The Master (Doctor Who)

This article is about the character. For the Big Finish audio, see Master (Doctor Who audio).

Template:Infobox Doctor Who character The Master is a recurring antagonist in the British television science fiction series Doctor Who and the vast range of associated spin-off works. He is a renegade alien Time Lord and the archenemy of the title protagonist the Doctor. The Master has been played by multiple actors since the character's introduction in 1971, explained within the show as a consequence of regeneration, a biological attribute allowing Time Lords to survive fatal injuries. The Master was played by Roger Delgado from the character's first appearance in 1971 until the actor's death in 1973. Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers both played a physically decayed version of the Time Lord before Anthony Ainley assumed the part in 1981 until the show's cancellation in 1989. In the 1996 TV movie, the character was played briefly by Gordon Tipple and then by Eric Roberts. Following the series revival in 2005, Derek Jacobi provided the character's re-introduction before handing the role over to John Simm.

Origins

The creative team conceived the Master as a recurring villain, a "Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes." He first appeared in Terror of the Autons (1971). The Master's title was deliberately chosen by producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks because, like the Doctor, it was a title conferred by an academic degree.

Barry Letts had one man in mind for the role: Roger Delgado a man who had a long history of screen villainy and had already made three attempts to break into the series. He had worked previously with Barry Letts and was a good friend of Jon Pertwee.

Malcolm Hulke said of the character, and his relationship with The Doctor: "There was a peculiar relationship between The Master and The Doctor: one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to eliminate the Doctor...you see The Doctor was the only person like him at the time in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a funny sort of way they were partners in crime."

An unrelated character called the Master of the Land of Fiction (also referred to as "the Master") had previously appeared in the 1968 Doctor Who serial The Mind Robber opposite the Second Doctor.

History within the show

Childhood and early life

File:Young Master.jpg

The eight-year-old Master, (William Hughes), stares into the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey.

In "The Sound of Drums" (2007) and The End of Time (2009–2010), a flashback shows the Master at the age of eight, during a Time Lord initiation ceremony where he is taken before a gap in the fabric of space and time known as the Untempered Schism, from which one can see into the entire Vortex. The Doctor states that looking into the time vortex causes some Time Lords to go mad, implying that event to have been the cause of the Master's actions and the four-beat sound of drums, which the Master calls the "drums of war". The drumming is later revealed to be a signal retroactively placed in his mind by the Time Lord High Council during the Time War as part of Rassilon's plan to escape the Time Lock. In The End of Time, Rassilon identified the signal to be a Time Lord's heart beat.

Aims and character

A would-be universal conqueror, the Master wants to control the universe (in The Deadly Assassin his ambitions were described as becoming "the master of all matter"), with a secondary objective of eliminating and/or hurting the Doctor. The original look of the character was similar to that of the classic Svengali character: a black Nehru outfit with a beard and moustache.

Beginning with Terror of the Autons, the Master (as played by Delgado), appeared in eight out of fifteen serials, covering a period of three seasons. In his first season the Master is involved in every adventure of the Doctor's, always getting away at the last minute, before he is captured in The Dæmons (1971), only to escape imprisonment in The Sea Devils (1972). He would often use disguises and hypnosis to operate in normal society while carrying out his plans; and would also ally himself with other alien races as a means of conquest, such as the Autons and the Dæmons. Delgado's portrayal of the Master was a suave, charming, and sociopathic individual, able to be polite and murderous at almost the same time.

Delgado's last appearance as the Master was in Frontier in Space, where he worked alongside the Daleks and the Ogrons to provoke a war between the Human and Draconian Empires. His final scene ended with him shooting the Doctor and disappearing. It should be noted that Delgado was slated to return in an unproduced episode called "The Final Game", which was due to be the season 11 finale. In this episode, it was to be revealed that the Master and the Doctor were brothers. However, due to Delgado's sudden death, the story was never produced, and was replaced with the episode Planet of the Spiders.

Quest for new life

File:Keeper of Traken Master.jpg

Geoffrey Beevers as the Master in The Keeper of Traken.

