doctor Who Extra of series eight.
It's going to blow you away.
With Cybermen stomping through London, the crowds were out to catch a glimpse of these classic villains and their favourite hero
- the Doctor.
Little did they know they were also witnessing the big reveal
- Missy is the Master.
I couldn't very well keep calling myself The Master, now, could I?
And for Steven, casting this iconic role was crucial.
I hadn't written the part yet.
I was still fretting over who could play it, and what would they be like?
And Michelle Gomez is someone I've known for years, and I saw her on the list for another part in this series, and I thought, "Oh, my God.
"It's her.
It's her.
That's who should be playing Missy.
"That's the perfect Missy.
She's brilliant.
" So we offered her the part, and I think she's quite magnificent.
The role came about when I got a call and I was asked to do it and I said, "Yeah, all right, then.
" Cos you don't say no to Doctor Who.
I mean, you can't.
You shouldn't.
One shouldn't.
One shouldn't.
Oh, I was delighted that the Master came back, and doubly delighted that Michelle played the Master, because I know Michelle, so I knew that she'd bring all of her customary vigour and wit and sharpness to it.
Action! Look at them.
My boys.
The Master coming back to the show wasn't the only surprise in store.
This regeneration had a unique difference.
She's different from the other Masters we've seen, because obviously she's taken a female form.
It's just a proper, good old twist.
We've been saying for years now, certainly since I took over, that regeneration can change your gender, and that, I thought, is maybe the one they won't see coming.
With a female Master cast for the first time, this meant she required some suitable attire.
Steven wrote for Missy, um sort of mad Victorian nanny type sort of thing, and immediately I just had this vision of what she'd be like, and she did look like a Victorian nanny, and then she gave that mad, sort of, mad look and it took on another dimension.
So really good fun.
Camera, mark.
It wasn't only the shocking return of the Master in this episode.
We also had the return of UNIT.
Locked, loaded and ready to go.
Now! Move, move, move! How does it feel to be back on Doctor Who?
It feels amazing.
I am so chuffed.
At the beginning of the episode, she she is involved in a plot that foils Missy, which I was quite excited about cos I got to do a bit of derring
-do.
Afternoon.
You've picked a lovely day for it.
To find yourself on set and actually playing a scene, and standing up and confronting these bogeymen from your childhood is a slightly surreal experience.
I just kept staring at them, and then staring at Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, thinking, "This is just a really, really, really "brilliant job, and I already don't want it to end," and it was day one.
With Missy in custody, it was time for the President of the World to take flight on his Boat One in true presidential style, but filming at such high altitude isn't an easy task.
So to create the twists and turns of a plane in flight, the set was constructed on top of a special piece of equipment, operated by the special
-effects team.
So this is a high
-performance gimbal, which is a 20x30 foot large, steel construction that you see behind me now, and what it means is that we put the set on it and it moves in, like, four stages
- forward, back, left and right, and it can also roll.
I think this was used in, sort of, James Bond movies back with Timothy Dalton and stuff, so it's a very well
-experienced bit of kit.
In story terms, the plane is banking left and right and up and down, so, really, it's just to accentuate those moves and give the impression that we're on a real plane, but, of course, we're not, as you can see.
351, take two! With Missy restrained, it was only a matter of time before she'd escape from her bonds to wreak havoc on board, and for Osgood, this was bad news.
(I'm going to k*ll you in a minute.
) I got the script and I remember, er, I remember reading it, sort of, on my phone, sort of, flicking through it, and then it got to the bit where it says, "And she is pulverised," and I remember feeling sick.
I was like, "Oh, no!" When we brought back the Master in the form of Missy, one thing I was very determined about was that the Master/Missy would have to k*ll somebody we liked in the most cruel, heartless and terrible way, to absolutely say that this person is shockingly evil.
Osgood was the one we flung on the fire to make the Master burn brighter.
Aah.
I just thought, "There's no way this isthat she's going here.
" But hey, it's Doctor Who, right?
So, anything can happen, surely! It wasn't only vaporising Osgood, Missy was also set to set the plane on a collision course to Earth.
Another job for the special
-effects team.
We built a soft section of the plane and, really, we just blew it out.
Literally just pull it, and one of them, yeah?
We used a line on the exterior part of the set, which no
-one sees, that was pulled by my team manually.
You know, sometimes these things are a lot easier if they're less mechanical.
The cameras were set to roll for the big moment.
Three, two, one I was really pleased with the effect, actually.
It was a big bang and hopefully very dramatic.
With the Doctor now in freefall, this meant Peter had to be hooked up to the studio wires, yet again.
Death In Heaven has some fantastic action sequences that are almost Bond
-like.
I actually got to fly, which is something that I didn't realise that I would enjoy so much.
The people were very worried about me, but in fact I was having a gas.
'It was a great time.
