Doctor Who: Every Master Ranked Worst To Best
Usually referred to as 'The Master', but not always.
If you love Doctor Who, you must also love this character.
The Master has proven to be a reliable constant in the Doctor Who universe, but is The Doctor's meddling Time Lord antithesis pure evil or just misunderstood? Most of the time, villainy is the name of The Master's game, but its done with such jovial abandonment that viewers can't help but see the fun side.
He/she is like a cheating version of The Doctor, breaking all the sacrosanct principals of science and morality to serve his/her own end. Nothing the Master ever does is safe or straightforward. Remember that time when two separate incarnations simultaneously murdered each other, and then laughed about it?
The responsibilities of playing such a character is therefore no mean feat. The Master has taken on many different guises and siphoned through styles a great deal more varied than The Doctor, and that makes for a very eclectic list of personas. Only in Doctor Who, could it be possible that all these actors contibuted to one singular creation.
But which one is the best?
8. Peter Pratt/Geoffrey Beevers
Who knows what would have transpired if the mighty Roger Delgado hadn't died tragically in a car crash in 1973? After this sad chapter in Dr Who history, The Master remained in a flux and eventually returned as a flaky-faced ghoul in two separate Tom Baker stories. Two different actors took on the role, but both portrayed the same turbulent incarnation of the character.
Though on paper, this stage of The Master's troubled existence was pretty cool, the rendition itself was fairly wooden. We've all learned, especially through modern adaptations, that The Master needs that pinch of humanity, mischief, and humour to be compelling, and it was impossible for these traits to manifest while the villainous Time Lord skulked around in a hooded robe looking like a rubbish Skeletor.
Fortunately, this period of The Master's life was short lived. In one of the blandest regeneration scenes in the history of Doctor Who, this haggard persona morphed into the decidedly more charismatic Anthony Ainley, and things improved from thereon in. The Master was destined to never be so dull again.