The Master (Doctor Who)
The Master, or "Missy" in their female incarnation, is a recurring character and one of the main antagonists of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works.
Multiple actors have played the Master since the character's introduction in 1971. Within the show's narrative, the change in actors and subsequent change of the character's appearance is sometimes explained as the Master taking possession of other characters' bodies or as a consequence of regeneration, which is a biological attribute that allows Time Lords to survive fatal injuries or old age.
The Master was originally played by Roger Delgado from 1971 until his death in 1973. The role was subsequently played by Peter Pratt, Geoffrey Beevers, and Anthony Ainley, with Ainley reprising the role regularly through the 1980s until the series’s cancellation in 1989. Eric Roberts took on the role for the 1996 Doctor Who TV film. Since the show's revival in 2005, the Master has been portrayed by Derek Jacobi, John Simm, Michelle Gomez, and Sacha Dhawan.
Beevers, Roberts, Jacobi, Simm, Gomez, and Dhawan have reprised the role in audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, while Alex Macqueen, Gina McKee, Mark Gatiss, James Dreyfus, and Milo Parker have portrayed incarnations unique to Big Finish.
Origins
The creative team conceived of the Master as a recurring villain, first appearing in Terror of the Autons. The Master's title was deliberately chosen by producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks because, like the Doctor, it was a title conferred by an academic degree. A sketch of three "new characters" for 1971 suggested he was conceived to be of "equal, perhaps even superior rank, to the Doctor."Letts only had one man in mind for the role: Roger Delgado, who had a long history of playing villains and had already made three attempts to be cast in the series. He had worked previously with Letts and was a good friend of Jon Pertwee.
Malcolm Hulke spoke of the character and his relationship with the Doctor: "There was a peculiar relationship between the Master and the Doctor: one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to eliminate the Doctor...you see the Doctor was the only person like him at the time in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a funny sort of way they were partners in crime."
An unrelated character also known as the Master, who ruled over the Land of Fiction, had previously appeared in the 1968 serial The Mind Robber opposite the Second Doctor.
Aims and character
A would-be universal conqueror, the Master wants to control the universe. In The Deadly Assassin, his ambitions are described as becoming "the master of all matter". He also had a secondary objective: to make the Doctor suffer. In The Sea Devils, the Master mentions that the "pleasure" of seeing the destruction of the human race, of which the Doctor is fond, would be "a reward in itself."History within the show
Encounters with the Third Doctor
The Master, as played by Roger Delgado, makes his first appearance in Terror of the Autons, where he allies with the Nestene Consciousness to help them invade Earth. The Third Doctor convinces the Master to stop this plan at the last minute, and the Master subsequently escapes, albeit with his TARDIS left non-functioning after the Doctor confiscates the ship's dematerialisation circuit.Having become a main character in the show's eighth season, the Master reappears in The Mind of Evil, where he regains his TARDIS's circuit from the Doctor after attempting to launch a nerve gas missile that would initiate World War III. The Master is seen again in another incursion on Earth in The Claws of Axos, and then fails to hold the galaxy to ransom using a doomsday weapon on the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472 in Colony in Space. In The Dæmons, The Master is finally captured on Earth by the organization UNIT after Jo Grant prevents the alien Azal from giving The Master his powers.
In The Sea Devils, the Master is shown to be imprisoned on an island off the coast of England. He convinces the governor of the prison, Colonel Trenchard, to help him steal electronics from HMS Seaspite, the nearby naval base. This allows the Master to contact the reptilian Sea Devils, the former rulers of Earth, so he can help them retake the planet from humanity. The Master convinces the Doctor to help him build machinery that would bring the Sea Devils out of their millions of years of hibernation. Still, the Doctor sabotages the device by overloading it, destroying the Sea Devil base, and preventing war between humanity and reptiles. The Master subsequently escapes in a hovercraft. The Doctor reveals in this serial that the Master was once a "very good friend" of his.
Delgado's last appearance as the Master is in Frontier in Space, where he works alongside the Dalek and Ogron races to provoke a war between the Human and Draconian Empires. The scheme fails, and the Master escapes after he shoots at the Doctor.
Delgado was slated to return in a serial called The Final Game, which would have been the season 11 finale. However, he died in a car crash in June 1973, and the story was never produced.
