Doctor Who Series 10: 7 Reasons To Be Excited About The Return Of John Simm's Master
2. A New Take On The John Simm Master
Given his extraordinary popularity and instant association with the role, it’s easy to forget that after his brief introduction at the climax of Utopia, John Simm has only appeared in two Russell T Davies stories across four episodes. Without doubt his tenure as the Master was rather prematurely cut short due to the sweeping changes made in the wake of Davies’ departure.
It will be a delight to see how Steven Moffat approaches the character. The outgoing showrunner has revealed that Simm’s return had been in the making for seven years, from the day the two of them attended the screening of The End of Time. Simm has always been enthusiastic to reprise his role, but Moffat wisely waited until his successor had been firmly established.
Quite why it took several years to introduce a new Master is another matter, but quite possibly the intention even back then was to change the Master’s gender, and it may have been felt that time was needed for the viewers to forget about Simm’s Master, or for Moffat to secure trust in the hotseat.
We have already seen two distinctive phases in this Master's story - from Blairite Prime Minister Harold Saxon to the resurrected monster of The End of Time, and no doubt he'll be coming back different again having experienced the horrors of the Time War for a second time.