Confirming some rumors swirling around for months now, The Master will indeed be back at the end of Doctor Who's third series. According to a report in the Sun (which is not always accurate, but which HAS spilled some major beans before), it looks like The Master won't be too worried about stealing someone else's regenerations anymore:
The Master’s return will be the major twist of the third series, which starts in the spring. But he will not appear until the end.
Sir Derek Jacobi, 68, will play another Who foe — The Professor. He poses as a good guy but the Doctor discovers the truth when The Professor dies and regenerates.
The article also spills that the Master will be played by "Life On Mars" star John Simm, in a role which will presumably arc over the fourth series of Doctor Who. Coolness!
posted
Great, next they'll be bringing back Davros
So does this mean that Derek Jacobi is the Master, and then regenerates into John Simm when he dies, or is Jacobi's "Professor" role separate from that?
Seriously, I wouldn't mind having the Master return, as long as two issues are satisfied:
a) There's an explanation as to how he escaped the Tardis's Eye of Harmony in "The Enemy Within" (which probably won't happen, or it'll be glossed over), and
b) as long as he doesn't act like a Roger Delgado/Anthony Ainley Snively Whiplash clone, but instead becomes a credible villain. I think the Totally Useless Encyclopedia said it best in their entry for the Master: "He's nuttier than squirrel shit, and none of his crazy plans ever work."
BTW, not having seen Life on Mars, I did a Yahoo search on John Simm. Apparently, it's not just the Doctor that TPTB want to be a young guy. He even looks like David Tennant...
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posted
I was a bit unsure of that myself - the story isn't very clear on whether Jacobi is the Master who then regenerates into John Simm, or whether he is another Time Lord entirely - hey maybe they're remembering Jacobi's earlier role in "Cadfael" and they're going to bring back the Meddling Monk? :-) I don't think they will gloss over the movie - they seem to have accounted for it in the show's backstory, what with Eccleston being the 9th Doctor and all, and RTD seems to like his references to what has gone before.
Actually I must admit from the trailer at the end of "The Runaway Bride" I thought Mark Gatiss was going to end up being a Time Lord, seeing as he seems to be an old man in one scene and a young man in another, but the dialogue didn't seem to support it.
As for John Simm I can see him playing the Master pretty well, if he can avoid the twin minefields of a) not repeating the Delgado take on it and b) steering clear of the Eric Roberts "Gallifreyan camp" take on the character. As for being young - well, what's the point of regenerating into a body that's old and past it's best already?
While we're on the subject of John Simm though, I feel I have to point in the direction of this excellent advert for the start of Life on Mars series 2. Trust me, even if you're not a fan of the show the ad is worth a look.
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posted
Hmmmm... so the rumours about the Face of Boe's message is true...
Where did the Master go during the Time War?? Maybe he isn't a true Timelord anymore?
They can't ignore the movie - it wasn't that bad!
What happened to Byliss from Torchwood - there was something strange about him... he obviously had great control over time... I thought only Daleks and Timelords had the power of time-travel. If that is true can someone explain why Jack Harkness had a timeship?
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quote:There's an explanation as to how he escaped the Tardis's Eye of Harmony in "The Enemy Within"
Assuming, of course, this isn't the Master from one of his 12 earlier regenerations we've not seen before. If this is a post-TV movie Master, how did he get a new set of regenerations when he'd already used his up and stolen the lives of at least two "humans". Depending on which version of the Eye of Harmony they go with, though, (the movie version inside the Tardis or the series version underneath Galifrey) presumably the Master would have been able to escape when Galifrey was destroyed... If this is a plot detail for the season finale, could this mean the strange Mr. Saxon is something to do with the Master...or even the Master himself.
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posted
Mr Saxon isn't strange... We just haven't seen him yet. And while he's probably slightly sinister, I don't think the writers want to have TWO evil prime ministers in a row. It's not like the Admirals in TNG!
The concept of stealing or granting new regenerations is not new. The Master technically had not been a "natural" Time Lord for quite some time prior to the TVM, having degraded his body, mutated it, and stolen several new ones between that and his 13th, Delgado incarnation. Some even suggest that the Monk was a very early incarnation of the Master.
However, one thing that Time Lords tend to stick to is being chronoligically locked to one another and to Gallifrey - through the original series, you generally saw the Doctor interact with the Master, other Gallifreyans, and his home planet in sequential order, short of the multi-Doctor stories (which are generally under extreme circumstances). Thus, he shouldn't be able to interact with any earlier incarnation of the Master for an extended period of time, and I think the writers will erspect that to avoid confusing the majority of new viewers. Most likely, he somehow managed to renew his life cycle, or take over some other Time Lord. Either way, I'd bet money that the reason behind it will tie in to the Doctor's own ultimate extension beyond his 13th incarnation, when they get to that point.
