More of a Doctor-lite story but it does feature the Fourth Doctor very briefly near the end. I absolutely adore this short story both written and performed by the Master himself Geoffrey Beevers, someone I consider to be the most underappreciated incarnation of the Master.

After Delgado’s death in a car crash towards the end of the Third Doctor’s era, the character of the Master vanished from the show for about three years until the character’s big return in The Deadly Assassin. But this time gone was the suave, stylish, charming villain, what we got instead was a horrifying and grotesque Master, one who was horribly disfigured from some unseen accident that left him constantly in pain and on the brink of death with no more regenerations available. All he can do is find any means to prolong his life. In his first appearance he was portrayed by Peter Pratt and after The Deadly Assassin was not seen again until Tom Baker’s very last season in The Keeper of Traken where in his second and final onscreen appearance he was played by Geoffrey Beevers. While it was assumed this incarnation died after possessing the body of future companion Nyssa’s father Tremus, becoming the Anthony Ainley Master, Big Finish found a means to give this incarnation more life by revealing that the non-Time Lord bodies the Master possesses to prolong his life (such as Anthony Ainley from the 80s and even Eric Roberts from the 1996 movie), gradually they waste away reverting the Master back to his emaciated figure. This was done mostly because back in 2001 Big Finish wanted Anthony Ainley to return in their first Master story, but he declined and were forced to go with Beevers.

This Master has been one of the more heavily featured in Big Finish having done battles with various Doctors and thanks to Geoffrey Beevers’ fantastic portrayal has become one of my favourite Masters. Here we get to see just how perfect Beevers’ understanding of his character is in a short story written by himself about the kind of madness the Master gets up to when the Doctor’s not around to stop him. His narration work is quite aptly hypnotising and plays brilliantly into the ending which involves a bit of audience participation. You can tell very quickly that Beevers had a lot of fun writing and narrating this, I know I certainly did listening to it!