The Master
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The Master, formerly known as Koschei and later by various temporary aliases and pseudonyms, was a renegade Time Lord who had grown up with the Doctor on Gallifrey and opposed him many times. He threatened the existence of the universe itself at least once. His diabolical madness was, in some part, the result of a never-ending drumming sound inside his head, a link retroactively installed by the Time Lords on the last day of the Time War to further their own goals.
Biography
Early life
Childhood
Koschei, later known as the Master, grew up on Gallifrey, in the House of Oakdown. (PDA: Divided Loyalties) He would later comment to Wilfred Mott that growing up on Gallifrey was not something one could call childhood, but "...more a life of... duty..." (DW: The End of Time) He would say later in his life, "the Doctor and I were once great friends you know..." (VG: Destiny of the Doctors) The First Doctor and he would play in the fields near Koschei's home in their youths. He claimed his father had estates, with "pastures of red grass", near "Mount Perdition". (DW: The End of Time) They used to sneak out of the Capitol and drink with the Shobogans. (EDA: The Eight Doctors) On one of these outings, the Master picked a fight with six drunken Shobogans. (ST: UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce)
There are many conflicting theories about the Master's origins. In his seventh incarnation, the Doctor told a story about him; the Master and he had been mercilessly and viciously bullied as children by a boy called Torvic. The young Doctor found himself forced to kill the bully to save his friend's life. He was later confronted by the personification of Death who insisted he become her disciple.
The Doctor refused and suggested Death make the Master her champion, to which she agreed. The Seventh Doctor said that ever since he had always felt partly responsible for the carnage the Master would later cause. (BFA: Master)
- It's not clear whether this event occurred before or after the event described below.
Like most Gallifreyans who became Time Lords, Koschei was taken for his initiation at the age of eight. During the ceremony in which he gazed into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism, it is said that Koschei went mad. This manifested by the constant drumming he heard ever after, worsening with time. (DW: Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords) The drumming had been implanted retroactively into Koschei's mind by Rassilon as a link to later free the Time Lords from the time-lock imposed upon them. (DW: The End of Time)
Youth
At the Academy, Koschei joined a clique of young Time Lords called the Deca. The Doctor and other future rivals Ushas (later known as the Rani) and Magnus (later known as the War Chief) also belonged to the Deca. (PDA: Divided Loyalties) The Doctor and the Master were also part of the 'Gallifrey Academy Hot Five', in which the Master played the drums. (PDA: Deadly Reunion) The Master would also hypnotise people, likely as a joke, but anyone he did hypnotise the Doctor could un-hypnotise. (MA: The Dark Path)
Whilst at the Academy, the Doctor and the Master travelled into Gallifrey's past in search of Valdemar. They found nothing of the Old Ones except for warnings. The Master was fascinated by the power that Valdemar represented, the Doctor horrified. (PDA: Tomb of Valdemar) The Master once said that he fell out with the Doctor at the Academy as a result of the Master not keeping his word about something. (PDA: Last of the Gaderene)
Vendetta against the Doctor
Origins of the vendetta
After the Doctor fled Gallifrey, Koschei was recruited to arrest him. His unstable obsession with order prompted the Time Lords to plant the Time Lady Ailla as a spy to monitor his actions. She posed as a human so Koschei would take her on as his companion during a stopover in the 28th century. Koschei caught up with the Second Doctor at the Darkheart colony in the early years of the Federation.