A new regeneration cycle — the long-serving Master
Played by Peter Pratt in his next appearance, the Master returns in The Deadly Assassin, opposite the Fourth Doctor. Special effects makeup was applied to Pratt to give the Master a corpse-like appearance. Found by Chancellor Goth on the planet Tersurus, the Master is revealed to be in his final regeneration and near the end of his final life. The Master attempts to gain a new regeneration cycle by using the artefacts of Rassilon, the symbols of the President of the Council of Time Lords, to manipulate the Eye of Harmony at the cost of Gallifrey. However, the Doctor stops the Master, who escapes after his assumed death.The Master later returns in The Keeper of Traken, the role taken over by Geoffrey Beevers. Still dying, the Master came to the Traken Union to renew his life by using the empire's technological Source. Though the plot fails, the Master manages to cheat death by transferring his essence into the body of a Traken scientist named Tremas and overwriting his host's mind.
The Master confronted the next three regenerations of the Doctor on and off for the rest of the classic series, still seeking to extend his life – preferably with a new set of regenerations. Subsequently, in "The Five Doctors", the Time Lords offer the Master a new regeneration cycle in exchange for his help, though the promise was not fulfilled at the time.
The Master's final appearance in the classic series is in Survival, trapped on the planet of the Cheetah People and under its influence, which drives its victims to savagery. Though the Master manages to escape the doomed planet, he ends up back on the planet prior to its destruction when he attempts to kill the Seventh Doctor.
Dalek trial and 'execution'
The Master was the primary antagonist of the 1996 Doctor Who television film. He was played by American actor Eric Roberts.In the prologue, the Master is executed by the Daleks as a punishment for his "evil crimes". But before his apparent death, the Master requests his remains to be brought back to Gallifrey by the Seventh Doctor. However, as posited in the novelisation of the film by Gary Russell, the Master's self-alterations to extend his lifespan allow him to survive his execution by transferring his mind into a snake-like entity called a "morphant." This interpretation is made explicit in the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks, and also used in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story The Fallen, which states that the morphant was a shape-shifting animal native to Skaro.
Using his morphant body to break free from the container holding his remains, the Master sabotages the Doctor's TARDIS console to force it to crash land in San Francisco in December 1999. From there, the Master, as the morphant, enters the body of a paramedic named Bruce to take control of him. However, the Master finds his human host to be unsustainable as the body slowly begins to degenerate, although the Master has the added abilities to spit an acid-like bile, both as a weapon and to mentally control victims as an alternative to his usual hypnotic abilities. The Master attempts to access the Eye of Harmony to steal the remaining regenerations of the Eighth Doctor, but instead is sucked into it and supposedly killed.
Professor Yana and Harold Saxon
In "Utopia", the Doctor encounters a scientist called Professor Yana at the end of the universe. Overhearing the Doctor discussing time travel and regeneration, he is prompted to open his pocket watch, revealing Yana to be The Master and the watch a repository of his Time Lord consciousness. The Master had used a chameleon arch - Gallifreyan technology used to turn a Time Lord into a human and storing the subject's memories in a fob watch - to escape detection after fleeing the Time War. His memory restored, the Master is shot by his former assistant Chantho and regenerates into his next incarnation before stealing the Doctor's TARDIS and leaving him to die.In "The Sound of Drums," the Doctor makes his way back to Earth to find the Master has become Prime Minister of the UK under the alias of Harold Saxon. The Master kidnaps Martha's family and conquers Earth.
In "Last of the Time Lords", Martha spends a year working to save her family and to thwart the Master's plan to wage war against the universe. The Master himself mentions that looking into the vortex as a child made "the drumming" choose him as a "call to war" in his head. When fatally shot by his human wife, Lucy Saxon, the Master refuses to regenerate, knowing it will haunt the Doctor.
The Master returns in "The End of Time" when his disciples attempt a resurrection ritual using a surviving piece of the Master's body. However, Lucy sabotages the ritual, bringing the Master back as an unstable creature, hungry for human flesh and leaking electrical energy. The Master proceeds with a plot to transform the entire human race into his own clones. The Master is sent back to Gallifrey when the Time Lords are sealed away in the Time War, trapped once more.