Doctor Who Series 10: 7 Reasons To Be Excited About The Return Of John Simm's Master

6. The First Multi-Master Story

Doctor Who The Master John Simm
BBC

It’s no real surprise that a multi-master story has never been attempted before. Prior to Michelle Gomez taking on the role of Missy, there hadn’t really been the opportunity for such a match-up. It would have been a misstep to recast Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley with lookalikes, and Eric Robert’s Master is out of the equation for contractual and budgetary reasons. The other options available (the degenerate Master from The Deadly Assassin and Derek Jacobi's fob-watched Time War deserter) simply wouldn’t have worked on a story level.

Unfettered by the limitations of television, almost every other medium has run with the idea, whether it be the Terrance Dicks novel, The Eight Doctors, Bell and Slorance’s Twelfth Doctor comic strip The Five Masters, or the acclaimed Big Finish audio The Two Masters by John Dorney.

With showrunner Steven Moffat handing over the reins to Chris Chibnall at the end of the year, this will be another first to add to his legacy. Whether it is too soon and he should have held back so that another showrunner could bring us ‘The Three Masters’ remains to be seen, but the thought of two Masters teaming up and playing off against each other has certainly excited fans. If the Doctor can do it, then why not his nemesis?

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.