In his next appearance in The Deadly Assassin (1976), the Master (played by Peter Pratt under heavy make-up) appears as an emaciated, decaying husk (similar to a corpse) at the end of his thirteenth and final life. Here, the evil Time Lord almost succeeds in his plan to restore himself to full life with the symbols of the office of President of the Council of Time Lords, the artefacts of Rassilon. The Fourth Doctor stops him because the process would have caused the destruction of Gallifrey. After this story, the Master again departs the series, returning in 1981. In The Keeper of Traken, the Master (Geoffrey Beevers under different heavy make-up but playing the same form as Pratt) succeeds in renewing himself by taking over the body of the Trakenite scientist named Tremas (an anagram of "Master"), overwriting Tremas's mind in the process. The Master (played by Anthony Ainley, who played a double role in the serial as Tremas) then appeared on and off for the rest of the series, still seeking to extend his life – preferably with a new set of regenerations. Subsequently in The Five Doctors, the Time Lords offer the Master a new regeneration cycle in exchange for his help.

In many of his appearances opposite the Fifth Doctor, the Master shows his penchant for disguise once again. For example, in Time-Flight he operates under concealment for no clear plot reason. The character's association with playful pseudonyms also continued both within the series and in its publicity: when the production team wished to hide the Master's involvement in a story, they credited the character under an anagrammatic alias such as "Neil Toynay" (Tony Ainley) or "James Stoker" (Master's Joke).

Ainley's final appearance in the role in Survival was more restrained. He was also given a more downbeat costume, reminiscent of the suits and ties worn by Delgado's Master. In this final story, he had been trapped on the planet of the Cheetah People and been affected by its influence, which drove its victims to savagery. Escaping the doomed planet, he attempted to kill the Doctor, a plan which left him trapped back on the planet as it was destroyed.

Dalek Trial and 'Execution'

The Master appeared as the main antagonist of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, played by Eric Roberts.

In the prologue, the Master (portrayed by Gordon Tipple) was executed by the Daleks as a punishment for his "evil crimes". The Master survived his execution by taking on the form of a small, snake-like entity. This entity escaped and slithered inside the Doctor's TARDIS console, forcing the vessel to crash land in San Francisco.

The novelisation of the television movie by Gary Russell posits that the modifications and alterations that the Master has made to his body over the years in attempts to extend his lifespan had allowed this continued existence, and the implication is that the "morphant" creature is actually another lifeform that the Master's consciousness possesses. This interpretation is made explicit in the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks, and also used in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story The Fallen (DWM #273-#276), which states that the morphant was a shape-shifting animal native to Skaro.

The morphant form possesses the body of a paramedic named Bruce (played by Roberts—the first and only American actor to play the role). Bruce's body is unsustainable and begins to slowly degenerate, although he has the added abilities to spit an acid-like bile as a weapon and a snake-like ability to hypnotise. The Master attempts to access the Eye of Harmony to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, but instead is sucked into it and supposedly killed.

The Time War

When Doctor Who was revived in 2005, it was initially stated in the episode "Dalek" that all the Time Lords except the Doctor were killed in a Time War with the Daleks. The Doctor stated that if other Time Lords had survived, he would have been able to sense them. The Master did however reappear as the main antagonist of the third series; his return is foreshadowed in "Gridlock", when the Face of Boe gives the Tenth Doctor a message before dying: "You are not alone". In "The Sound of Drums", it is revealed that the Time Lords resurrected the Master to serve as the ultimate front line soldier in the Time War. After the Dalek Emperor took control of "The Cruciform", the Master fled the war in fear, ignorant of its outcome. He disguised himself as a human through the same process the Doctor himself used in "Human Nature"—a Chameleon Arch that stores his Time Lord nature and memories in a fob watch and allows him to become biologically human—and hid at the end of the universe ageing into the scientist, Professor Yana. The professor was still plagued by the constant drumbeat in his head as he attempts to send the last remaining humans to Utopia. It was because the Master had taken human form, that the Doctor had been unable to sense him.

Harold Saxon

The Doctor meets Yana in "Utopia", and a discussion of Time Lords and related issues by the Doctor and his companions (Martha Jones and Jack Harkness) causes Yana to recall his Time Lord essence. This, along with the increased intensity of the drumming in his head and Martha's curiosity about the fob watch, causes Yana to open the watch and become the Master again, in a scene that makes clear that YANA is an acronym for the Face of Boe's final words ("You are not alone."). Near the end of "Utopia", the Master is mortally wounded when his companion Chantho shoots him after he fatally injured her, regenerating into a new younger incarnation. The Master steals the Doctor's TARDIS and escapes, but the Doctor sabotages the TARDIS using his sonic screwdriver so that the Master is only able to travel between present-day Earth and the year 100 trillion.