The temptation posed by the Darkheart device proved too much for Koschei, and the revelation that Ailla was a spy killed the last traces of good in him. After the Doctor trapped him in a black hole, Koschei, the Master, swore to take revenge. (MA: The Dark Path)
The vendetta continues
- Main Article: The Master (UNIT years)
The Master sought to defeat the Third Doctor during the latter's exile on Earth. He sided with many races who came to Earth, helping them with their varying purposes, but always with his own goals in mind. (DW: Terror of the Autons, The Claws of Axos)
Because of the Doctor's affiliation with UNIT, the Master became a known enemy to authorities on Earth, and was even imprisoned for a short time by human authorities. (DW: The Sea Devils)
Tersurus
The Master neared death as his thirteenth body
degenerated. He survived in a decaying body. (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks) He tried to gain a new regenerative cycle using the Eye of Harmony, infiltrating Time Lord society in the process, but was stopped by the Fourth Doctor. (DW: The Deadly Assassin) The Master escaped Gallifrey, and fled to Traken. He possessed the body of a Trakenite named Tremas. (DW: The Keeper of Traken)
Usurpation
- Main Article: The Master (Tremas)
The Master stole the body of Tremas, the father of the Doctor's future companion, Nyssa. (DW: The Keeper of Traken) He immediately set out on a new career of villainy. (DW: Logopolis) Eventually, he found himself taken over on the Cheetah World by a foreign influence and began to lose control. He ended up trapped there as his body began to die. (DW: Survival)
New regenerative cycle
The Master made a deal with the Tzun to restore his Time Lord DNA, corrupted by his physical merger with the Trakenite, Tremas. This succeeded and he was able to regenerate into a new body. (NA: First Frontier) The Master's body eventually broke down. He stole the Loom of Rassilon's House to make himself a new body. The plan failed and the Master only escaped by hypnotising Kitai into posing as a decoy. (NA: Happy Endings)
The Master later attempted to seize control of a powerful artefact known as the Warp Core. This plan backfired and due to his exposure to the device, the Master's body reverted to a state similar to his degenerated form. For a while he persisted in trying to acquire the Core. During that time he habitually wore a mask and adopted the alias Mr. Seta. (BFA: Dust Breeding)
After the Seventh Doctor made a deal with Death, the Master was allowed ten years in a new life as a good man, then he would be killed. The Master was found wandering the streets of Perfugium with amnesia. Ten years later the Doctor and Death returned for the Master. Death made a deal with the Master; the Master would be allowed to live if he became Death's servant, to which the Master agreed. (BFA: Master)
Death and Glory
- Main Article: The Master (Bruce)
Eventually, he was tried and executed by the Daleks on Skaro as part of a Time Lord-Dalek treaty. His essence survived in a fluid-like form called either a morphant (DWM: The Fallen) or a deathworm (EDA: The Eight Doctors). His "last wish" was for the Doctor to transport his remains to Gallifrey; during the trip the Master sabotaged the Doctor's TARDIS, forcing it to land on Earth in 1999. The Master took over the body of Bruce, an ambulance driver in San Francisco. This incarnation of the Master was only intended to be a temporary one while he launched a scheme to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations.
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At the end of a battle with the Eighth Doctor, the Master fell into the Eye of Harmony, and appeared to be destroyed. (DW: Doctor Who)
However, the Master was rescued from the Vortex by a being named Esterath, the then-controller of the Glory, the focal point of reality. It would soon be time for the Glory to gain another controller, but the power had to be fought for. The Master assumed the fight would be between himself and his greatest foe. He was mistaken because the true battle was between his companion, Sato, and the Doctor's, the Cyberman Kroton.
Kroton was the victor. Amongst his first acts as controller of the Glory were to cleanse the TARDIS of the Master's influence, and to banish the Master somewhere that he could not escape. The Master declared he would survive and return. (DWM: The Glorious Dead)
Imprisoned inside the Doctor's TARDIS, the Master offered the Eighth Doctor advice through a portrait, a mirror and later the Eye of Harmony. (EDA: Sometime Never..., The Deadstone Memorial, The Gallifrey Chronicles)
The Master escaped the Doctor's TARDIS through the Eye of Harmony by influencing the dreams of Edward Grainger in order to be freed from the sealed Eye. The Master was now just a being of energy that could travel through the air. After escaping he managed to evade the Doctor's detection on Earth and possessed the body of a human native named Richard in 1906. (ST: Forgotten)
Later, the Master visited the Eighth Doctor on Earth during the attack of the Babewyns in the late 18th century. While there he attended the Doctor's wedding and attempted to explain the Doctor's past to him and the fate of the Time Lords. The Doctor was suffering from amnesia at the time but still knew who the Master was. (EDA: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Return
- Main Article: The Master (Yana) and The Master (Harold Saxon)
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In the Last Great Time War, the Time Lords themselves brought the Master back from oblivion to use him in defence of Gallifrey. He deserted the instant the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform (DW: The Sound of Drums) as the sheer scale of the conflict seemed to frighten even him.
