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The Master's TARDIS was the TARDIS used by the renegade Time Lord known as the Master. He owned more than one TARDIS throughout his many engagements with the Doctor, all of them models more advanced than the Doctor's. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
According to the Doctor, the Master wasn't capable of flying his TARDIS properly. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
History
Pre-Time War
Like the First Doctor, the first incarnation of the Master had stolen his TARDIS when he decided to leave Gallifrey.
However, as he did so before it could be rehauled by the Quadriggers, it was broken and in even more poor shape than the Doctor's own ship. and fell apart around him almost instantly, stranding the Master on the planet Destination on the furthest arm of a galaxy in the "earliest Segments of Time". Using what few pieces of the TARDIS still functioned, the Master built himself a laboratory from which to control the planet's technological development towards nuclear fission so he could repair his ship. He briefly abandoned his TARDIS in favour of stealing the Doctor's only for his old friend to defeat him and trap the Master in the near-powerless remains of his ship. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)
He later repaired his ship and made his way to another world colonised by humans, this one modelled after the English countryside during World War II. Using his hypnotic talents to assume control of the planet, the Master controlled his experiment from his ship. When the Second Doctor had discovered and sabotaged the experiment, the Master activated his contingencies and used his TARDIS to jump ahead to see the results. When he arrived, he fell victim to a trap of the Doctor's, his TARDIS being confiscated from him as the galactic authorities tried him for illegal use of mind control. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)
The Master's first known TARDIS was a Type 45, a comparatively more advanced TARDIS compared to the Doctor's TARDIS. At the time he was travelling with Ailla, and when he felt he was betrayed by her, he simply jettisoned her room into the Time Vortex. He tried to connect the TARDIS to the Darkheart, so then he could manipulate and control space/time, but he was stopped by the Second Doctor. (PROSE: The Dark Path)
During his Earth-based vendetta against the Third Doctor and UNIT, the Master used a TARDIS with a Mark II dematerialisation circuit, which the Doctor stole to replace his own, though the attempt failed. Unlike the Doctor's TARDIS, the Master's had a fully functioning chameleon circuit. (TV: Terror of the Autons) The Master was stranded on Earth for a time, but eventually retrieved his dematerialisation circuit, leaving him free to travel in time and space once more, while the Doctor had to remain in exile. (TV: The Mind of Evil)
When he was trapped in the far future, the Master found an old Type 40 TARDIS with a faulty chameleon circuit, which he was able to repair. He used the TARDIS to return to the 20th century, but he was captured by UNIT after he met the Third Doctor and Jo Grant when he tried to escape again. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
Using his TARDIS, the Master followed the Doctor to 25 December 2006, while the Earth was being invaded by the Sycorax, whom the Master intended to ally with. Taking the form of a fridge, the TARDIS materialised within 48 Bucknall House, a flat on Powell Estate and residence of Jackie Tyler. However, shortly after disembarking, the Master was captured by animate tinsel which had been left behind by the Roboforms. After an hour spent in captivity, the Master was found by the Doctor, Jo, Mike Yates and Jackie. Deeming that the Master had suffered enough, the Doctor set him free to take his leave in his TARDIS. (PROSE: The Christmas Inversion)
After Susan Foreman mutilated the Master's mind and left him nearly dead on Tersurus, she took his TARDIS to escape, believing him to be dead, and took off to a random location, returning to a life of adventure akin to that enjoyed by her grandfather in his TARDIS, although she immediately noted that this ship was much easier to steer than the Doctor's had been. The Decayed Master, who was not actually dead but merely deformed, was found on Tersurus by Chancellor Goth, who brought him back to Gallifrey. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks) After failing to use the Eye of Harmony to give himself new life, the Master escaped Gallifrey in a TARDIS he called his own, which had been disguised as a grandfather clock. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
