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nym_wibblyPart One: Classic DW | Part Two: New Who | Part Three: Big Finish | Part Four: Fanworks
2005-2021
It didn't really occur to me that the Master might transition over to New Who. Not sure why, but I took the whole "the Doctor is the last of his people" concept as a given rather than eyeing the showrunner with suspicion about it, even with the fairly obvious prompt of, "you are not alone". So I was suckered when we got to the Derek Jacobi reveal in season 3's Utopia (up to the first glimpse of his pocket watch, anyway, when a penny dropped). And then, before there's time to process that reveal, before Jacobi even has time to enjoy himself, the Master turned into John Simm. BLIMEY. You wait years, then two come along and steal the rest of the season.
Dark, dangerous, predatory, sociopathic, crudely misogynistic, powerful, and shockingly funny: John Simm's Master (and his effect on the Doctor) basically had everything that the more risque fanfic and the more character-invested fans had been quietly speculating about during the nineties and early noughties, as DW fandom moved out of an overly-precious "no hugging, no kissing, no smut, definitely no gay here whatsoever, and never any hanky-panky aboard the TARDIS" era of scholarly nerding into something more fluid and character-driven. (Seriously, the fuss when Paul McGann snogged someone in 1996...) Then there was that 2003 official BBC outlier, Scream of the Shalka, which was also Jacobi-as-Master, only he was a robot that time, and randomly cohabiting with the Doctor. (We're reliably informed that the writer responsible didn't spot the big rainbow elephant in that room until it was pointed out to him, at which point he embraced it with glee.)
As a foil for David Tennant's modern Tenth Doctor, Simm's Master was sexy, traumatised, tortured, contemporary, youthful, and obsessed. With the Doctor. Fair enough, they're the only two known survivors of their entire species, but the situation pretty much went downhill from there. Simm's Master eventually fulfilled the character's thwarted early destiny in The End of Time, sacrificing himself (though, as it turned out, not perishing) and saving the Doctor. He was very much over it when we met him again in the Twelfth Doctor two-parter World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, falling back on cruelty, contempt, and self-preservation.
His successor, Michelle Gomez's Missy, went to the other extreme, motivated by, "I need my friend back." Stalking the Doctor for an entire season and across two bodies before he met her in season 8's Dark Water, hand-picking him a companion and making sure they stayed together, Missy overtly flirted with the Doctor, referring to him as her boyfriend - while at the same time denying the sexualised/romantic nature of their modus operandi to focus firmly on the issue of their damaged friendship. To the companion of the moment, who sarcastically says 'it must be love': "Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilisation and infinitely more complex." She kissed Twelve with tongue the first time they met face to face, though, before placing his hand on her chest and leaving him so stunned he didn't figure out she was a Time Lord from her double heartbeat. The audience is left to make of this what they will, as was the habit of the showrunner of the day.
Although Simm's Master playfully articulated some of the old slash vibe and wore the rest as screaming subtext, it's left to Missy - the character's first female incarnation that we know of - to articulate the twisted closeness of the Doctor-Master relationship in any detail. And she does it often, albeit often with sarcasm, snideness, and silly, possessive coquetry. Missy, of all of them, is the Master pulling the Doctor's pigtails. Totally unimpressed with the collateral damage of her methods - Missy kills for squees and giggles, and for effect, rather than in service to any great masterplan - Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor is nonetheless enchanted by the possibility of regaining Missy's friendship; a relationship in any meaningful sense with the only other person in the universe who's "remotely like him". In the end, after much two-way angst, Twelve gives Missy a chance to redeem herself on his terms, she tries, and they both pay the ultimate price.
Because New Who is fundamentally evil, neither the current Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) nor the current Master (Sacha Dhawan) have an accurate picture of how that ultimate sacrifice actually went down for the other. It neatly lifts the characters and their relationship out of the maze of complexity loaded on it by the previous showrunner, who favoured monumental intricacy over basic, building-block storytelling. Still, it leaves many questions for the characters, and for those of us viewers who were holding our breaths waiting for another shoe to drop. As of 2020's closing story, The Timeless Children, the Doctor and the Master are furious with one another, disgusted, traumatised, and both prepared to stoop about as low as we've ever seen them go to get the upper hand in battle. It's become a vicious fight, with both their season 12 encounters showing the universe at stake. In Roger Delgado's day, fifty years back, it was maybe a civilisation or a planet.
Sacha Dhawan's Master is as tormented and unhappy as his immediate predecessors. That woobie element has become very much a part of the character in the modern era, as has the humour, the batshit Doctor-obsession, and the glorious contemporary snark, but the show makes no excuses for him (or the Doctor, come to that). He's dark, bitter, damaged, childish, brilliant, and very, very dangerous. Dealing with him, Thirteen is bloody dangerous herself, showing none of the compassion or hard-to-justify tolerance that her predecessors showed towards their respective incarnations of the Master. David Tennant's Doctor wanted to save John Simm's Master by forgiving him. Peter Capaldi's Doctor wanted to redeem Missy and regain their friendship by rediscovering what made them so alike. Thirteen is cold and angry and giving no quarter.
The underlying story, as always, is how similar they are. How easily the Doctor could become the Master - and far worse - if they ever let go of their personal code. The Master would love to see that happen. Even as the 2020 season threw a bombshell into the origins of the Doctor, it preserved her backstory with the Master in amber - genius, rebellious school friends who both left Gallifrey to become renegades and outlaws, but whose paths irrevocably diverged. The Doctor wants to see the universe, the Master wants to rule it (or destroy it). Nothing changes, but everything has.
It's been a hell of a ride. I want fifty more years.
