The Two Masters (audio story)

{{Infobox Story |name = The Two Masters |image = The Two Masters.jpg |series = Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories |number = 213 |doctor = Seventh Doctor |companions = Jemima |enemy = The Master
The Cult of the Heretic |featuring = |setting = |writer = John Dorney |director = Jamie Anderson |music = Jamie Robertson |sound = Martin Montague |cover = Simon Holub |publisher = Big Finish Productions |release date = 13 June 2016 |format = 4 parts, 2 CDs |production code = |isbn = ISBN 978-1-78178-887-5 |trailer = |prev = Vampire of the Mind (audio story) |next = A Life of Crime (audio story) |soundcloudtrailer = https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/doctor-who-the-two-masters-trailer

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|sample name = Across the Stars 2016

The Two Masters was the two hundred and thirteenth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It featured the Seventh Doctor and two incarnations of the Master, as played by Geoffrey Beevers and Alex Macqueen. It was the third and final part of a "Multi-Master" trilogy.

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 Decayed 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
• Tazeena/Bauza/Mum - Esther Hall
• Sebastian - James Garnon
• Sarlon/Time Lord - Neil Edmond

References

• The Rocket Men killed Jemima's family and kidnapped her.
• The Master describes the Rocket Men as "a pathetic ragtag group of no-hopers with delusions of power on a cosmic scale".
• 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 new 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 new Master claims that the entire fleet of the Unholy Protocol could not stop him.
• The new Master describes the Fifth Doctor as "the drippy blonde one" who "wanders around 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 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 decayed Master, in the new Master's body, doesn't recognise the Seventh Doctor.
• The Doctor realises that the two Masters have switched as the decayed Master is usually a very serious sort while the other Master is more frivolous and willing to enjoy himself, the Doctor realising that the two incarnations acting like the other when he has a chance to hear them both in action.
• During his "decayed" incarnation, the Master experienced pain which was almost unendurable.
• The Cult of the Heretic worship a renegade Time Lord known as the Heretic.
• The Doctor refers to the Grandfather Paradox.
• The decayed Master tells that his future self that he has always wanted to kill one of the Doctor's companions.

Notes

• 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.

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 new Master recalls his encounter with the Rocket Men on the Asteroid. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men)
• The Doctor mentions that he and the Master were once friends. (TV: The Sea Devils, et. al)
• 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 Leach 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 new Master. (AUDIO: UNIT: Dominion)
• The new 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)
• The Doctor refers to his visit to Little Hodcombe in 1984 during his fifth incarnation. (TV: The Awakening)
• The new Master recalls his attempt to steal the Fifth Doctor's body. (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me)
• The new Master refers to the fact that he has broken into the Time Lord base on Tersurus before. (AUDIO: UNIT: Dominion)
• The decayed Master tells his future self that he has recently begun using stasers. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
• The new Master discusses his earlier alliance with Lord Chancellor Goth on Gallifrey. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
• The two versions of the Master initiate telepathic contact. (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors)
• The Cult of the Heretic sent the Dragon Hunters 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 new 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).
• During the first confrontation between the two Masters, the new Master is responsible for the decayed Master being reduced to his current state; this appears to contradict PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks, where the Master's condition is caused by Susan destroying a Matter transmuter in his TARDIS with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. However, since the novel only depicts the Master being thrown from his TARDIS and being later discovered by Chancellor Goth, rather than explicitly stating that he is reduced to his crippled state by the blast, the two can be reconciled with the assumption that the younger Master survived Susan's attack and subsequently found another TARDIS to begin his raid on the Terserus compound, leading to his future self's attack.
• The Doctor would later reboot the universe again during his eleventh incarnation. (TV: The Big Bang)

External links

• Official The Two Masters page at bigfinish.com