5. Roger Delgado Didnt Die
At first, it would appear that the untimely death of Roger Delgado (the first actor to play the Master) in 1973 only caused the part of the Master to be recast. But when you scratch the surface, youll find it runs deeper than that. Because the strange truth is that Delgados tragic passing stopped the Master from being permanently written out. By the end of the Jon Pertwee era, Whovians were suffering from serious Master fatigue. He had appeared in 37 of Jon Pertwees 128 episodes and was fast becoming overused. So the decision was made to make Jon Pertwees last story The Final Game the Masters swansong as well, with him dying in an attempt to save the Doctor. But then came the news that Roger Delgado had died in a car crash in Turkey and a drastic rethink was needed. The Final Game was replaced with a new story titled Planet Of The Spiders, resulting in the Masters last appearance being at the end of the 1973 story Frontier In Space where he was seen escaping from a taskforce of Daleks. The Master was next seen in 1976s The Deadly Assassin where he was at the end of his final Regeneration and was played by Peter Pratt in heavy makeup. This incarnation of the Master next appeared in 1981s The Keeper Of Traken where he stole the body of a Trakenite named Tremas and once again became a recurring character, this time played by Anthony Ainley, and appeared infrequently until the programmes cancellation in 1989. Were it not for Delgados premature death, its entirely possible that the Masters story would have ended in 1974. Villains from the Classic Series are frequently being revived so its more likely that he still would have returned at some point through the use of some kind of timey wimey plot device but he wouldnt have had the appearances after 1973 that made him a permanent fixture in Doctor Whos catalogue of villains.