On Traken, the Master used a second TARDIS, disguised as a Melkur. Although this one was destroyed, he kept his grandfather clock TARDIS inside, and used it to escape after he stole the body of Tremas. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
The Master sent his TARDIS to wait for him in the Time Vortex when he prepared to steal the Doctor's body by letting himself (in a stolen body) be seemingly destroyed by the Daleks. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
The Master's TARDIS was held in the Vault after being found in the Valley of the Kings. The Master escaped the Vault in this TARDIS. (AUDIO: Mastermind)
The Master had a TARDIS on the planet Parrak which he used to steal the planet's water to force the people to work for him. It was later used by the Eighth Doctor to get in Dark Times in the Vortex but was then destroyed when the Bruce Master used the fast return switch to escape. (AUDIO: Planet of Dust, Day of the Master)
Goth's TARDIS
The Reborn Master went back in time to the point at which he killed Chancellor Goth and stole his TARDIS, then used it to break into Tersurus. (AUDIO: Dominion)
Last Great Time War
The Master used his TARDIS during the Last Great Time War. After the War, the Eleventh Doctor set out to find it with the help of River Song, believing it to contain records of what he did during the conflict. (COMIC: The Judas Goatee) The search took him to Shada, where it was found, (COMIC: The One) although it came from a different timeline. (COMIC: Fast Asleep) River used the TARDIS to escape from Shada, materialising it inside the Doctor's own TARDIS. (COMIC: Downtime) The Doctor kept the TARDIS in the console room. Alice Obiefune stole the TARDIS, activating the chronal tumour on the console with a Rassilonian Timefly and piloting it back into the Time War. (COMIC: Running to Stay Still) It was eventually taken by the child incarnation of the Master who regenerated inside it from paradox damage. (COMIC: Fast Asleep)
At some point, the Master used a Mark 212. (AUDIO: The Broken Clock) The War Master, while working for the CIA, claimed that his then current TARDIS could not go on planet Kolstan without fiddling with its security. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)
After deciding to become human via the use of a Chameleon Arch upon seeing the Dalek Emperor taking control of the Cruciform, the Master set his TARDIS to dematerialise 10 seconds after he exited it, and it went away to some unknown place. (AUDIO: The Heavenly Paradigm)
The Mark 212 TARDIS was traumatised by its work for the Master during the War, becoming fully sentient, and eventually ended up in 2014 Manhattan. There it recruited a series of individuals to be its pilot, taking them on journeys across the universe until they died of old age, whereupon it returned them to where it had initially found them. Detective Dick Zodiac began investigating the string of bizarre deaths, eventually tracking down the broken clock that appeared to be the common denominator. He talked with the TARDIS’ avatar, which he named Mark, and agreed to be its new pilot. Dick’s investigation was being manipulated by Missy, who boarded the TARDIS with him. Dick’s future self, who had already lived through the outcome of this and was reliving the experience via projections in the TARDIS, interfered and revealed her identity to Mark. Mark attempted to throw itself into a sun to be free of Missy, however she found the factory reset and regained control. (AUDIO: The Broken Clock) Missy later sacrificed this TARDIS to fuel the Master TARDIS’ Eye of Harmony, (AUDIO: The Belly of the Beast)
Post-Time War
Awakening from his Professor Yana persona on Malcassairo in the year 100,000,000,000,000, the Master stole the Doctor's TARDIS following his regeneration into a new incarnation. (TV: Utopia) Travelling to the 2000s, the Master made Lucy Saxon his companion and took her to the end of the universe, where they found the Toclafane. (TV: Last of the Time Lords) The Master then cannibalised the TARDIS into a paradox machine with which he conceived the Year That Never Was. (TV: The Sound of Drums) Ultimately, the TARDIS was reclaimed and restored by the Tenth Doctor after Jack Harkness destroyed the paradox machine, reverting the year and erasing the Master's New Time Lord Empire. (TV: Last of the Time Lords)
The Saxon Master later ended up on Gallifrey on the final day of the Last Great Time War. (TV: The End of Time) "Mutually" kicked out by the Time Lords, the Master retrieved his TARDIS and left the planet, eventually arriving at the bottom of a Mondasian colony ship which had been drawn to the pull of a black hole. With his TARDIS too close to the event horizon, the Master attempted to take off only to cause the destruction of his dematerialisation circuit when he went too fast.