The political poster used by Saxon during his Prime Ministerial campaign.

Following his escape from the end of the universe, he arrives in the United Kingdom 18 months before the 2008 election, prior to the fall of Harriet Jones. The Master assumes the identity Harold Saxon, becoming a high-ranking minister at the Ministry of Defence. He apparently holds this post during the 2006 Christmas episode, "The Runaway Bride", as the Army are said to be firing upon the Racnoss ship on Mr. Saxon's orders. During this period, he finances Professor Richard Lazarus' (Mark Gatiss) research and sets up the Archangel communications network, which allows him to influence humanity using a telepathic field, enabling him to rise to the office of Prime Minister. Before the events of "The Runaway Bride" in the show's adult-themed spin-off Torchwood, a "Vote Saxon" poster is seen on a wall among several other tattered posters in the episode "Captain Jack Harkness", possibly the first indication of the Master's return. In "Love & Monsters", an article about Saxon leading the polls can be seen when the Abzorbaloff first reveals himself.

After becoming Prime Minister, the Master uses the Doctor's TARDIS to recruit the Toclafane as allies, having them kill one tenth of the world population, and rules the Earth for a year, while he turns whole nations into work-camps and bases for a fleet of war rockets. Just as he is ready to wage war on the rest of the universe and forge an empire, the Doctor is restored to strength by the efforts of Martha Jones, using the Archangel network. The Doctor intends to keep the Master with him on the TARDIS; this plan is thwarted when the Master is shot by his wife Lucy Saxon (Alexandra Moen). The Master then dies after refusing to regenerate, unwilling to be the Doctor's prisoner. Since his death emotionally hurts the Doctor, the Master views this as a victory.

The Doctor cremates the Master's body on a pyre. His ring remains, which is picked up by a woman with long, bright red fingernails, revealed later to be a member of a coven loyal to the Master.

The Master Race

In The End of Time, the Governor and other members of the Master's coven conduct the resurrection ritual at Broadfell prison, where Lucy Saxon was incarcerated. Lucy sabotages the ritual and the Master is returned to life with a failing, undead body and a ravenous hunger. He is able to manipulate bolts of electricity, move with phenomenal agility and jump great distances by manipulating his life force. Resorting to wandering the fringe of London and feeding on homeless people while being pursued by the Doctor, the Master is eventually captured by billionaire Joshua Naismith in order to use his knowledge to repair an alien 'Immortality Gate' to make Naismith's daughter immortal. But the Master hijacks the device, using its original purpose as a planet-wide medical tool to overwrite the DNA of every human on Earth with his own and create a "Master Race". However, the gate fails to repair the Master's failing body as he attempts to get the location of the TARDIS from the Doctor.

By then, the Master realises that the drum beat in his head is a signal and uses his duplicates to triangulate the signal to its source: The Time Lord President Rassilon. Having set up the signal in order to be released from the time-locked Time War, Rassilon sent a unique Gallifreyan diamond to Earth to help the Master create a link through which Gallifrey, the Time Lords, and all in the Time War could escape. The Master intended to overwrite his DNA onto the Time Lord race, only for his influence on the human race to be undone while he learned how the war became so grave that the Doctor was forced to end it to stop Rassilon from destroying creation. The Master also learns that he has been a pawn in Rassilon's scheme, attacking the Lord President after the Doctor destroys the link that keeps the Time Lords from returning to the Time Lock. Bent on revenge for a lifetime of manipulation, the Master appeared to have followed Rassilon into the Time War.

Return?

The Master is briefly mentioned by the Eleventh Doctor alongside the Daleks in "A Town Called Mercy" when talking about the various victims that have died due to the Doctor's mercy.

In "The Day of the Doctor", the Time Lords are revealed not to have been destroyed at the Time War's conclusion, as the first thirteen incarnations of the Doctor unite and use their TARDISes to freeze Gallifrey out of time, into a pocket dimension. The species therefore survive, but the fate of the Master and of Rassilon remains unknown.

In March 2014, former Doctor Sylvester Mccoy added in an interview with online fansite Kasterberous that the next to play him will be "very very scary". This indicates that the Master has survived in the pocket dimension. The actor has yet to be announced by the BBC or Steven Moffat himself.

