Doctor Who: 10 Things You Never Knew About Series 3 Of NuWho

10. Treading The Boards

Series 3 featured one of the biggest bombshells to date when Professor Yana was revealed as the Master in a human disguise (remember that fob watch the Doctor used to become John Smith earlier in the series? Turns out, he wasn't the only one...). The clue was in the name, really, and it made for the most climactic cliffhangers of the revived series so far as Sir Derek Jacobi transformed into John Simm before our very eyes. The rest, as they say, is history. Although Jacobi's tenure as the Master was short but sweet, he can still add the coveted credit of being a Time Lord - albeit a renegade one - to his glistening résumé (not that it needs it - he once played Oedipus the King, for goodness' sake!) but Utopia wasn't the first time he'd appeared in the Whoniverse. Back in 2003 he voiced a different incarnation of the Master in the BBC's animated webcast Scream of the Shalka (which co-starred future Dr Simeon Richard E. Grant as an alternative Ninth Doctor and future Tenth Doctor David Tennant as a... erm, caretaker) and in the same year he voiced Martin Bannister, an ageing writer whose life had been ruined by his inability to sell a series called Doctor Who, in the Big Finish audio story Deadline. As a veteran of the stage and screen, Jacobi has admitted that it had been a life long ambition to appear in Doctor Who and he's managed to achieve it (and then some) with not one, not two, but three memorable appearances to his name. What's more, one of his most celebrated theatre roles was as Hamlet in which he starred alongside Sir Patrick Stewart as Claudius. Coincidentally, David Tennant has also shared the same Shakespearian stage with Captain Jean-Luc Picard so it looks like the Doctor and the Master aren't so different after all. Who knew? Oh, and Jacobi isn't the only Utopia guest star to have left more than one lasting impression on the series. Chipo Chung, who portrayed Professor Yana's colleague Chantho, would reappear a year later as the Fortune Teller in Series 4's Turn Left while John Bell is noted for winning his part as Creet (he's that boy who tells Martha that the sky is made of diamonds) in a Blue Peter competition in which he beat 8,000 contestants to the role. Not too shabby!