Doctor Who: 12 Greatest Master Moments Of All Time
6. You Are Not Alone
The Tenth Doctor took some persuading to accept that he might not be the last of his kind. Even the Face of Boe’s premonition in Gridlock seemed to fall on deaf ears. So on Utopia, when Martha runs to tell him that Professor Yana has in his possession a Gallifreyan fob watch, which can transform a Time Lord into a human, true to form, at first he dismisses it. In the process the Doctor reveals the reason for his earlier denials – the fear that the wrong Time Lord might resurface.
The likeable Professor opens the fob watch and the Master is reborn, confirming the Doctor’s fears. Derek Jacobi is only allowed a few minutes on screen as the fully realised Master, but his performance is memorably chilling. Unlike Bruce in the TV Movie, we’ve had long enough to feel sympathy for the Professor and to notice the difference that the metamorphosis has.
This was his only televised appearance as the Master, but Jacobi holds the distinction of having played two versions of the character. In The Scream of the Shalka, an official animated webcast made shortly before the series was recommissioned, he plays the role of an android Master, an unlikely companion to Richard E Grant’s alternative Ninth Doctor.
When it comes to Doctor Who anything is possible, who’s to say Moffat won’t be bringing back Jacobi’s Master too?