Characteristics

Intelligence and attitude

The Master and the Doctor are shown to have similar levels of intelligence, and were classmates on Gallifrey, wherein the Master outperformed the Doctor (Terror of the Autons). This is mentioned several times in different stories (The Five Doctors, The Sea Devils and Terror of the Autons). A similar connection between the two was also referenced in The End of Time in which the Master reminisces with the Doctor about his father's estates on Gallifrey and his childhood with The Doctor before saying "look at us now". In the 2007 episode "Utopia", the Doctor calls the transformed and disguised Master a genius and shows admiration for his intellect before discovering his true identity. The Doctor further expresses admiration for the Master's intellect in The End of Time by calling him "stone cold brilliant" and yet states that the Master could be more if he would just give up his desire for domination.

Aspects of Simm's portrayal of the Master parallel Tennant's Doctor, primarily in his ability to make light of tense situations and his rather quirky and hyperactive personality. According to the producers, this was done to make the Master more threatening to the Doctor by having him take one of his opponent's greatest strengths, as well as making the parallels between the two characters more distinctive. This rationale is written into dialogue by the Master in "Utopia", in which he explicitly states, as he is regenerating, that if the Doctor can be young and strong, then so can he. In an episode of Doctor Who Confidential, "Lords and Masters", Russell T Davies also classifies the Master as both a sociopath and a psychopath.

Mental abilities

Both the Doctor and the Master have been shown to be skilled hypnotists, although the Master's capacity to dominate – even by stare and voice alone – has been shown to be far more pronounced. In Logopolis the Doctor said of the Master, "He's a Time Lord. In many ways, we have the same mind." The Master is often able to anticipate the Doctor's moves, as seen in stories such as Castrovalva, The Keeper of Traken, Time-Flight, and The King's Demons, where he plans elaborate traps for the Doctor, only revealing his presence at the key moment. In The Deadly Assassin, the Master was able to send a false premonition as a telepathic message to the Doctor, but it is unclear whether he performed this through innate psychic ability, or was aided technologically. In "Utopia" after the Master regenerates and reveals himself, he taunts the Doctor to try to stop his elaborate schemes again.

In The End of Time the Master uses a kind of psychic technique, previously used by the Doctor to read the minds of others, allowing the Doctor to hear the constant 'drumming' inside the Master's mind.

TARDIS

In the original Doctor Who series, the Master's TARDISes have had fully functioning chameleon circuits, having appeared as various things, including a horsebox (Terror of the Autons), a spaceship (Colony in Space), a fir tree (Logopolis), a computer bank (The Time Monster), a grandfather clock (The Deadly Assassin and The Keeper of Traken), a fluted architectural column (Logopolis, Castrovalva, Time-Flight), an iron maiden (The King's Demons), a fireplace (Castrovalva), a British Airways jet (Time-Flight), a cottage (The Ultimate Foe), and a triangular column (Planet of Fire). Of the Master's TARDISes seen in The Keeper of Traken, one appears as the calcified, statue-like Melkur, able to move and even walk; the other appears as a grandfather clock. The Melkur TARDIS is destroyed. At one point in Logopolis, the Master's TARDIS even appears as a police box, like the Doctor's.

By the time of the new series, it is unclear whether any of the Master's TARDISes still exist. In Rise of the Cybermen, the Tenth Doctor claims that his TARDIS is the last one in existence although at the time of his saying this, he also thought he was the last Time Lord. In "Utopia", the Master resorts to stealing the Doctor's TARDIS, and later demands access to the Doctor's ship in The End of Time, but this could be because he cannot immediately access his ship because it is somewhere else rather than meaning that his TARDIS was destroyed.

Handheld weaponry

The Master's original weapon of choice was the "tissue compression eliminator", which shrinks its target to doll-like proportions, killing them in the process. Its appearance is similar to that of the Doctor's favourite tool, the sonic screwdriver. Both the tissue compression eliminator and the sonic screwdriver resemble a short hand-held rod; at different times in the series, both tools have had a LED on the end to signal its use.

John Simm's incarnation of the Master with his laser screwdriver.

Despite his own fondness for the weapon, Russell T Davies decided against bringing it back for the Master's reappearance in "The Sound of Drums", on the grounds that the Master had too many new "tricks" to use against the Doctor.