Mark
PS - There are many time-travelling powers in the Whoniverse, including the Cybermen and the Sontarans. However, none have shown the mastery of time as the Gallifreyans, and second have always been the Daleks.
posted
The whole thing about Mister Saxon being significant is that it's an anagram of Master No. Six. Which would mean that Jacobi would have to play Saxon, who's then revealed to be The Master when he re-generates into Simm. But they're being clear, it seems, that Jacobi is playing someone called The Professor - which given some of the Master's previous aliases, could fit in - but in which case means Jacobi can't be Saxon, since why go to all the trouble of establishing the Saxon identity, unless it's a total red herring? Which would be a bit cheeky given the way they laid on the Badwolf and Torchwood references with a trowel, to then say "Ha, ha! Fooled you, there's no significance to the Mister Saxon thing at all!" People would feel a bit cheated if Simm played Saxon, because he wouldn't be Master No. Six, he'd then be Master No. Seven (anagrams, anyone?). And if we see him post-regeneration, and have him identified as Saxon, then he'll obviously escape to plot another day, because he won't have had time to run in elections, and win them, or have tanks shooting down alien spaceships.
posted
Still doesn't explain what happened with the Master in the Time War...
Also - speaking of meeting other incarnations... it'd be interesting if they met an old companion again - and have them go - hey I just met an earlier/later version of you a week ago...
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
The current series does not have a track record for using anagrams, so until shown otherwise I'm going to believe that people like Mister Saxon and Bilis Manger are exactly as they appear to be. I don't believe that Saxon has been keyed to appear in the third series in any significant role so far - they would have let spill casting details by now.
posted
I think they mention that Mister Saxon is going to be important in the commentary for "Love and Monsters" on the series 2 boxset - the implication certainly seems to be that his name (glimpsed briefly on the newspaper the Abzorbaloff is holding before his alien nature is revealed) is one that we're going to see again in the next series, and the mention in the Christmas special would seem to back that up.
The Master's essence could have been extracted from the TARDIS by the Time Lords to fight in the Time War: the Time Lords by and large don't seem to be a very active race ("dusty senators" was how Finch described them, wasn't it?) so it makes sense that they would enlist the services of their more active citizens for tricky missions - and they have something the Master would want to hold over him - basically a "fight for us and get a new regeneration cycle" deal.
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posted
If so, it would also suggest a scenerio whereby not all Time-Lords died in the war; suppose: a) The Master, given his freedom etc., pulled a double-cross on the rest of his race just to get them out of the way, and b) some Gallifreyans, expecting this, came up with a contingency plan to survive the apocalypse?
posted
I think that's very likely. The Daleks, even with their arrogance and absolute certainty in their own superiority, sent a void ship out into nothingness containing a Time Lord prison ship full of Daleks. What's that if it isn't betting both ways on a huge scale? Okay so that might have been creative thinking on the part of the Cult of Skaro (they do seem smarter than the average Dalek) but still, it shows that someone in the Dalek hierarchy considered the idea "what if we lose?" and acted accordingly.
With that in mind I find it unlikely that the Time Lords (who were, I know, in their own way as arrogant and convinced of their superior position as the Daleks) wouldn't have a similar consideration and put a plan in place, especially with their superior mastery of time and space. Who's to know what secret bolt-hole they could have constructed?
As the Doctor said at the end of the last series, "both sides had secrets" - I think the Time Lords might have kept a few from the Doctor.
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posted
The "Scream of the Shalka" animation (which really was quite good) suggested that the Master at some point got out of the Eye, and was stuck or programmed into an android body that could not leave the TARDIS or do anything sinister to it or the Doctor. That coudl have played out really neat.
And the TIme Lord high council had already promised a new life cycle to the Master in exchange for his helping the Doctor in "The Five Doctors". He seemed convinced that this would be possible, though the council had every reason to lead him on. Would Flavia have been so deceitful, though?
posted
And of course, who voiced the Master in "Scream of the Shalka"? None other than...Derek Jacobi, which might point to the true nature of his character. Okay so it was a different production, but they have borrowed elements of other stuff (audio plays and novels) before now to put into the new series - "Jubilee" provided the base for "Dalek", the "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel" two parter was inspired by "Spare Parts" and this year's "Family of Blood" two parter is said to borrow from "Human nature". With this in mind it's not impossible that the casting of Jacobi (and possible connections with the Master) is a nod towards previous works.
I think Flavia - and the Time Lords in general - could be a pretty deceitful bunch so yeah, I think they might have had it in them to try to pull a fast one. Could be the Doctor, being a rather moral character, is more of an exception than the rule.
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