The Monthly Adventures #049 - “Master" by Joseph Lidster

The Master is a character that divides me. On one hand, written well, they are possibly the best villain in Doctor Who, a twisted version of the Doctor if he had gone down the wrong path. An old friend and an old enemy in the same half breath, locked in a dance of wits and guile, pushing and pulling at a broken, cosmic friendship. And then sometimes we get quirky insane man who does funny quirky insane things for little rhyme or reason (*cough* *cough* Spy Master *cough* *cough*). Luckily for us, for the Master’s entry into the Villains Trilogy, we have none other than Joseph Lidster writing him for us, who, despite his fumble with The Rapture, is unmatched when it comes to characterisation in Doctor Who. So, as we end the Villains Trilogy and come to the end of the first block of the Main Range, it’s time to find out what exactly Lidster did with one of Doctor Who’s oldest enemies.

In a crooked old house on the outskirts of the human colony of Perfugium sits an old man, disfigured and missing half his memory, waiting for his two oldest friends to arrive. But with them comes a man from his forgotten past, and a game that will most certainly end in Death.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I didn’t expect to love the Beavers Master as much as I did. The Keeper of Traken wasn’t exactly much to go off and god knows that story has escaped my memory since I watched it so booting up Dust Breeding early on in my marathon, I was shocked to find that the mad, conniving and spiteful portrayal of the Master, like the Delgado incarnation but consumed but hate and vitriol, was one of my favourites. And by god does this story just work to cement that, Beavers is an incredible performer and despite the Master barely being in the story, his presence is felt throughout the whole script, this ancient, chained beast ready to break forth and demolish countless lives. In fact, I think I’d call the Beavers Master my third favourite now, behind Delgado and Gomez, which was not the expected outcome of my trip through The Monthly Adventures. And all of this love mainly comes from just the scenes between the Doctor and the Master’s human alter ego - John Smith. The dialogue in this entire story is golden and pretty much every scene is made up of characters bouncing off each other to glorious effect but the conversations had by the Doctor and John are easily highlights of the audio, which is good, because it makes up about 90% of Part 2 (seriously, Part 2 is basically just dialogue). And then through this, we get to meet and know and fall in love with the character of John Smith. This is basically the Master’s Human Nature, his memories wiped, posing as a human being who has built up a reputation of a kind philanthropist, learnéd and generous to everybody he meets. Lidster really makes sure you adore this guy before you realise that he’s going to be ripped away, and a callous monster will come back in his place. It turns the entire story into a disturbing tragedy underpinned by a laden atmosphere from beginning to end. Master at times even becomes a bizarre horror story, a mix of a classic ghost tale and An Inspector Calls (which Master has an unnatural number of similarities too, perhaps it served as inspiration). It’s also hosted by a cast that, whilst pretty small with only four characters besides the Doctor, is wonderfully fleshed out and disturbed in their own ways, from the Inspector obsessed with good vs evil whilst committing a series of heinous murders, to the wealthy and snobby Jacqueline who runs a hostel to sooth her own guilt. And then there’s the meek housemaid Jade, who just so happens to be Death herself, having been playing every character like a chess game the whole time. It may surprise you that our main antagonist isn’t the Master but the Grim Reaper, brought back from the VNAs as an incredibly Seventh Doctor villain, if that makes sense: a chess playing god whose pieces are the characters, watching and mocking from afar, always smugly in control. She’s great - played wonderfully and written spectacularly; that Part 3 cliffhanger alone cements her as a worthy opponent.

Master isn’t perfect however and there were one or two things that held it back to me. For one, we’re lumped with a strange and ultimately confusing wrap-around narrative that oddly bookends the story. Basically, the Doctor is telling the story of John Smith and his turn back into the Master to a would-be-assassin, tasked with taking over the hitman’s role so as to pay back Death for going back on a deal they made. Only for it to be revealed the hitman was Death in disguise and was… testing him? It’s not really clear, Death’s actions don’t make a great deal of sense and in the end it was unnecessary. Not impactfully bad, just strange. On a more pertinent note, Master continues the trend of lending back story to its titular villain, this time around revealing what exactly made the Master the Master. And, lo and behold, instead of going down the same path as the Doctor, only for one to become enraged at his society and for the other to become dedicated at improving it, it was all because of Death. Turns out Death had marked the Doctor to become its advocate, but the Doctor had begged Death to take the Master instead, and their roles switched, the Master becoming tyrannical and evil and the Doctor becoming the great philanthropist. This rubs me the wrong way, it feels like a rewrite for the sake of it that is less interesting, nuanced and original than what came before (which kind of reminds of another uninteresting, endlessly damaging and bewildering plot twist involving the Master and the Doctor. And if you’re reminding me of that, you’ve f**ked up). Unlike Davros, where we’re simply given context for things we already know, Master works to introduce a new “origin story” so to speak that simply cannot compare to what came before. And this is all in service of a climax that I don’t like. The final moments, in a darkened version of John Smith’s house, where John is forced to choose between killing Victor and releasing the Master or letting Jacqueline die and remaining himself, are confusing. Between all the switching personalities and tricks and deceits and stoppages in time and trickery, things just become cumbersome and hard to follow, leaving me to wonder if only there was a simpler way of doing it.

Master is an excellent character study, no doubt. This is the sort of story that makes me love Joseph Lidster: dark and clever, twisted and tragic, it’s a tale of the psyche, the self and friendship. The relationship between the Doctor and the Master continues to be one of the most complex narratives in Doctor Who, and one that I will (almost) always enjoy. Here’s to more of these two old fools, and here’s to our next story, Zagreus, which will cap off the first fifty entries of the Main Range. Can’t wait.

9/10

Pros:

+ Pitch perfect portrayal of the Master with an excellent performance

+ Expert dialogue, especially between John and the Doctor

+ John is a morbidly sympathetic character

+ Great mystery with an unclear end throughout

+ Small but well developed cast

+ Death is a brilliantly acted and creepy antagonist.

+ Great, dread-inducing atmosphere

Cons:

- Unnecessary framing device

- Wasn’t keen on the reforms to the Master’s character

- Ending was somewhat of a let down