Over a decade would pass before the Master encountered a future, female incarnation who dubbed herself "Missy". Provided with a spare dematerialisation circuit by his future self, who had remembered to keep one as a result of this encounter, the Master proceeded to leave the ship in his TARDIS. However, before he left, Missy mortally wounded him in such a way as to force the Master's regeneration shortly after he reached his TARDIS. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
Missy travelled in a Type 45 TARDIS. She was trying to replace the TARDIS's energy source, and she gained an opportunity when the Time Lords took control of her TARDIS to force her to prevent the time experiments at the Kyme Institute. She later jettisoned its Eye of Harmony so that the Time Lords couldn't control it. She replaced it with a living power source she acquired in the Kyme Institute after the mission from the Time Lords to prevent time experiments from damaging history. Jettisoning the Eye of Harmony was difficult, but locking the living power source proved harder. The creature would continually try to escape its new containment field, but Missy was counting on that, and she noted the energy levels given off were more than sufficient to fuel her TARDIS. (PROSE: Lords and Masters)
Missy later began using a ship that she referred to as the "Master TARDIS" which was eventually swallowed by a planetoid-sized space borne entity, the leaking energies of the damaged ship turning the creature to stone. To retrieve her craft, Missy used a clone labour force to dig through the ground, (AUDIO: The Belly of the Beast) while she used her vortex manipulator to collect replacement parts. (AUDIO: A Spoonful of Mayhem, Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated, The Broken Clock) While the Master TARDIS was later fully repaired, Missy depressingly noted that the lack of other TARDISes to control made her ship's upgrades somewhat frivolous. (AUDIO: The Lumiat)
Missy implemented a plan involving travel through time to harvest recently deceased human minds for as long as humanity had a concept of the afterlife, the Twelfth Doctor theorised that she achieved this through use of a TARDIS. (TV: Death in Heaven) However, Missy was also known to travel by vortex manipulator instead of just using her TARDIS. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar, AUDIO: Day of the Master)
The Spy Master disguised his TARDIS as a wooden house situated in the Great Victoria Desert during his time disguised as O. Before revealing his true identity to the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, his TARDIS flew alongside the VOR aircraft for them to see. The Master used his TARDIS to transport Daniel Barton to the plane's programmed destination, then followed the Doctor as she was transported across space and time by the Kasaavin. Finding it in Paris, 1943, the Doctor remarked that it had not changed its appearance. The Doctor used this TARDIS to return to 2020, leaving the Master waiting for 77 years to return to the same time. (TV: Spyfall)
Other references
Upon seeing the Twelfth Doctor's version of the TARDIS' control room, the Tenth Doctor mistook it for the Master's TARDIS, while taking the roundels as Dalek bumps. (COMIC: Four Doctors)
Exterior
During his rivalry with the Doctor, the Master changed his TARDIS into several different forms, including: an entire wall, (AUDIO: The Home Guard) an Adjudication flyer, an out-of-date space locker, (PROSE: The Dark Path) a horsebox, (TV: Terror of the Autons) a white cube, (TV: The Claws of Axos) a spaceship, (TV: Colony in Space) a black Rolls-Royce limousine with darkened windows, a bulkhead door aboard the HMS Redoubt, (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) the Stone of Sacrifice in the cavern of the church at Devil's End, (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy, The Eight Doctors) a computer bank, (TV: The Time Monster, AUDIO: Vampire of the Mind) a fridge, (PROSE: The Christmas Inversion) a filing cabinet, (PROSE: The Touch of the Nurazh) a control panel, a wardrobe, (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks) a grandfather clock, (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Keeper of Traken, PROSE: The Eight Doctors, AUDIO: Mastermind, And You Will Obey Me, The Broken Clock), a tank, a red pillar box, (AUDIO: The Light at the End) the Melkur, (TV: The Keeper of Traken) a police box, (TV: Logopolis, PROSE: The Quantum Archangel, AUDIO: Dominion) a laurel bush, (TV: Logopolis) a Doric column, (TV: Logopolis, Castrovalva, Time-Flight, AUDIO: Dust Breeding) a marble fireplace, (TV: Castrovalva) Speedbird Concorde 192, (TV: Time-Flight) an iron maiden, (TV: The King's Demons) a three-sided column, (TV: Planet of Fire) a wooden beach hut, a statue of Queen Victoria, (TV: The Ultimate Foe) a red telephone box, (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) a transport crate, (AUDIO: The Death of Hope) a palm tree, (AUDIO: Rule of the Eminence) and a white pillar. (COMIC: Outrun, The Judas Goatee)
