What makes the Master ... the Master?

[WhiteCrow]

Obviously there's a lot of talk about whether or not the Master will return.

But what do you expect to see which makes the Master who he is?

I know I was very dissapointed with the telemovie, where they seemed to turn him into a Terminator type character talking very slow cos he's so evil wa ha ha.

[Andrew Curnow]

That's a good question! I have to say that on paper at least, the original idea was hardly all that exciting, and it's largely the performance from Roger Delgado that made the character interesting. He gave it a definite charisma and presence, without which the Master would have been a v-e-r-y boring villain to watch.

There's certainly a lot of truth in the fact that he's just the typical 'man in a black cloak' and that it's a temptation to lazy plotting - ie, the villain doesn't need a particular scheme, because he's just BAD (I think Douglas Adams says something along those lines in that interminable "Unfolding Text" book).

I think Ainley was a worthy successor to Delgado (although others will disagree I'm sure) in that he also gave it a charisma and an 'energy' over and above the rather 2-d scripting for the character. The little chuckles, the whisper, the catlike smile, all helped to make the 80s Master as watchable as the 70s one.

(P.S. I would say Eric Roberts did the same in the TV Movie - even if you didn't like him, at least he wasn't dull.)

[Si Hunt]

The Master is wreckless; he has absolutely no responsibility. He has a lust for power, and strongly resents and despises the Doctor, essentially because, to him, the Doctor is 'holier than thou' - the Master sees the Doctors sense of responsibility as utterly misplaced and patronising, because to him the Universe is his playground and everyone else exists to be subjugated by him. The Master is evil in that he cares nothing for any other being; but not in that he really delights in inflicting suffering - he doesn't, he just doesn't care. he wants essentially to be entertained, and would see the Universe explode in a display of pyrotechnics if it amused him... until he got bored of it. He's inheritantly selfish, rather than sadistic.

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

A pathological inability to just get on with it and kill the Doctor without luring him to an alien planet or a point in Earth history, devising a convoluted plot which he then goes to great lengths to explain to the Doctor's companion followed by surprise when it blows up in his face.

[Lord President]

Like Bond Villians, The Master should be totally evil, self-obsessed, highly intelligent and slightly inept. He has to have a respect for the Doctor, but want to kill him at every given opportunity. He needs an evil laugh, but not be a panto baddie. If, as seems likely, John Sim is going to be the new Master, I am all for it!

Delgado - Superb, arch-villian, great laugh.
Peter Pratt - Great look, great laugh, deeply disturbing.
Geoffrey Beevers - Toasty, excellent laugh, nice cloak.
Anthony Ainley - Looked superb, laughed well, a little to panto sometimes.
Eric Roberts - Mwwwaaaaahhh haaah hhhaaaaah!!!! OTT in the extreme!
Jonathan Price - Great fun, panto, a good laugh!
John Sim - Probably dark, brooding, evil and a worrying snigger!

[Paul Clement]

Two hearts, a TARDIS and emnity for the Doctor.

Other than that, I think the character of the Master should be as varying as the Doctor's has been. After all, he's a Time Lord who has regenerated a number of times, surely like the Doctor, none of the Master's personas should be quite the same.

[Andrew Curnow]

IF the Master is coming back (FWIW, I've no idea, but I can't help but think that the lack of either a confirmation or denial from Wales is because they're happy for us to think it, so that when it's NOT, the real surprise really is a surprise); but IF he is coming back, I think they'd have to give him a bit of emotional depth. For one thing, I'd expect them to explore what makes him tick, and why he is how he is - I can't imagine they'd just have a "because he's bad" villain in it, it just seems a bit naff. It would be interesting, for example, to suggest that having survived the Time War by keeping well away from it, he now feels an unexpected guilt and shame at that - in that sense, a desire to kill the Doctor might now also be motivated by the fact that the Doctor would be the only one who knows the truth about the Master's cowardice. Alternatively they could go the other way - he could have spent the Time War preying on the victims like a vulture, or a black marketeer or something.

Personally, I think the Master works best when he can be seen as an alternative to the Doctor - similar in so many ways (bored with Gallifrey, rebels, renegades, imaginative, free-thinkers) and yet poles apart in one key respect (the degree of selfishness to their characters). I suspect that any Time lord villain nowadays would be used to hold a mirror up to the Doctor, and show that contrast.

