BBC America held a premiere screening in New York last night for Doctor Who’s ninth season, which is set to debut tomorrow. The first two episodes of the season, "The Magician's Apprentice" and "The Witch's Familiar," were shown to great applause from the fans in attendance (many of whom were wearing fezzes or TARDIS dresses or donning sonic screwdrivers). But earlier in the day, I stopped by BBC America’s headquarters in Manhattan to speak with Michelle Gomez, the actress who plays Missy, one of the most popular additions to Doctor Who in years.

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Gomez is a kick to talk to in real life, not unlike Missy, perhaps, although I’m pretty sure the actress didn’t have any murderous intentions towards me. More or less. Read on for our full chat, where we talk about Missy’s surprising resurrection, her ‘friendship’ with the Doctor, red herrings, and much more.

The Mistress is in.

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An unlikely companion?

Basically, she's back and kicks off the new season with -- something has definitely shifted. I mean, I think if you're vaporized, you think you're gone, and then you reappear again, there's going to be a slight reset. That's reflected in there. I think that's also reflected in the dynamic between Missy and Clara. That's kind of different this year as well.Not sure that's a possibility for Missy. The whole concept of friendship is a pretty alien notion. So, no. [Laughs]I don't know about that. Maybe at one point many moons ago when they were children on Gallifrey there was a moment there where there was some friendship. But the friendship seems to have gone very wrong. Sometimes when you get very close you have these intense friendships in our lives -- especially when you're younger. Then when you get older, everybody sort of changes and moves away. I think that stands the test of time, when you have a friendship from youth that's still in your life today. She's reappeared in his life, but we still don't quite know what the relationship has been, other than it just seems to be a friendship that's gone very wrong.Nostalgia is a very powerful -- would you describe it as an emotion? It's hard for Missy to work out exactly what emotion is. But yeah, I think the notion of nostalgia is very confusing. For a lot of us, we feel nostalgic about something with distance, and then [when] we go back to that thing, you remember why we left in the first place. You remember why you deleted their number from your phone, just within moments of reconnecting with that person! Your heart sinks. But now you've said "hello" again, and you're going to go through all that palaver again, of some higher disentangling from a friendship that's just dead! [Laughs] And dead for good reason! I think that's what's going on with the Master and the Doctor as well.Well, that's what they say: A good antidote to nostalgia is to go home, and then you remember why you left.Note: It was here that my seven-year-old son, who had tagged along during this interview since we were going directly to the premiere afterwards, pointed out that in fact there are still many other Time Lords alive, albeit in another dimension these days. He is, after all, my fact checker.I'm not sure about that, no. That's a red herring.[Laughs] And why is a herring red? Because it is! [Laughs]Oh, yeah!No, I just got a very sort of knowing nod at the end saying, "You'll be back." But he went very Schwarzenegger on me on the last take. I said, "Yes, but when!? When exactly, because you just killed me! What does that mean!?" [Laughs] "I'm just gonna go wait by the phone now, counting herrings -- red or not!" So yeah, I'd hoped, and I had been given the nod, but it was a bit of a surprise to come back so quickly. But that's just Steven Moffat all over; he'll just always do the last thing you think's going to happen. You know, "I've killed her now, but like a big, fat, black cockroach, it just grows another head, pops on another corset and turns up again!"I think, for now, because that visual was so strong. It really worked on a few levels as well -- not just because we're suggesting that Mary Poppins is the most evil woman in the universe! But there was something that was very constraining when you're a woman that's living in the modern world, that she’s used to elastic waistbands, and then somebody shoehorns you into a corset, then you have lunch. All of that just sort of builds, that sort of frustration in the day that seemed to work quite well. Because all Missy wants to do is bust out of that corset. So maybe we'll see that. Maybe we'll see some arms and legs. [Laughs]Yeah, it was a shameless steal! There's nothing original -- nothing!Yeah, and I think because of that -- what's blown me away this year is that I actually got to meet some fans, and they've been dressed as Missy. That's quite a costume to go and make! So that's kind of blown me away.