On Traken, the Master disguised a TARDIS as the Melkur. In this form, it was shown to be able to walk and could fire sonic beams from its eyes. When this TARDIS was destroyed, he fled in another he had kept in the former. This TARDIS was disguised as a grandfather clock. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
While preparing a trap for the Fourth Doctor, the Master temporarily changed his ship into a police box. He later hid it inside the Cloister room as a laurel bush and finally as a stunted, brown Doric column. (TV: Logopolis) He tended to use a column as his TARDIS' "default" exterior. (TV: Castrovalva, Time-Flight, Planet of Fire)
As part of a scheme involving the Kasaavin and Daniel Barton, the Master disguised his TARDIS as a wooden house under the pretense of being former MI6 agent O having gone off-grid and living in the Australian outback. It maintained this appearance despite traveling to Paris, 1943. (TV: Spyfall)
X-rays bounced off the TARDIS exterior, unable to penetrate it. (AUDIO: Mastermind)
Interior
The Master's TARDIS had a varied interior. Some interiors seemed to mimic the Doctor's re-designs of his own TARDIS at the time of the encounter. (TV: The Time Monster, Planet of Fire)
Much of the time, the interior was simply a sombre, black version of the interior of the Doctor's TARDIS, sometimes with special equipment such as the Hadron web which he used to hold Adric captive. (TV: Castrovalva)
One interior was completely black, making it difficult for the Master to find his keys. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen)
While taking the form of a wooden house, the architecture of the interior was consistent with that of the exterior. (TV: Spyfall)
Companions who spent time in the Master's TARDIS after spending time in the Doctor's ship noted that the atmosphere of the Master's TARDIS was far less welcoming than that of the Doctor's ship, as though both TARDISes had adapted to the moods of their owners. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
During the Last Great Time War, the Master operated on the brain of his TARDIS. Because of this, a chronal tumour protruded from one side of the console. (COMIC: The One)
While disguising himself as the agent "O", the Master disguised his TARDIS as a wooden house with the interior mimicking that appearance. This meant that it looked exactly like the interior of a real house, with the console also disguised as a set of high tech spy computer system up against a wall rather than in the middle of the control room. This console was round and contained 6 panels, each with a circular screen on them. The Doctor's TARDIS was also able to land inside it with no trouble or paradoxes. (TV: Spyfall)
The Master's library
Like the Doctor's, the Master's TARDIS had a well-stocked library. The Master's interests, however, tended toward the evil and arcane. Among the more diabolical works he owned were the Necronomicon, shelved between the Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon. It also included the Book of Vile and its Black Appendix, The Ambuehl Lores and the Insidium of Astrolabus. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
Specific systems
Once, the Master tricked the Doctor into materialising his TARDIS around his own, creating a dimensionally recursive loop, (TV: Logopolis) repeating a situation that had previously occurred accidentally. (TV: The Time Monster)
Behind the scenes
- The walking Melkur statue was portrayed by Graham Cole, who remained uncredited both on-screen and in Radio Times.
- Tom Saunders designed a brand new interior of the War Master's TARDIS for the trailer of Only the Good.
- Gavin Rymill illustrated an original design for Missy's TARDIS interior in REF: TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual.
- The Master's TARDIS appeared in LEGO Dimensions. Disguised as a grandfather clock, it could be found in the Black Archive during The Dalek Extermination of Earth.