[WhiteCrow]

Personally, I think the Master works best when he can be seen as an alternative to the Doctor - similar in so many ways (bored with Gallifrey, rebels, renegades, imaginative, free-thinkers) and yet poles apart in one key respect (the degree of selfishness to their characters). I suspect that any Time lord villain nowadays would be used to hold a mirror up to the Doctor, and show that contrast.

You know I think that is a very good point of course, the Master is a kind of dark mirror image of the Doctor.

Mind you so was the Valeyard - who I think was so marvellously played by Michael Jayston.

If the Master is to come back I'm hoping there will be a bit of exploration of their relationship, but not so much that it totally demystifies it ... they share the same father, but the Masters father left his mother to take up with a human, the Doctors mother. Hence the Master was brought up by a Miss Haversham/Mrs Bates character in his mother, who blamed her unhappiness on the Doctors mother. And before you know it, it's Gallifrian Eastenders ...

[transvamp]

I personally think they took a major wrong turn with the Master (mind you if I had a penny for every wrong turn the show took...). The Master really wasn't meant to outlive the Pertwee era, and certainly I think he shouldn't have outlived the Tom Baker era.

Roger Delgado did make the Master work wonderfully, even if the character was shallow. He worked televisually basically. The Deadly Assassin reinvented the Master but really should have ended with the Master dead because it would be downhill from there.

I think there should have been a development for the character. He'd been an ITC villain with no motive. He'd been the personification of hate, and I think the next step would be to draw him as part of a greater evil.

The oppurtunity to do so was staring them in the eyes when they did the Key to Time season. Why not have the Master in place of the Shadow? Why not reveal that the Master was an agent of the Black Guardian all along and that this is why he does what he does. That'd be the perfect final story for him. Instead he got flogged like a dead horse continuously even by 1996.

[Carol Baynes]

The Master is wreckless; he has absolutely no responsibility. He has a lust for power, and strongly resents and despises the Doctor, essentially because, to him, the Doctor is 'holier than thou' - the Master sees the Doctors sense of responsibility as utterly misplaced and patronising, because to him the Universe is his playground and everyone else exists to be subjugated by him. The Master is evil in that he cares nothing for any other being; but not in that he really delights in inflicting suffering - he doesn't, he just doesn't care. he wants essentially to be entertained, and would see the Universe explode in a display of pyrotechnics if it amused him... until he got bored of it. He's inheritantly selfish, rather than sadistic.

Si.

Wow, I absolutely agree with you there, Si! Yes, it surprised me too!

Seriously, you're spot on the money with that description, but I would add that he uses a charming veneer to get his way and perhaps mask his apalling evil. See the Master in "Assassin" and "Traken" and how much more desperate, dark and obviously callous he is without a good looking facade.

[Doctor Vendetta]

The Master needs to have a sense of humour, especially when killing people. Death by sofa anyone?

[Carol Baynes]

Death by sofa anyone?

Not today, thank you.

Although, if it's a black PVC one...Mike Saville's your man.

[Pip Madeley]

We miss Saville.

[Captain Tancredi]

Not today, thank you.

Although, if it's a black PVC one...Mike Saville's your man.

Not the night I slept on it, it wasn't...I don't think. Wasn't expecting to have to remember it at the time!

[Dave Lewis]

The Master MUST have a beard. It's ESSENTIAL to the character to have FACIAL FOLIAGE and if John Simm doesn't grow a beard before Last Of The Time Lords, it will be an INSULT to the great character actors Delgado and Ainley. Peter Pratt had a MASSIVE beard under his disintegrating face, while Eric Roberts was QUOTED as saying that he LOVED moustaches, which is why his portrayal of the Doctor's NEMESIS was a DISGRACE. All beards are the apothesis of ULTIMATE EVIL, which is why it's an AFFRONT TO NATURE that Gordon Tipple, who had a HEAD ENTIRELY COVERED IN HAIR, was brutally slain at the start of the telemovie. I predict Robbie Coltrane to recreate Hagrid in his portrayal of the Master in the 2008 season, and if this doesn't occur, I will personally SMASH Russell Davies and his DISGUSTING smooth chinned agenda.

[Whitney]

If the Master is made to be an evil twin of sorts, then the facial hair needs to stay - Star Trek style.