During the course of "The Sound of Drums", the Master unveils a new handheld weapon: a laser screwdriver. The device functions as a powerful laser weapon, capable of killing with a single shot. It also carries the ability to age victims rapidly using a miniaturised version of the genetic manipulator developed by Professor Lazarus ("The Lazarus Experiment"). The screwdriver itself also contains isomorphic technology, a biometric security feature which effectively disables use of the device by anyone other than the Master.

Companions

Unlike the Doctor, the Master does not usually have companions. There have been times when he made exceptions, though in his case they are not so much "companions" as "tools". In Castrovalva, the Doctor's companion Adric was abducted by the Master and forced to create a block transfer computation. Later, in The King's Demons, Kamelion is controlled by the Master before the Doctor steals him away, with the Master regaining control of Kamelion in Planet of Fire. In the second episode of The Ultimate Foe, Sabalom Glitz chose to go with the Master in search of Time Lord secrets.

In the 1996 television movie, Chang Lee helps the Master because he has been duped into believing that the Doctor had stolen his body. When Lee's loyalty begins to falter, the Master attempts to kill him without hesitation. In promotional media surrounding the movie, Lee is depicted more as a companion to the Eighth Doctor (alongside Grace Holloway).

In "Utopia", Chantho plays a similar companion role to the Professor Yana persona. Chantho states that she has been with him for 17 years as a "devoted assistant". Later, when the Master persona resurfaces, he berates her for never freeing him from his confinement, and the two fatally wound one another, resulting in Chantho's death and the Master's regeneration.

In "The Sound of Drums", the Master, as Harold Saxon, is married to Lucy Saxon, to whom he refers at one point as his "faithful companion". Lucy is aware of the nature of the Master's plans yet is still loyal to him. She has travelled with him to Utopia, the end of the universe, and thus believes "there's no point to anything." Their relationship appears to be non-platonic; they kiss quite often and it seems as though their marriage is more than just a pretence. Lucy comments, "I made my choice, for better or for worse." In "Last of the Time Lords" she is still present, but showing signs of apparent physical abuse, and her loyalty towards him begins to waver. She shoots the Master at the climax of the story, killing him. She is imprisoned, but when the Master's coven made the preparations for his resurrection in The End of Time, she is forced into giving the Master's biometric signature on her lips to complete the ritual. Having foreseen his return, Lucy threw a vial containing a chemical to disrupt the resurrection, killing herself in the resulting explosion while only succeeding in giving the Master a tentative life.

Although not a companion in the traditional sense, the Master allied himself with another evil renegade Time Lord, the Rani, in The Mark of the Rani to thwart the Doctor. The Master has also been known to ally himself with other villains of the series, including the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Autons. None of these alliances lasted past the Master achieving his own aims, or his being stopped by the Doctor.

Other appearances

The Master has had onscreen encounters with all of the incarnations of the Doctor except the Ninth, War, Eleventh and Twelfth. The First and Second Doctors' onscreen stories occurred before the character of the Master was created for the show, but they encountered him during the events of The Five Doctors.

The Master has featured in spin-offs of the series, which are of unclear canonicity and may not take place in the same continuity. The Master in these stories is, nevertheless, recognisably the same character.

One of the most notable of these other appearances is David A. McIntee's "Master trilogy" of novels comprising The Dark Path and First Frontier in the Virgin Publishing lines and The Face of the Enemy for BBC Books, and the Doctor Who radio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, in which Geoffrey Beevers has reprised the role.

Target Novels

The Target Books novelisations give additional insight into the character. These were chiefly written by Terrance Dicks and/or Malcolm Hulke(who had collaborated on the television serial The War Games). In addition, Dicks oversaw the editing of the majority of the range. The first Target Novel to feature The Master, written by Hulke, is Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon(Colony in Space). This begins with two Time Lords discussing the history of TARDISes. One remarks that "Two [TARDISES] have been stolen. By Time Lords. They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening...One of them nowadays calls himself The Doctor. The other says he is The Master". The narrative continues "The old Keeper smiled to himself, although remembering with some glee all the fuss when two TARDISes were stolen." Asked for further information about the pair "You mentioned the Doctor and the Master?" the elder Time Lord continues "There were tens of thousands of humans from the planet Earth, stranded on another planet where they thought they were re-fighting all the wars of Earth's terrible history. Well, the Doctor had done the best he could to stop it all. But in the end we had to step in and get all those poor soldiers back to Earth, and to all the right times in Earth’s history."