'It was like being Doctor Who and Superman at the same time,' so I would've quite happily just hung up there for hours, because it was great! It looks amazing and it's a great experience to do it.
But it wasn't only Peter.
Michelle also had a date with some fancy wirework.
'Working with wires was challenging.
' The perception of it was challenging, the actual reality of it was really very nice.
Ooh, that was brilliant.
Did you see that?
When I was a little girl, I used to pray that I could fly, and here, here I can And did! Well, we've all seen the feisty Missy at work, but who exactly IS the Master, and why is she so determined to go head
-to
-head with the Doctor?
Why is the Master always plotting against the Doctor?
Well, if you really loved chess, who would you choose to play with?
You'd choose to play with somebody who's as good as you.
The Master has to find the Doctor, because otherwise no
-one else can give him a game.
The Master is like the Doctor
- a rebel Time Lord, but one who has taken a path that has ledto evil.
Over the years, the Master has been played by various actors, all with a different take on this cunning character.
When the Master first appeared in 1971, he was played by Roger Delgado, who gave the character a blend of elegance, charm and understated evil.
His untimely death meant his final appearance came in 1973's Frontier In Space.
And when the Master reappeared in 1976, he emerged as a very different figure, played initially by Peter Pratt and then Geoffrey Beevers in 1981.
He was a badly scarred wreck of a Time Lord
- his charisma and wit replaced by a seething hatred for the Doctor.
At the end of The Keeper Of Traken, Anthony Ainley made his debut as the Master.
He returned many times during the eras of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors.
His take on the Time Lord fused a sneering cruelty with an apparent fondness for his old enemy.
Eric Roberts played a prima donna of a Master opposite the Eighth Doctor in 1996.
Other actors to have played the old rogue in fleeting cameos include Gordon Tipple and William Hughes.
When the character returned in 2007, he was portrayed very briefly by Sir Derek Jacobi.
John Simm was the Master from 2007 until 2010.
The humour and charm were back, but there was also a staggering ego, a wildly unpredictable streak and, in fact, to put it bluntly, the Master was a bit bonkers.
But as bonkers as Missy?
You decide! With the dead rising from their graves as Cybermen, this also meant the return of Danny.
Unfortunately life as a Cyberman is too much for him and it's left to Clara to end his pain.
Our last conversation as me, alive, but it's a beautiful day to die.
It's lovely out there.
I wasn't very good at it, but I did love you.
The Cyberman
-Danny exit story is beautiful.
Loved you too.
It was really sad and harrowing, and what's so lovely is, again, is something that Doctor Who can do, is turn all of that kind ofthat badness around 'into something really beautiful
- that love is a promise' and love is something that can save us and endure, basically.
So I think it's a really beautiful and very clever, clever tie
-up.
Despite Samuel's cool performance, acting as a Cyberman can get a little bit heated.
It was 25 degrees outside.
That kind of sucks the excitement out of you, but it was a brilliant, brilliant challenge.
Do you like my outfit?
Wonderfully comfortable.
Hottest day of the year
- best day to wear it.
'It's not easy in those suits and, again, a new experience.
' I'd never gone for prosthetics.
I've never worked in a costume like that.
To be able to come in and play not just a Cyberman, like, with speeches
- an emotional Cyberman
- is so exciting.
We are the fallen, but today we shall rise.
The army of the dead will save the land of the living.
The big parade speech was brilliant! The promise of a soldier.
It was something I've been dying to do.
I've got that on the showreel now.
Danny sacrificing himself to save the world wouldn't be the final casualty in this episode.
The Master also had a date with Death.
On the subject of the Master, I always rather enjoyed how they handled this problem when the wonderful Anthony Ainley was playing this part in the '80s.
He would get k*lled, definitively, at the end of every encounter with Peter Davison and Colin Baker.
And then he'd turn up at the start of the next Master story with roughly this explanation "I escaped!" Suits me! I'm fine with that! Super
-villains don't die, do they?
So, I wouldn't trust anything about that character's ability to lie down and stop breathing.
You win.
I know.
I know it sounds like I'm always kidding and being disingenuous, but I'm not.
This was an absolute thrill and I am going to be sad.
Plus, I won't have I won't be able to wear this hat any more.
Well, the Master may have been stopped for now, but just who was this mystery Cyberman who saved the day?
As I wrestled with the idea that we were resurrecting everybody who was dead, I thought, "Hang on, the Brigadier's there.
"The Brigadier would never be taken over by an alien monster.
"He'd stay the Brigadier whatever happened, "so to bring him back in a super
-heroic role, "get the Doctor off the moral hook, and save his daughter "for another day, that's the sort of thing the Brigadier would do.
" And finally we caught up with Peter to recap the Twelfth Doctor's first series.
Thank you.
I've seen off Daleks, Cybermen and the Master, so I'm Doctor Twelve is a serious Doctor.
Thank you all for watching series eight.
See you soon.
VWORP! VWORP!