Part One: Classic DW | Part Two: New Who | Part Three: Big Finish | Part Four: Fanworks
2005-2021
It didn't really occur to me that the Master might transition over to New Who. Not sure why, but I took the whole "the Doctor is the last of his people" concept as a given rather than eyeing the showrunner with suspicion about it, even with the fairly obvious prompt of, "you are not alone". So I was suckered when we got to the Derek Jacobi reveal in season 3's Utopia (up to the first glimpse of his pocket watch, anyway, when a penny dropped). And then, before there's time to process that reveal, before Jacobi even has time to enjoy himself, the Master turned into John Simm. BLIMEY. You wait years, then two come along and steal the rest of the season.
Dark, dangerous, predatory, sociopathic, crudely misogynistic, powerful, and shockingly funny: John Simm's Master (and his effect on the Doctor) basically had everything that the more risque fanfic and the more character-invested fans had been quietly speculating about during the nineties and early noughties, as DW fandom moved out of an overly-precious "no hugging, no kissing, no smut, definitely no gay here whatsoever, and never any hanky-panky aboard the TARDIS" era of scholarly nerding into something more fluid and character-driven. (Seriously, the fuss when Paul McGann snogged someone in 1996...) Then there was that 2003 official BBC outlier, Scream of the Shalka, which was also Jacobi-as-Master, only he was a robot that time, and randomly cohabiting with the Doctor. (We're reliably informed that the writer responsible didn't spot the big rainbow elephant in that room until it was pointed out to him, at which point he embraced it with glee.)
As a foil for David Tennant's modern Tenth Doctor, Simm's Master was sexy, traumatised, tortured, contemporary, youthful, and obsessed. With the Doctor. Fair enough, they're the only two known survivors of their entire species, but the situation pretty much went downhill from there. Simm's Master eventually fulfilled the character's thwarted early destiny in The End of Time, sacrificing himself (though, as it turned out, not perishing) and saving the Doctor. He was very much over it when we met him again in the Twelfth Doctor two-parter World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, falling back on cruelty, contempt, and self-preservation.
His successor, Michelle Gomez's Missy, went to the other extreme, motivated by, "I need my friend back." Stalking the Doctor for an entire season and across two bodies before he met her in season 8's Dark Water, hand-picking him a companion and making sure they stayed together, Missy overtly flirted with the Doctor, referring to him as her boyfriend - while at the same time denying the sexualised/romantic nature of their modus operandi to focus firmly on the issue of their damaged friendship. To the companion of the moment, who sarcastically says 'it must be love': "Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilisation and infinitely more complex." She kissed Twelve with tongue the first time they met face to face, though, before placing his hand on her chest and leaving him so stunned he didn't figure out she was a Time Lord from her double heartbeat. The audience is left to make of this what they will, as was the habit of the showrunner of the day.
Although Simm's Master playfully articulated some of the old slash vibe and wore the rest as screaming subtext, it's left to Missy - the character's first female incarnation that we know of - to articulate the twisted closeness of the Doctor-Master relationship in any detail. And she does it often, albeit often with sarcasm, snideness, and silly, possessive coquetry. Missy, of all of them, is the Master pulling the Doctor's pigtails. Totally unimpressed with the collateral damage of her methods - Missy kills for squees and giggles, and for effect, rather than in service to any great masterplan - Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor is nonetheless enchanted by the possibility of regaining Missy's friendship; a relationship in any meaningful sense with the only other person in the universe who's "remotely like him". In the end, after much two-way angst, Twelve gives Missy a chance to redeem herself on his terms, she tries, and they both pay the ultimate price.
Because New Who is fundamentally evil, neither the current Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) nor the current Master (Sacha Dhawan) have an accurate picture of how that ultimate sacrifice actually went down for the other. It neatly lifts the characters and their relationship out of the maze of complexity loaded on it by the previous showrunner, who favoured monumental intricacy over basic, building-block storytelling. Still, it leaves many questions for the characters, and for those of us viewers who were holding our breaths waiting for another shoe to drop. As of 2020's closing story, The Timeless Children, the Doctor and the Master are furious with one another, disgusted, traumatised, and both prepared to stoop about as low as we've ever seen them go to get the upper hand in battle. It's become a vicious fight, with both their season 12 encounters showing the universe at stake. In Roger Delgado's day, fifty years back, it was maybe a civilisation or a planet.
Sacha Dhawan's Master is as tormented and unhappy as his immediate predecessors. That woobie element has become very much a part of the character in the modern era, as has the humour, the batshit Doctor-obsession, and the glorious contemporary snark, but the show makes no excuses for him (or the Doctor, come to that). He's dark, bitter, damaged, childish, brilliant, and very, very dangerous. Dealing with him, Thirteen is bloody dangerous herself, showing none of the compassion or hard-to-justify tolerance that her predecessors showed towards their respective incarnations of the Master. David Tennant's Doctor wanted to save John Simm's Master by forgiving him. Peter Capaldi's Doctor wanted to redeem Missy and regain their friendship by rediscovering what made them so alike. Thirteen is cold and angry and giving no quarter.
The underlying story, as always, is how similar they are. How easily the Doctor could become the Master - and far worse - if they ever let go of their personal code. The Master would love to see that happen. Even as the 2020 season threw a bombshell into the origins of the Doctor, it preserved her backstory with the Master in amber - genius, rebellious school friends who both left Gallifrey to become renegades and outlaws, but whose paths irrevocably diverged. The Doctor wants to see the universe, the Master wants to rule it (or destroy it). Nothing changes, but everything has.
It's been a hell of a ride. I want fifty more years.
Part One: Classic DW | Part Two: New Who | Part Three: Big Finish | Part Four: Fanworks
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Date: 3 Jan 2021 02:49 (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Jan 2021 17:41 (UTC)