Doctor Who and the Sea Devils, also by Hulke features a conversation between the Doctor and Jo Grant where the Doctor states "We used to be great friends. Hundreds of years ago, when we were both young Time Lords, we were inseparable. After all, we had a lot in common." Asked for an example, the Doctor replies "You know the Golden Rule of the Time Lords - just to sit and watch but never actually do anything? He and I are different. We wanted to get out into the Universe, to meet other species, to explore." Jo asks "one for good and the other for evil?", to which the Doctor responds "Yes, you could say that."

Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons, written by Dicks, gives further clarity to the history between the Doctor and the Master. When the Time Lord (played by David Garth) comes to warn the Doctor, he states "I've come to bring you a warning, an old friend of yours has arrived on Earth. These days he calls himself The Master." The narrative states that "[The Master] had been behind several interplanetary wars, always disappearing from the scene before he could be brought to justice. if ever he were caught, his fate would be far worse than the Doctor's exile. Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master's life-stream would be thrown into reverse. Not only would he no longer exist, he never would have existed." The Doctor asks "Is his TARDIS still working?". The Time Lord replies "I'm afraid so. He got away before it could be de-energised." "Then he was luckier than I" said the Doctor sadly. He had never really got used to his exile. The Time Lord replies "Don't be bitter Doctor, your punishment was comparatively light".

Novels

The Master's past with the Doctor is explored somewhat in The Dark Path, which reveals that his name prior to taking the alias of the Master is Koschei, when he encounters the Second Doctor during their travels. Although initially a somewhat anti-heroic version of the Doctor – willing to commit murder as a first option to save the day – Koschei turns evil and becomes the Master after he discovers that his companion and lover, Ailla, is an undercover agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency sent to spy on him.

During the course of the novel, Ailla is shot and killed. Not knowing she is a Time Lord and that she will simply regenerate, Koschei completes a time-based weapon in an attempt to bring her back and the weapon is used to destroy the planet Teriliptus and its inhabitants. When Ailla turns up alive, the knowledge that he has destroyed a planet for nothing, coupled with the revelation of Ailla's betrayal, proves too much. Koschei resolves to bring his own order to the universe at the expense of free will and becoming its Master. Thanks to the Doctor reprogramming his weapon, Koschei is trapped in a black hole at the end of the novel, with it being left uncertain how he will escape, although it is generally implied that it takes him most of his remaining lives to do so (hence why the Master is on his last life while the Doctor, intended to be his contemporary, is only on his third).

The Face of the Enemy centres around the Delgado-era Master, but includes a cameo by a Koschei from an alternate timeline (originally featured in Inferno) who never became the Master. This version of Koschei is still a loyal Time Lord who becomes stranded on the alternate Earth after that universe's version of The Web of Fear destroyed his TARDIS. He is subsequently captured and forced to work for the fascist rulers of this Earth, who keep him alive, in agony, using life support systems. When the Master, crossing over from the other universe, learns of this, he ends his counterpart's life in a rare moment of compassion.

Last of the Gaderene by Mark Gatiss and Deadly Reunion by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts are both close homages to the Delgado/Pertwee stories. In the former, the Master, disguised as Police Inspector LeMaitre, assists an alien race called the Gaderene to invade Earth, starting with a small village. In the latter, he attempts to control powerful forces through a cult, but finds himself at the mercy of a godlike alien. The Delgado Master also appears in Verdigris by Paul Magrs, a more parodic take on the Pertwee era. The eponymous genie spends much of the novel impersonating the Master, who is in fact controlling him: the real Master appears in the novel's epilogue, buying a Chinese takeaway.

The reason the Master is so emaciated when he appears in The Deadly Assassin is explored in John Peel's novel Legacy of the Daleks, in which he attempts to capture the Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman - resulting in an out-of-sequence encounter with the Eighth Doctor when the Doctor receives a telepathic cry of distress from Susan and attempts to trace it back to before its origin. The Master is badly burned when she attacks him in self-defence and takes possession of his TARDIS. After Susan escapes, the dying Master is eventually found by Chancellor Goth on the planet Tersurus, which leads directly into the events of The Deadly Assassin.

