What About The Master?

[Rob McCow]

The sad death of Roger Delgado in a car accident meant that the character of The Master who had plagued the Doctor for three years was no longer available in Season 11.



But how could things have worked out if Roger Delgado had still been alive? Which stories do you think that The Master could have fitted into in Season 11? Are there any characters he could have replaced?

And would some things have been better with The Master?

[Dino]

Well he would of made The Monster Of Peladon more memorable. I'm not sure there was no space for him in The Time Warrior and Death To The Daleks. And was there just too much backstabbing for the Master to be put into Invasion of the Dinosaurs?
It would of been a good touch if he made a brief appearance in Planet Of The Spiders. Just a random crossing of paths.
Maybe one of the tricks of Season 11 is they made it so you wouldn't miss the Master? Until this thread now...

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Maybe one of the tricks of Season 11 is they made it so you wouldn't miss the Master? Until this thread now...

That's actually a pretty good point. I don't think I've ever pondered the question of what Season 11 would have been like with The Master in it before?

To be honest as brilliant as Roger Delgado was I think he did just about the right amount of stories. I think that any more and we may have got the stage that I feel we are at with the Daleks in the new season - and the last thing I would have wanted for the Master character was for me, or anyone else, to think 'Oh no, not him again' (especially as the character of the Master is my favourite enemy in the show).

[Terry Leptil]

It is believed that Planet of the Spiders was supposed to feature the Master but following Roger Delgado's death, they replaced him with Lupton. This isn't true as Spiders was a new story for the original finale Final Game where the Master was supposed to give his life to save the Doctor rather than bring himself to kill his enemy. I think they were going to reveal that the Doctor and the Master were brothers or that he was the Doctor's dark side (which eventually happened in The Trial of a Time Lord with the Valeyard).

Had Delgado not been killed and that story had been made then it probably may have been the last time we saw the Master or maybe they could have left it open ended making you think did he die or did he escape? Also, the Doctor proabably would have been injured nonetheless triggering his next regeneration or maybe Jon Pertwee would have done another season.

[Rob McCow]

That's an interesting point about Delgado appearing in Planet of The Spiders. It would have been irresistable to have included him, but I can't see that it would have necessarily improved the story. I can imagine him chanting in the basement of the Monastry, 'Ohm Mahne Padme Ohm', but it would have been too similar to his scenes in The Daemons.

Certainly it wouldn't take much to have included him in The Time Warrior, perhaps in place of Linx? There are some startling similarities between The Time Warrior and Terror of The Autons when you start thinking about it! OK, the killer doll isn't exactly the same as the robot knight, but it's a similar idea. And the alliance between the alien and the human, both of them playing the advantage off each other is exactly the sort of thing the Master would have got up to.