Doctor Who Series 12: 10 Huge Questions After Spyfall Part 2

5. What Happened Between The Master And The Doctor At Jodrell Bank?

The Master Spyfall Doctor Who
The BBC

This was a nice (dis)continuity reference that only the few diehard fans will have got, and a fun reminder that this isn’t the only time the Doctor and the Master have confronted each other at a great height.

The fourth Doctor met his demise at the hands of the Anthony Ainley Master in Logopolis by falling from a radio telescope dish. It is never specified that the Pharos Project was based at Jodrell Bank in Greater Manchester, and indeed although originally intended as the filming location, the scenes were shot at the BBC’s Crowsley Park with a mock-up model satellite dish used instead.

The event that triggered the regeneration of one of the most popular and iconic Doctors was also mentioned by Missy in The Doctor Falls. A fun bit of banter here, but it could also be foreshadowing the Master once again having a hand in the Doctor’s regeneration (as with Logopolis, The 1996 TV Movie and The End of Time).

Jodrell Bank is now canon, complete with the wrong ambulances for the area (unless in the Doctor Who universe it had been moved to East Sussex). A fact that will please those who worked on the recent Blu-ray release of season 18, given that they filmed new material at the Manchester site.

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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.