In three of Tom Baker's appearances with him, the Master is not the suave and sinister Roger Delgado version but the emaciated one from The Deadly Assassin, doing everything he could to survive, up to and including killing anyone who stood in his way. That's one of the more remarkable things about Geoffrey Beavers' version of the Master in The Keeper Of Traken. Because he has absolutely nothing left to lose, he's far more sinister than almost every other version of the Master that has ever existed. He also exhibits one of the Master's more frightening traits: his ability to play the long game, carefully fashioning Cassia into the perfect minion. Then he brutally kills her when he's got what he wants. Even worse, he does so by materialising his TARDIS on top of her. Pretty ghastly. Even more ghastly is his new ability to take the form of another sentient being, effectively erasing them from existence while walking around in their rejuvenated corpse. He comes close to doing this to the Doctor, which would have given him several more regenerations, but he has to settle for poor Tremas (played by a surprisingly subdued Anthony Ainley - enjoy the subtlety while it lasts...). Granted, the Master's appearance in this one isn't quite as horrifying as in his previous appearance, though being able to see Beavers' expressions through the makeup rather than having them covered by a mask does wonders for his few scenes in the story - and when has the Master ever had such a creepy voice before? Even the presence of Adric, Nyssa, and that annoying thing hanging off Tom Baker's nose can't ruin this story.
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