He fled to the end of the universe and used a Chameleon Arch to become human, eventually growing into the elderly Professor Yana. Martha Jones, who had travelled to this time with the Doctor, recognised Yana's fob watch as a Chameleon Arch and unintentionally prompted Yana to open it. The Master returned in his old identity and attacked his assistant, killing her even as she shot him in the chest with a laser gun.
Fatally wounded, the Master regenerated into a younger incarnation and escaped to 2000s Earth in the Doctor's TARDIS. (DW: Utopia) There he assumed the identity of Harold Saxon and won the election for Prime Minister. (DW: The Sound of Drums)
The Master took the Tenth Doctor prisoner and took over the Earth with the help of the Toclafane and a paradox machine he had made from the TARDIS. This timeline was reverted when Jack Harkness destroyed the paradox machine. As the Doctor took him into custody, the Master was shot by his wife, and collapsed in the Doctor's arms. The Master refused to regenerate as his final victory over the Doctor, refusing to be imprisoned in the TARDIS for the rest of his life.
The Doctor burned his body on a funeral pyre, but a mysterious figure retrieved the Master's ring from the ashes. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
Resurrection and redemption
After being resurrected by his disciples, The Master rewrote the Immortality Gate to change all humans into his image.
The Master, having total control over Earth, brought the Time Lords back into the Universe using a White-Point Star. After learning that the Lord President had put the sound of drums in his head, he used the last of his life-force to disable the President and the Time Lords. Gallifrey, the Time Lords and the Master were thrust back to the Last Great Time War. (DW: The End of Time)
Other information
Companions
Unlike the Doctor, the Master usually worked and travelled alone. On rare occasion, he was seen with companions. Examples included Ailla the Time Lord spy (MA: The Dark Path), Chang Lee, a young human whom the Master met in San Francisco (DW: Doctor Who); Katsura Sato, an immortal Japanese Samurai who helped the Master in his quest for Glory; Chantho, a female assistant and companion to the Master in his Professor Yana identity (although both of them were unaware of "Yana"'s true nature for most of that time) (DW: Utopia); and Lucy Saxon, his wife, who was described as having travelled with the Master in the TARDIS in the same fashion as the Doctor and his companions. (DW: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords) The Rani may have also travelled with the Master when they were trapped together. (DW: The Mark of the Rani)
Imitators
The Master has at least one (rather pathetic) imitator. This was the Mentor. (DWM: Death to the Doctor!)
Other versions of the Master
- After graduating from the Time Lord Academy, the Master, then called Koschei, was a Magistrate for the High Council. Over time his devotion to justice and discipline devolved into an obsession with order which marked the beginning of his descent into darkness (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)
- We do not know if this event occurred before the Master had left Gallifrey, in an alternative timeline or after he had reformed and returned to Gallifrey.
- In a universe where the Third Doctor was exiled to Earth in 1997 by mistake, the Master was stranded on Earth in the 1970s, his TARDIS "placed beyond my reach". He allied with China under the alias Ke Le, creating the brainwashed Ke Le Divisions using alien parasites. He was bitter about being stuck on Earth and having to live through horrific crises that the Doctor wasn't turning up to stop. (BFDWU: Sympathy for the Devil)
- While helping UNIT stop an invasion from a parallel universe, the Master met that universe's version of himself, still using the name Koschei, imprisoned and tortured by order of the Leader of the Republic of Great Britain, that reality's version of the Doctor. The Master killed his other self, claiming that it was an act of mercy. (PDA: The Face of the Enemy)
- In an alternate timeline in which the Doctor didn't erase the Second War in Heaven's timeline, the Master became the War King and led the Time Lords into the battle against the Enemy. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell, FP: The Book of the War)
- In an alternate timeline, a version of the Master existed as an android companion to the Doctor. (WC: Scream of the Shalka)
- In an alternate timeline, a version of the Master attempted to stop the Doctor from settling down with his companion Emma. (DW: The Curse of Fatal Death)
Personality
The Master was the polar opposite of the Doctor in almost every respect. Though he retained a brilliant Time Lord mind and all of the Doctor's wit and cunning, he possesses two fatal character flaws - he was arrogant and exceptionally vain, which invariably led to his downfall.
