The Master's TARDIS
The Master's TARDISes were the various TARDISes used by the renegade Time Lord known as the Master.
Although the Master left Gallifrey with a stolen TARDIS like the Doctor, they did not remain faithful to this original capsule, acquiring and discarding several TARDISes over the years, some of them highly advanced models. When finding a discarded TARDIS of the Master's, Celestial Intervention Agency scouts were instructed to bring them back to the CIA, but also told to beware, as the Master sometimes booby-trapped them before leaving them behind. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts)
According to the Twelfth Doctor, the Master "never could drive [his TARDIS]" properly, (TV: The Doctor Falls) although on occasions he demonstrated finer control during "short hops" than the Doctor with his own TARDIS. (TV: Logopolis)
History
First TARDIS
- Main article: The Master's first TARDIS
Like the First Doctor, an early incarnation of the Master stole a TARDIS when he decided to leave Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) In fact, the Keeper, who remembered the Master's theft of his TARDIS, believed this theft and the Doctor's theft of his own TARDIS had been the only two such thefts in recorded Gallifreyan history. The War Chief, suggested in this account (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) and others to have been an early incarnation of the Master, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons) likewise told the Second Doctor that he believed they were the only two Renegade Time Lords currently travelling the universe in TARDISes stolen from Gallifrey. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games)
The Renegade used this TARDIS when travelling with Ailla under the name of Koschei, 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. Shortly after these events, he first took on the name of "the Master". (PROSE: The Dark Path)
In another account, an early incarnation of the Master, already bearing the name of "Master", claimed to the First Doctor when they met that, as he had stolen his ship before it could be rehauled by the Quadriggers, it was broken and in even poorer shape than the Doctor's own ship. Still in his telling, it 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". (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) He later repaired his ship, however, and continued his travels. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)
As the Second Doctor tried to guess the War Chief's plans in the events leading up to the Doctor's trial, he guessed that the War Chief still had his TARDIS, which was "stashed away somewhere". This account presented this as one of the only two stolen TARDISes in circulation by this point, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) the Master's TARDIS. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) The Time Lord who would soon threaten the Third Doctor as "the Master" escaped from the Time Lords before his TARDIS "could be demagnetised", while the Doctor wasn't so lucky. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons)
During his Earth-based vendetta against the Third Doctor and UNIT, the Master used his TARDIS, which, having a functional Mark II dematerialisation circuit, was the object of the Doctor's envy. (TV: Terror of the Autons) The Master lost this TARDIS to Susan Foreman when she disfigured him and mangled his mind, leaving him stranded on Tersurus. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
However, in one possible timeline of the Last Great Time War, the Master recovered his original Type 45 and experimented on her brain to give her a chronal tumour which, while painful, would allow the ship to break through the time lock. However, he never enacted this scheme, (COMIC: Running to Stay Still) with the TARDIS being imprisoned in Shada until after the Time War. It was stolen from there by the Eleventh Doctor and River Song, who wished to interrogate its database of the Master's past schemes,(COMIC: The One) and ultimately flown back into the Time War at a point prior to its modifications by the Master, (COMIC: Running to Stay Still) sparking a dangerous paradox which caused the TARDIS's exteriors to catch fire and triggered the Master's regeneration into The War Master. (COMIC: Fast Asleep)
Type 40
- Main article: The Master's TARDIS (Harvest of Time)
At one point, trapped in the far future without his TARDIS, 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)
"Mark", the grandfather clock
- Main article: Goth's TARDIS
After failing to use the Eye of Harmony to give himself new life, the Master escaped Gallifrey in a TARDIS disguised as a grandfather clock, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) Goth's TARDIS, which he had stolen after killing Goth. (AUDIO: Dominion)
The Master continued to use this TARDIS in several of his succeeding bodies, (TV: Logopolis, AUDIO: Mastermind, et alt.) up until the Last Great Time War, during which the ship, traumatised by what it had experienced, began to gain its own independent identity to the point of ultimately wanting to travel the universe on its own. Missy was reunited with this TARDIS when it (or, rather, he) had gained his own identity as "Mark" and was trying to find a cooperative humanoid pilot. She restored him to factory settings, erasing his personality in the process, (AUDIO: The Broken Clock) and eventually sacrificed this TARDIS as part of the process of creating the Master TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Belly of the Beast)
The Melkur
- Main article: Melkur (The Keeper of Traken)
On Traken, though he still had the grandfather clock stashed away, the Decayed Master used a second TARDIS, disguised as a Melkur. (TV: The Keeper of Traken) This TARDIS was one of the most advanced models existing on Gallifrey at the time (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) and could walk under its own power in the form of a humanoid statue. This TARDIS was destroyed by the Fourth Doctor, but the Master escaped in his older TARDIS after stealing the body of Tremas to renew himself into a new form. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
Stealing the Doctor's TARDIS
- Main article: Paradox machine
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)
Missy's Type 45
- Main article: The Master's TARDIS (Death in Heaven)
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 a TARDIS, (TV: The Doctor Falls) a Type 45 (PROSE: Lords and Masters) like his original one, (PROSE: The Dark Path) 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)
Wishing to be independent from Gallifrey, Missy tried 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)
When Missy went to investigate River Song at the Bekdel Institute, she escaped with the archaeologist to a Level 3 planet where the Time Lady made for the spaceport where she knew she could hitch a ride back to her TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Bekdel Test)
The "Master TARDIS"
- Main article: Master TARDIS
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)
TARDIS used by the Spy Master
- Main article: Spy Master's TARDIS
The Spy Master used a Type 75 TARDIS. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
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 beige kiosk, (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 black Mercedes (PROSE: Housewarming) 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)
Missy's TARDIS was disguised as a tree while she was being chased by a pack of Skarasens. It later disguised itself as a food dispenser containing snacks that were at least three decades past their use-by dates when it landed in the Kyme Institute. (PROSE: Lords and Masters)
As part of a scheme involving the Kasaavin and Daniel Barton, the Master disguised his TARDIS as a wooden house under the pretence of being former MI6 agent O having gone off-grid and living in the Australian outback. It maintained this appearance despite travelling to Paris, 1943. (TV: Spyfall)
X-rays bounced off the TARDIS exterior, unable to penetrate it. (AUDIO: Mastermind)
Interior
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.
