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nym_wibblyWhen Big Finish announced the first War Master set with Derek Jacobi last year, I thought all my Christmases had come at once. The audio format - and 'getting his own show' - set the character loose to be exactly what the Master was created to be - an equal to the Doctor (possibly even the more accomplished of the two) in every way but morally. He's amoral, but capable of being as personable as the Doctor when he chooses to be, making it all the more chilling when he turns off the charm tap the moment someone has outlived their usefulness to him. You can tell that Jacobi is having a blast revisiting his TV role, most of which was spent not being the Master, but his human disguise, Yana. There's nothing of Yana in the War Master. I hope they get around to some Yana goodness in time, because that character was wonderful, but here and now, Jacobi is full on Master - Time Lord, warrior, and villain.
The War Master: Only the Good was a sort of mirror of The War Doctor: Only the Monstrous with John Hurt, showing their actions in the Time War on a planetary - a cosmic - scale, with a human character in the picture for perspective. They're fighting the same war, against the Daleks and for Gallifrey, and there's little difference between them in terms of the devastation caused by the War that follows them or their efforts to win it. The only difference is the nameless Doctor's compassion for the innocent victims, and the Master's lack of it.
That first set, Only the Good, ended by dovetailing with the little we know of the Master's role in the war from the TV show - that he used the chameleon arch to go into hiding. I wasn't thrilled with the setup there, with the motive that Big Finish supplied, but it did mean that they had a complete story in that first set. I wasn't sure there'd ever be a followup.
Now we're getting three followups. The current release, The War Master: The Master of Callous; then Rage of the TIme Lords next July; then Anti-Genesis next December. On top of that, Jacobi's appearances in other ranges slot into the timeline, fleshing out the character and the story of the Time War considerably. He appeared in an episode of Gallifrey: Time War, filling the gap in Only the Good where the Master was called to Gallifrey before departing for Arcking. His appearance in UNIT: Cyber-Reality showed him returning from some sort of exploratory mission connected to the war, breezing through Kate Stewart's London on his way back to the battlefield.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from The Master of Callous. More of the same, I suppose - episodic, like the first set and like the other Time War ranges. The same kind of scale, following the titular protagonist hither and yon, with entire races and planets changing in a moment or being wiped from history. It's not like that. We have one planet and a set of characters linking the four stories over a period of time. We have the Master picking away at a single problem, played out through the lives of the planet's inhabitants. They're more than collateral damage - they're the heart of the piece, which I might almost say doesn't have enough of the Master in it to justify the title. Except that would be misleading. There's exactly as much of Jacobi's Master in The Master of Callous as the story needs. It is very, very good storytelling.
I'm not going to spoiler it. I don't really do spoilers, not liking them myself, and it's such an involved story that describing the highlights would give a very misleading picture. I'll stick with squeeing over getting another installment of the Master in his 'own show', and a refreshingly different flavour and pace in the usually-hectic Time War saga.
And I'll add - stick around after the end credits for the trailer for Rage of the Time Lords. I'm glad I did.
Links to the titles mentioned above:
The War Master 1: Only the Good | The War Master 2: The Master of Callous | The War Master 3: Rage of the Time Lords | The War Master 4: Anti-Genesis | Gallifrey: Time War 1 | UNIT - Cyber-Reality
The War Master: Only the Good was a sort of mirror of The War Doctor: Only the Monstrous with John Hurt, showing their actions in the Time War on a planetary - a cosmic - scale, with a human character in the picture for perspective. They're fighting the same war, against the Daleks and for Gallifrey, and there's little difference between them in terms of the devastation caused by the War that follows them or their efforts to win it. The only difference is the nameless Doctor's compassion for the innocent victims, and the Master's lack of it.
That first set, Only the Good, ended by dovetailing with the little we know of the Master's role in the war from the TV show - that he used the chameleon arch to go into hiding. I wasn't thrilled with the setup there, with the motive that Big Finish supplied, but it did mean that they had a complete story in that first set. I wasn't sure there'd ever be a followup.
Now we're getting three followups. The current release, The War Master: The Master of Callous; then Rage of the TIme Lords next July; then Anti-Genesis next December. On top of that, Jacobi's appearances in other ranges slot into the timeline, fleshing out the character and the story of the Time War considerably. He appeared in an episode of Gallifrey: Time War, filling the gap in Only the Good where the Master was called to Gallifrey before departing for Arcking. His appearance in UNIT: Cyber-Reality showed him returning from some sort of exploratory mission connected to the war, breezing through Kate Stewart's London on his way back to the battlefield.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from The Master of Callous. More of the same, I suppose - episodic, like the first set and like the other Time War ranges. The same kind of scale, following the titular protagonist hither and yon, with entire races and planets changing in a moment or being wiped from history. It's not like that. We have one planet and a set of characters linking the four stories over a period of time. We have the Master picking away at a single problem, played out through the lives of the planet's inhabitants. They're more than collateral damage - they're the heart of the piece, which I might almost say doesn't have enough of the Master in it to justify the title. Except that would be misleading. There's exactly as much of Jacobi's Master in The Master of Callous as the story needs. It is very, very good storytelling.
I'm not going to spoiler it. I don't really do spoilers, not liking them myself, and it's such an involved story that describing the highlights would give a very misleading picture. I'll stick with squeeing over getting another installment of the Master in his 'own show', and a refreshingly different flavour and pace in the usually-hectic Time War saga.
And I'll add - stick around after the end credits for the trailer for Rage of the Time Lords. I'm glad I did.
Links to the titles mentioned above:
The War Master 1: Only the Good | The War Master 2: The Master of Callous | The War Master 3: Rage of the Time Lords | The War Master 4: Anti-Genesis | Gallifrey: Time War 1 | UNIT - Cyber-Reality