The Master's thirteenth incarnation was suave and debonair with a sardonic sense of humour. Being a haughty psychopath, he regarded most beings as his inferiors but had a mutual respect for the Doctor as a worthy opponent and (almost) his intellectual equal. (DW: The Sea Devils) But following his degeneration, he became less charming and witty and was mainly preoccupied with finding a way to regenerate. (DW: The Deadly Assassin) The vengeful and vindictive side of the Master was at its most apparent while he was in this state. (DW: The Keeper of Traken)
The Master's first non-regenerative incarnation was charismatic, deadly and sophisticated but decidedly more flamboyantly evil, bombastic and futile but was prone to laughing maniacally and reciting lengthy and verbose speeches accompanied by melodramatic gestures and poses yet was possibly more dangerous. He was also fanatically and uselessly devoted to killing the Doctor, setting overly elaborate traps for him and his TARDIS. His over-planning was his undoing. The Rani said he would get dizzy if he walked in a straight line. He was tall and thin with black hair and a goatee beard. This incarnation of the Master had a particular fondness for the Tissue Compression Eliminator.
The Master's second non-regenerative incarnation retained his propensity for "camp" villainy yet was also capable of terrifying rage. When preparing to steal the Doctor's body, he donned a flamboyant Time Lord robe for no apparent reason.
The Master's sixteenth incarnation was a cross between his thirteenth incarnation and fourteenth (first non-regenerative) one after he reverted out from his human persona. (DW: Utopia)
The Master's seventeenth incarnation appeared to be more insane than ever by regressing to an almost child-like spitefulness and obliviousness, likely stemming back from the insanity has been growing ever since he was eight years old. (DW: Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords)
He was described by the Doctor as always being sort of "hypnotic". (DW: The Sound of Drums)
See also
Behind the scenes
Name
The name " Koschei" has been developed in various novels and other media, and does not appear in the TV series. The Master's real name has yet to appear in an episode of Doctor Who.
Koschei (rus.Коще́й or Коще́й Бессме́ртный, "Koschei The Deathless") is an antagonist in Russian folklore. He is an immortal who hides his soul inside a needle, which is inside an egg, in a duck, inside a hare, in an iron chest which is buried under a tree on the island of Buyan. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die.
Character conception and development
When conceiving the character, the production team had originally considered the idea of the Doctor having a female arch-nemesis rather than male one (this idea was later revived with the creation of the Rani). Later, they thought of the Master as the evil half of a single personality. The Master's name was dreamed up as another counterpart to the Doctor's - like his enemy, "Master" is an academic title.
In the Third Doctor's original final episode concept, the original version of the Master would have redeemed himself and given his life to save the Doctor, after which the Doctor would have regenerated, but the accidental death of Roger Delgado (the original Master) meant that this never happened. Over thirty years later, this idea would be reused in The End of Time with the sixth version of the Master sacrificing himself to save the Tenth Doctor from Rassilon.
In The Deadly Assassin, writer (and then Script Editor) Robert Holmes deliberately chose to show the Master in a "transitional" form in case future production teams wanted to bring back the character. This transitional form was used in The Keeper of Traken.
How many Masters?
It has never been firmly established on screen how many incarnations of the Master have existed. The last "count" that was available occurred in DW: The Deadly Assassin in which the Master is said to be near the end of his thirteenth and final life (it was this serial that established the thirteen-life limit for Time Lords). Afterwards, in DW: The Keeper of Traken, this same incarnation (albeit played by a different actor) takes over Tremas' body and this incarnation, notionally his fourteenth, went on to plague the Doctor for the remainder of the original series. The 2010 edition of REF: The Visual Dictionary indicated that the Master played by John Simm from DW: Utopia onwards was the seventeenth. This would suggest the Gordon Tipple version of the Master is supposed to be the Ainley Master, with the remaining count incorporating the Eric Roberts and Derek Jacobi versions of the character. Whether or not the resurrected Master of DW: The End of Time counts as an eighteenth incarnation (since he states several times that he is not the same man as the "Harold Saxon" Master) is unclear. As far as on-screen canon, it's unknown whether the Master might have had other incarnations during the Last Great Time War or between the Roger Delgado Master and the thirteenth incarnation (if they are different Masters).
