Doctor Who: EVERY Version Of The Master Explained
Every version of the Master in televised Doctor Who, from Gallifrey to life inside a gold tooth!
Since Roger Delgado debuted in Terror of the Autons, the Master has taken on almost as many faces as the Doctor has. However, unlike the Doctor, it's a little harder to number the Master's many incarnations. That's why we don't refer to them as the First, Second, or Third Masters, not least because the second Master was played by two different actors – Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers.
It's also hard to number the Masters because from the 1980s onward, the Doctor's arch-nemesis is inhabiting non-Time Lord bodies left, right, and centre! But with all of this in mind, we can confidently say there are 13 distinct versions of the Master depicted in televised Doctor Who.
This means that we won't be talking about some of the other memorable incarnations such as Jonathan Pryce in the 1999 sketch The Curse of Fatal Death, or Alex Macqueen's deliciously evil Big Finish Master.
And, for clarity, we're not counting such memorable disguises as Sir Gilles Estram, Kalid the Conjurer, or Mr. Razor as separate incarnations either, though they will of course be mentioned. On the whole, we're only interested in the sinister Time Lord hiding beneath the mask.
13. The First Master (First Appearance: 1971)
The First Master was conceived as the Moriarty to the Third Doctor's Sherlock Holmes, and this dynamic was a huge success right from the start.
Both men were incredibly debonair fashionistas that also happened to be super geniuses – one of them good, and one of them evil. There's a cool charm to Roger Delgado's portrayal of the First Master that made him an utterly compelling, and dare we say it, likeable Doctor Who villain.
The First Master was introduced in the 1971 serial Terror of the Autons, and would become a recurring fixture in the Third Doctor's tenure. Given that Gallifrey wouldn't be introduced until late 1973, and Time Lord lore in general was still in its very early days, not much was known about the First Master at the time, though it was immediately established that he and the Doctor had history. For example, the Master reveals that he sought out the Doctor because he was his "intellectual equal".
Among many other iconic moments, the First Master proved himself adept at sword fighting, and even formed an alliance with the Daleks – firmly establishing how far removed the Master was from the Doctor's core values.
But the most interesting element that Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee brought to the two characters was a hint of genuine friendship, based on their begrudging mutual respect for each other.
The battles between the Third Doctor and the First Master are just as much about petty point-scoring between old friends as they are about world domination. There's a reason why the Tenth Doctor mentions the Axons when cradling the dying Saxon Master – they're remembering the good old times! This dynamic was reflective of the very real friendship between Pertwee and Delgado, and it has informed every portrayal of the two frenemies ever since.
The First Master's time was cut short due to Delgado's tragic death in 1973, resulting in a rather abrupt end for this incarnation. With no regeneration and no explanation given for the character's disappearance, it would be several years before the Master returned, in a radically different form.