The Two Masters (audio story)

The Two Masters
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Jemima
Featuring:	Rocket Men
Main enemy:	Decayed Master, Reborn Master, Cult of the Heretic
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	John Dorney
Director:	Jamie Anderson
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Jamie Robertson
Sound:	Martin Montague
Cover by:	Simon Holub
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	213
Release date:	13 June 2016
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	BFPDWCD213
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78178-887-5 (physical) ISBN 978-1-78178-888-2 (digital)
Official trailer
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The Two Masters was the two hundred and thirteenth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by John Dorney and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Geoffrey Beevers as the Decayed Master and Alex Macqueen as the New Master.

It was the third and final part of a "Multi-Master" trilogy and suggested a new explanation of how the Decayed Master acquired such a state.

Publisher's summary

The future is dying. All over the universe, gaps are beginning to appear. From the space lanes terrorised by the rag-tag remnants of the once-mighty Rocket Men, to the empire of the Gorlans, stricken by a terrible civil war. Gaps in space/time, portents of the end of everything.

Only three beings might prevent it. The Doctor, a renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey. The Master, another renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey. And another Master, yet another renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey.

One Doctor. Two Masters. What could possibly go wrong?

Plot

Part one

to be added

Part two

to be added

Part three

to be added

Part four

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• The Old Master - Geoffrey Beevers
• The New Master - Alex Macqueen
• Jemima - Lauren Crace
• Blore / Baron Jarvill - Russ Bain
• Tazmeena / Bauza / Mum - Esther Hall
• Sebastian - James Garnon
• Sarlon / Time Lord - Neil Edmond

Crew

• Cover Art - Simon Holub
• Director - Jamie Anderson
• Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Music - Jamie Robertson
• Producer - David Richardson
• Script Editor - Alan Barnes
• Sound Design - Martin Montague
• Writer - John Dorney

Worldbuilding

• The Master refers to Jemima as the Doctor's "monkey".
• Blank patches of no-time appear throughout all of recorded history, and TARDISes need to "project" over them.
• The "Bald" Master claims that the Doctor flatters himself by thinking of him as being the Moriarty to the Master's Holmes when he provides merely "adequate opposition worthy of very little attention".
• The Gorlan are a silicate-based lifeform.
• There were billions of casualties in the Gorlan Civil War.
• The Decayed Master uses the pseudonym "General Malgrove". "Malgrove" is the Gorlan word for "master".
• The "Bald" Master claims that the entire fleet of the Unholy Protocol could not stop him.
• The "Bald" Master describes the Fifth Doctor as "the drippy blonde one" who "wanders around dressed like nobody's who's ever played cricket ever", while the Decayed Master describes the Sixth Doctor as "the carnival clown".
• The Doctor describes the incarnation of the Master who stole Tremas' body as having a taste for melodrama.
• The Doctor objects to allowing the two Masters to meet, stating that it is forbidden by both the Blinovitch Limitation Effect and the Laws of Time.
• The Cult of the Heretic worships a renegade Time Lord known as the Heretic.
• The Doctor refers to the Grandfather Paradox.
• The Decayed Master tells the "Bald" Master that he has always wanted to kill one of the Doctor's companions.

Notes

• This story was recorded on 8 and 9 December 2015 at the Soundhouse.
• Subscribers whose subscriptions included this story received the audio short story The Monkey House.
• Part One of the story uses a pre-title sequence, a format used occasionally by Big Finish and the television series in the 1980s.
• This is the first multi-Master story in performed Doctor Who.
• The Decayed Master argues that he would make a more suitable ruler, as the "Bald" Master looks far too much like a "low-ranking civil servant" to leave anyone quaking in their boots. This may be in reference to Alex Macqueen's role in the British political satire The Thick of It, in which Macqueen portrays a politician whose authority is regularly mocked and undermined.
• This is director Jamie Anderson's favourite Doctor Who audio he has ever worked on, although Cold Fusion came a close second.
• This story's account of how the Decayed Master acquired his appearance contradicts the account suggested in the 1998 novel Legacy of the Daleks, where the "UNIT era" Master is depicted as being burnt after Susan Foreman shot him with his own TCE.
  • The account of this audio story was later contradicted by the 2020 short story The Dead Travel Fast, where the Decayed Master refers to a regeneration seen in Doorway to Hell comic as a "failed one".

Continuity

• The Doctor refers to his previous encounters with the Rocket Men. (AUDIO: The Rocket Men, Return of the Rocket Men, Requiem for the Rocket Men)
• The Doctor mentions that he destroyed the Rocket Men's asteroid during his fourth incarnation. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men)
• The Rocket Men force those they capture into joining them. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men)
• The "Bald" Master recalls his encounter with the Rocket Men on the Asteroid. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men)
• The Master's TARDIS is once again in the form of a grandfather clock. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Keeper of Traken, AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me)
• The Master refers to his imprisonment by UNIT. (TV: The Sea Devils)
• The Doctor cannot remember his encounters with the Master in Hexford in 2016 during his fifth incarnation (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me) or at the prison with the Carmentine mind leech during his sixth incarnation also in 2016, (AUDIO: Vampire of the Mind) which he attributes to reality collapsing around the Masters.
• The Doctor has previously met the "Bald" Master. (AUDIO: Dominion)
• The "Bald" Master advises the Doctor to use the Hostile Action Displacement System. (TV: The Krotons)
• The Doctor mentions that he has met Harry Houdini. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors, Harry Houdini's War)
• The Doctor refers to his visit to Little Hodcombe in 1984 during his fifth incarnation. (TV: The Awakening)
• The "Bald" Master recalls his attempt to steal the Fifth Doctor's body. (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me)
• The "Bald" Master refers to the fact that he has broken into the Time Lord base on Tersurus before. (AUDIO: Dominion)
• The Decayed Master tells the "Bald" Master that he has recently begun using stasers rather than the Tissue Compression Eliminator. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
• The "Bald" Master discusses his earlier alliance with Lord Chancellor Goth on Gallifrey. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
• The two versions of the Master initiate telepathic contact to transfer information. (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors)
• The Cult of the Heretic sent the Dragonhunters and the Transhuman Sisters to kill the new Master in Hexford in 2016. (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me)
• After exchanging body with his future self, the Decayed Master comments on his "new voice". (TV: Utopia)
• The Heretic was either killed by the Time Lords or imprisoned on Shada after plotting to regenerate the universe. (TV: Shada; AUDIO: Shada)
• The "Bald" Master refers to his other incarnations as "Mr Velveteen" (TV: The Keeper of Traken) and "the snake". (TV: Doctor Who; AUDIO: Mastermind)
• The Doctor tells the Masters that he does not always get along with his other selves. (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors; AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)
• The Doctor comments that the universe is sick and needs a Doctor, much like Harold Saxon during his victory speech in 2008. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
• The Doctor would later reboot the universe again during his eleventh incarnation. (TV: The Big Bang)
• In a flashback the Decayed Master had recently regenerated. (COMIC: Doorway To Hell)

External links

• Official The Two Masters page at bigfinish.com