Casting
- Apart from the incarnations below, other incarnations of the Master have appeared in novels and comics.
Television appearances
Classic series (1971-1973, 1976, 1981-1986, 1989)
- Roger Delgado as the first version of the character to appear on Doctor Who. He first appeared in the role in 1971's Terror of the Autons and was last seen in Frontier in Space.
- Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers as a decaying version of the first version to appear. They appeared in The Deadly Assassin and The Keeper of Traken, respectively.
- Anthony Ainley as The Master in the body of Tremas from the last moments of The Keeper of Traken through the last original series story Survival, also returning for the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors, making him the longest running actor to portray the Master up to the present day. Note that the character had several extended absences from the series.
TV Movie (1996)
- Eric Roberts played the Master in the body of Bruce, in Doctor Who.
- In the same production, Gordon Tipple appeared in a non-speaking role as the Master's previous incarnation being executed in the pre-credits sequence.
New series (2007, 2009 & 2010)
- Derek Jacobi played Professor Yana, a human version of the Master, as well as the Master himself once he reverted to a Time Lord.
- John Simm played the Master's next incarnation, initially taking the name Harold Saxon. Both Jacobi and Simm debuted as the Master in Utopia, though only Simm appeared in the following episodes The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords. He returned in The End of Time, during which the character renounced the Saxon name - not surprisingly considering the world had witnessed his death at the hands of his wife - and chose to be called, simply, the Master.
- William Hughes had a non-speaking cameo as the young Master during a flashback sequence in The Sound of Drums which was later reused in The End of Time.
Other media
Animation
- Derek Jacobi also played another incarnation of the Master in the web-based animation Scream of the Shalka.
Audio
- Geoffrey Beevers reprised the role in the audio plays Dust Breeding and Master.
- Mark Gatiss played an alternative version of the character in Sympathy for the Devil.
Video game
- Anthony Ainley reprised the role in videotaped scenes included in the game Destiny of the Doctors. These sequences appear as extras on the DVD version of Survival, his last television story.
Continuity
- The Doctor Who Role Playing Game from the American gaming company FASA identified the Monk and the War Chief as earlier incarnations of the Master, causing a few fans to mistakenly believe that Doctor Who itself had stated a connection, when it had not done so. Novel and comic continuity specifically indicates otherwise.
- The Big Finish Productions audio play Master and the television episode The Sound of Drums have the Doctor telling two different and apparently contradictory explanations for how the Master turned evil (Although it may be that both the schism and the deal with Death were responsible, with the deal with Death making the Master's madness more powerful).
- Although novels have been written establishing the "first" Master's activities between the final televised appearance of Roger Delgado Frontier in Space and the character's return in The Deadly Assassin in a degenerated form, the latter adventure makes no direct link. Therefore it can't be said for certain (based upon on-screen evidence) whether this incarnation is the same one played by Delgado.
Anagrams
During Anthony Ainley's tenure as the Master, pseudonyms made from anagrams of the actor's name were often used in the credits for the Master's disguises, such as Neil Toynay for the Portreeve in DW: Castrovalva. Tremas is itself an anagram of Master.
At the same time, in Series 3 (season 29), the Master takes on two new identities, Professor Yana in DW: Utopia, and Mr. Harold Saxon in DW: The Sound of Drums and DW: Last of the Time Lords. As it happens, "Mister Saxon" is a possible, albeit an unintentional anagram of "Master No. Six" as "Sam Tyler" (John Simm's Life on Mars character) is an anagram of "masterly". Yana is an intentional acronym of 'You Are Not Alone, the final words of the Face of Boe, which led the Doctor to discover that Yana was a Time Lord.
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