Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Ascension Of The Cybermen
2. How Does The Master Fit In?
Few will have been surprised with Sacha Dhawan’s Master leapt out of the portal grinning at the Doctor. But the moment was disappointingly left until the very last minute, leaving a clumsy cliffhanger that almost cut off his last words for a final shot of the Doctor.
Next week we are promised that the Doctor will find out what incensed the Master enough to make him want to decimate Gallifrey, but what of the Cyberman part of the story? The Master has a track record of using them (The Five Doctors, Death in Heaven, World Enough and Time), but at this point there doesn’t seem to be any connection.
We are used to seeing the Master manipulating situations and using friends and foes for his own gain, but just maybe he has accidentally become part of this story. We never did discover the true identity of the Kasaavin, but given Ashad’s vow to bring the Cybermen to a place of ascension, perhaps the Kasaavin are Cybermen living in a higher dimension. It could all have been a botched attempt to become Eternals. No wonder the Cybermen rejected Ashad.