The Ainley-era Master appears in the novel The Quantum Archangel by Craig Hinton, a direct sequel to The Time Monster. In this novel he poses as a Serbian businessman called Gospodar- prompting the Sixth Doctor to wonder if he's "running out of languages"- while attempting to subvert the power of the higher dimensions to turn himself into a god, only for it to be revealed that this plan was actually the result of the machinations of the Chronovore/Eternal hybrid Kronos trying to trick the Master into punishing the Chronovores for his lifetime of imprisonment.

First Frontier shows the Master (apparently the Ainley version) finally acquiring a new body, who according to McIntee is based on the cinema persona of Basil Rathbone. This incarnation reappears in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, Virgin Publishing's celebratory fiftieth Virgin New Adventures novel. After the broadcast of the television movie, some fans suggested that this is the incarnation briefly played by Gordon Tipple in the prologue, eventually succumbing once again to the cheetah virus in the first Eighth Doctor novel The Eight Doctors.

Prior to the end of the Virgin Missing Adventures series, the Delgado version of The Master appeared in the novel Who Killed Kennedy which, while published by Virgin, was not considered part of the Missing Adventures series.

The short story Stop The Pigeon, and the Past Doctor Adventure Prime Time, both by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker and probably set before First Frontier, feature the Ainley Master looking for a cure for the Cheetah virus.

Gallifrey and the Time Lords are destroyed in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell, but in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street a mysterious stranger wearing a rosette appears who could have been the Master, somehow surviving the cataclysm. Gallifrey's destruction here is not related to its subsequent destruction just prior to the new series (see Time Lord – Recent history). In Lance Parkin's The Gallifrey Chronicles, a surviving Time Lord named Marnal appears, and it is implied in dialogue that he may have been the Master's father. In the same novel (and earlier, in Sometime Never...), the Doctor talks with a malign entity within the TARDIS's Eye of Harmony, which could have been the Roberts Master, throwing the true identity of the Man with the Rosette into doubt. The entity within the Eye refers to itself as an "echo", thus leaving scope for the real Master to be elsewhere. (In his Doctor Who chronology book AHistory, Parkin suggests that Lawrence Miles intended the Man with the Rosette to be the Master, even if it was not explicitly stated.)

The Master is seen to escape the Eye of Harmony in the short story Forgotten by Joseph Lidster, published in Short Trips: The Centenarian. The story ends with him left in 1906 in possession of a human male's body.

Another version of the Master appears in The Infinity Doctors (also by Parkin), where he is known as the Magistrate and is, once again, the Doctor's friend, although when this takes place in continuity is unclear. Parkin has stated that the novel can fit into continuity and that its incarnation of the Master is based on Richard E. Grant.

During the Faction Paradox arc that runs through the Eighth Doctor Adventures, a character known as the War King is featured which is implied to be a future incarnation of the Master. The character is also referenced in The Book of the War, published by Mad Norwegian Press when the Faction Paradox stories spun off into their own continuity.

Martha Jones's year long journey across a Master-controlled planet Earth is detailed in the short story collection The Story of Martha, which was released on 26 December 2008.

In the Doctor Who e-book The Spear of Destiny by Marcus Sedgwick, featuring the Third Doctor, the Master disguises himself as a Viking called Frey (Old Norse for Master) and tries to take the Spear of Destiny.

Alistair Reynolds Novel "Harvest of Time" published in 2013 features The Roger Delgado incarnation, set after his capture at the end of The Daemons and before his escape from prison in The Sea Devils.

Comic strips

The Master returns in a new body and guise, that of a street preacher, in the previously mentioned Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) comic strip story The Fallen, although the Doctor does not recognise him. The Master reveals himself a few stories later, in The Glorious Dead (DWM 287–296). The Master had survived the events of the television movie by encountering a cosmic being named Esterath in the time vortex. Esterath controls the Glory, the focal point of the Omniversal spectrum which underlies all existence. The Master's scheme to take control of the Glory fails, and he is banished to parts unknown (see Kroton).

