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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 was opposed by him many times. On at least one occasion, he threatened the existence of the universe itself. 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 in order 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) But he would later comment to Wilfred Mott that growing up on Gallifrey was not something that Wilf would call childhood, instead, "...more a life of... duty..." (DW: The End of Time)
He and his erstwhile friend, the First Doctor, in their youths would play in the fields near Koschei's home. 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)
The Master's true origins are surrounded in mystery. There are many conflicting theories about them. In his seventh incarnation, the Doctor told a story about the Master's beginnings. Both the Doctor and the Master 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 would be taken for his training 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 insane. This manifested by the constant drumming he heard ever since the event, which appeared to worsen as time went on. (DW: Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords) The drumming itself was later revealed to have 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 with the collective name of 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)
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 pursue and apprehend him. His unstable obsession with order prompted the Time Lords to plant the Time Lady Ailla as a spy to monitor his actions. Ailla posed as a human so that 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 on him. (MA: The Dark Path)
The vendetta continues
- Main Article: The Master (thirteenth incarnation)
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)
The Master came close to 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 eventually arrived on Traken. He possessed the body of a Trakenite named Tremas. (DW: The Keeper of Traken)
Usurpation
- Main Article: The Master (fourteenth incarnation)
The Master did manage to steal 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 Mouse to make himself a new body. The plan failed and the Master only escaped by hypnotizing 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 (Daleks) and 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. Tthe Master assumed thefight 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)
- For more on this incarnation, see separate article.
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 back the Master back 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 thim.
He fled to the end of the universe and used a Chameleon Arch to become human, the elderly Professor Yana. Martha Jones, who had traveled to this time with the Doctor, recognized 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. (DW: Utopia)
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.
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.
The Doctor burned his body on a funeral pyre, but a mysterious figure retrieved the Master's ring from the ashes. (DW: The Sound of Drums/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 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 traveled 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 aMagistrate 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. (DWU: 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 imvariably led to his downfall. By the time of his return from his Yana persona, he appeared to be more insane than ever, regressing to an almost childlike spitefulness and obliviousness. It is implied by the Doctor that the Master's insanity has been growing ever since he was eight years old. He instantaneously rejected a plea to listen by saying, "No. It's my turn. Revenge." (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
In this instance, the Doctor, aware how dangerous the Master was, attempted to take on the role of a mentor in an attempt to save the Master from himself: "I'm not here to kill him. I'm here to save him". He pleaded with him on numerous occasions (DW: Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords) to calm down, stop what he was doing, listen and look at himself.
The Master absolutely refused to listen to the Doctor on any occasion. He evinced his vanity when the Doctor confronted him with the words "I forgive you", which he had been terrified of hearing because it would hurt his pride. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
He had an exceptionally heightened sense of his own brilliance which was far more pronounced and blatant than the Doctor's. He referred to himself in the third person as "your Lord and Master" on numerous occasions and recited a Biblical-style verse of his own making to the Doctor, "...and so it came to pass that the human race fell. And I looked down, upon my new dominion as Master of All and I thought it good", as if fancying himself as a god. (DW: The Sound of Drums) He also held Time Lords to be an absolutely superior race of life, assuming the privilege of altering history, on the principle of: "I'm a Time Lord. I have that right" (DW: Last of the Time Lords). Similarly, late in the Doctor's tenth incarnation, the Doctor was heard to shout "The laws of time are mine, and they will obey me!" (DW: The Waters of Mars)
- Russell T Davies later stated he was influenced by how he thought the Master came to be how he was. The Doctor later realised that he has gone too far and most likely recognised the parallels between his actions and the Master's.
In some of his incarnations he felt a pedantic need to correct people on bad grammar. The most noteworthy occasion was when he corrected Grace's "kiss as good as me" to "kiss as well as me".
Also in a commentary podcast for DW: The End of Time, Russell T Davies said that in an original version of the script the Master corrected someone saying "Happy Christmas" to "Merry Christmas" telling them "you don't say merry New Year, do you?"
He matched the Doctor's keen wit and sense of humour. He replied to the President of the United States when reprimanded for his audacious conduct contravening established first contact policy with regards to the Toclafane with a casual "Oh, you know what it's like, new job, all that paperwork - I think I left it down the back of the settee. I did have a quick look. I found a pen, a sweet, a bus ticket. Have you met the wife?" (DW: The Sound of Drums)
The Master also shared the Doctor's technical know-how. He was able to construct his laser screwdriver from Earth components and miniaturize Richard Lazarus' genetic manipulation technology. He cannibalised the Doctor's TARDIS and turned it into the paradox machine.
It should also be noted that both devices, in contrast to the Doctor's tools, had a hostile purpose; the laser screwdriver was a weapon specifically created to attack and kill others, unlike the Sonic Screwdriver which "doesn't kill, wound, or maim". (DW: Doomsday)
The Master also had a crippling fear of an all-powerful, God-like Doctor, probably based on the Doctor's habit of challenging his old friend's grandiose self-image by constantly derailing his plans. (DW: The Mind of Evil) When the Doctor harnessed the psychic energy of the entire human race and effectively became a god, the Master was reduced to sobbing against a wall. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
The Master's relationship with the Doctor was one of the most complex in the series. He respected the Doctor as a worthy opponent but was obsessed with proving his personal superiority, causing him to view the Doctor both as his best friend and worst enemy. He expressed deep anger toward the Doctor, along with a desire for vengeance, saying "No, it's my turn, revenge, best served hot". (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
The Master hadn't always been like this: he and the Doctor had once been good friends as children on Galllifrey, but the Doctor thought that staring into the Time Vortex as an eight-year old child drove him insane. (DW: The Sound of Drums)
After the Master's botched revival he became more violent and insane than before; he acted on instinct and was almost reduced to the level of an animal. At the very end of his life, his personality seemed to revert; when Rassilon tried to kill the Doctor, the Master sacrificed himself as he found in Rassilon a common enemy. He used an unknown amount of his life-force to blast Rassilon and save the Doctor when he could have let Rassilon kill the Doctor and survived himself. (DW: The End of Time).
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 (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 his decayed incarnation (both actors played the same incarnation of the character). 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, making him the longest running actor to portray the Master up to the present day, also returning for the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors. Note that the character had several extended absences from the series.
TV Movie and mini-episode (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.