Doctor Who Series 12: 10 Huge Questions After Fugitive Of The Judoon
3. Is The Master Involved?
If the story messed with your head, just think of the poor Doctor. She’s going through the trauma of dealing with the destruction of her home planet, she’s having deeply unsettling dreams about the timeless child, and she is questioning her origins thanks to the seeds of doubt sown by the Master in Spyfall. How much worse can it get for her? Not much, short of finding out she has another incarnation, one she has no memories of whatsoever.
The convenience of the plot happening at this time in the Doctor’s life may not be down to the quality of the writing. The discarded spade is too obvious to have been unintended as such. Someone else is pulling the strings here, manipulating the Doctor, and there can be little doubt a fair bit of game-playing is going on.
The Master has to be a suspect, but we might not find out how it all fits together until next series at the earliest, with this year switching the focus on to the lone Cyberman mystery. The Master could be from the Ruth Doctor’s timeline, a forgotten incarnation of the past, or an alternative universe Master. It would account for why he does not fit easily into the Saxon - Missy continuity, and why he doesn’t talk about it with the Doctor.
He could also be a puppet of a more formidable opponent, the one who is hunting the Doctor. There is an odd link between the Master’s O guise in Spyfall and the café owner in this one. The dossier that all-ears Allan has on Lee could be significant, tying in with the written dossiers that O had been keeping on the Doctor. There is something quite bizarre about Allan and it was a surprise when he was killed off so early.