Doctor Who: 12 Greatest Master Moments Of All Time

10. Master Of All Matter

When we next meet the Master he is completely unrecognisable both physically and personality-wise. His monstrous appearance has robbed him of all his stock-in-trade charm and sophistication and now he is hell-bent on destruction. This time he really does want the Doctor dead. No longer driven by being his old friend’s rival, he confesses that ‘only hate keeps him alive’.

In this epic showdown with the Fourth Doctor, he’s a cross between the Joker without the imagination and Darth Sidious without the Sith powers. With Gallifrey crumbling all around them, he thrashes about wildly, trying to knock out the Doctor with little more than a stick, before falling to his ‘death.’

This is Doctor Who at the peak of its Gothic period, with the designers going out of their way to make the Master look as grotesque as possible. The only thing letting it down is the static mask. This design flaw would be corrected for the character’s return in The Keeper of Traken, with Geoffrey Beevers replacing Peter Pratt in the role.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.