In Character Assassin (DWM 311), the Delgado Master visits the Land of Fiction and steals part of the technology behind it, wiping out several nineteenth century fictional villains as he goes. He can also be seen in the following comic strips set during the Pertwee era:

• "The Glen of Sleeping" by Gerry Haylock and Dick O'Neill (TV Action 107–111)
• "Fogbound" by Frank Langford (Doctor Who Holiday Special 1973)
• "The Time Thief" by Steve Livesey (Doctor Who Annual 1974)
• "The Man in the Ion Mask" by Brian Williamson and Dan Abnett (Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991)

In the IDW publication Prisoners of Time, a 12-issue series to celebrate the 50th anniversary, the Master plays a major part. He is the villain in #6 and #7, meeting the 6th and 7th Doctors. The Master is revealed to have teamed up with disgraced companion of the Ninth Doctor Adam Mitchell, who is travelling through time kidnapping the Doctor's companions as revenge. However when eleven incarnations of the Doctor get to Adam's fortress to rescue their companions, the Master reveals he plans to use the chronal energies of the TARDISes to destroy the Universe and recreate it. Adam opposes him and is killed, though stops the Master.

Audio plays

The Master appears in the Big Finish Productions audio play, Dust Breeding, where Geoffrey Beevers reprised the role. The story reveals that, at some point after Survival, The Master's Trakenite body is damaged and he becomes a walking corpse again, using the alias Mr Seta, another anagram of Master.

In the later Master, it is revealed that while the Seventh Doctor is Time's Champion, the Master is Death's. This is a result of an incident in their youth, where the Doctor killed a school bully who was trying to drown the Master; unable to cope with his guilt and grief, the child who would become the Doctor accepted a deal with Death (personified as a woman) to take away his pain, unaware that this would result in her erasing his memory of committing the crime and transferring it to the Master. Temporarily restored to the person he would have been if Death had not marked him, the Master forgives the Doctor for this, understanding that the adult cannot be blamed for the actions of the child that did not foresee the consequences of his actions, but the end of the play implies that the Master will once again become Death's servant.

The Master appears again in the Trail of the White Worm and The Oseidon Adventure played by Geoffrey Beevers and is due to reappear in the third series of Fourth Doctor audio plays. The Master(Played by Geoffrey Beevers) is again set to appear in the 50th Anniversary story The Light At The End. The Master appears in the Companion Chronicle Mastermind, again played by Beevers. UNIT Dominion features a new incarnation of the Master, portrayed by Alex Macqueen. It is unclear where in the Master's life this takes place.

An out-of-continuity Master is heard in the Big Finish audio play Sympathy for the Devil, voiced by Mark Gatiss. In this alternate version of events, the Third Doctor- now voiced by David Warner- does not arrive for his exile on Earth until 1997 and the Master has been trapped on the planet while a series of extraterrestrial disasters occurred over the decades without the Doctor's help to stop them.

Short stories

Eric Saward included Anthony Ainley's incarnation of the Master in his short story, Birth of a Renegade, in the Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special one-off magazine, published by Radio Times (and in the United States by Starlog Press) in 1983.

In a short story by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, The Feast of the Stone, an android version of the Master is created by the Doctor as an ally—albeit a slightly sinister one. Exactly why the Doctor created an android duplicate of the Master is not revealed, but it is suggested that the Doctor somehow extended the Master's life by doing so. The android is able to pilot the Doctor's TARDIS, but is physically unable to leave the ship.

Webcasts

In 2003, an android version of the character (resembling the Delgado version of the Master voiced by Derek Jacobi) appeared in the animated webcast Scream of the Shalka. He also appears, with the "Shalka Doctor" (Richard E. Grant), in the webcast of The Feast of Stone.

Audio book

• The Killing Stone (BBV Audio, read by Richard Franklin)

Computer game

• Destiny of the Doctors, played by Ainley; his last performance as the Master.

Role playing game

The Doctor Who role-playing game published by FASA in 1985 has two modules outlining the Master's personal history, a timeline of his activities and an inventory of much of the equipment he has obtained during his travels. Most notably, the modules identify the Meddling Monk as an alias the Master has used in his early attempts to alter the history of Earth.

Parody

In the Comic Relief sketch Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, the Master was played by Jonathan Pryce, who deeply resembled the incarnation played by Roger Delgado .

See also

• List of Doctor Who villains
• List of television programs where one character was played by multiple actors

External links

• The Master on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• Template:Imdb character
• "The Feast of the Stone" – short story featuring the Shalka Master on the BBC website.