This story is incredibly dark, and gives us such a deep dive into the psyche of why the Master is the way he is. It's the Seventh Doctor at his manipulative best, and we have maybe the most unstoppable force in the universe controlling the strings. An essential story for understanding the Master.

Beavers is great at playing the master and his performance always tends to be magnetic and I also had easily one of McCoy’s best turns in a Doctor Who audio. David Darlington still continues to be one of the finest sound designers on Big Finish’s payroll with his atmospheric effects that portrays the claustrophic space really well.

The most of the side cast comes off extremally well except for Death herself who comes off as way too camp and wisecracking to be taken seriously especially in a story this foreboding. The final part also kind of drags on way too long but this is still a great story in the main range that explores the Doctor/Master relationship in an actual interesting way.

We have one of my earliest experiences with Big Finish in Master. As I mentioned previously with the Davros audio from the Sixth Doctor, Big Finish made a trilogy of audios to celebrate the 40^th anniversary where Doctors Five, Six and Seven were paired up with an individual villain in a story that focuses more being a character piece for said villain. In this case we have the Seventh Doctor facing the Master in a very unconventional story that draws a lot of influence from the famous Seventh Doctor novel Human Nature (though most fans will be more familiar with the Tenth Doctor episode of the same name).

Dr John Smith has been a resident of Perfugium for ten years after stumbling into a hostel with no memory of who he was and no indication of what once he had been other than his physical disfigurement. On the night he considers his birthday, exactly ten years after his arrival, he invites his two closest friends for dinner, to take their minds off his mysterious past and the fact the town is plagued by a wave of murders. But the night is about to become much darker as an old curse looms over the house, something evil stalks the corridors and from the storm comes a strange man who knows John Smith’s true identity and has come to kill him.

This story is sort of a mix between Human Nature (both novel and episode) and Utopia from Series 3 where the Master has spent a decade living as a kind and gentle person but is troubled by thoughts buried deep in his mind of what sort of person he used to be. Geoffrey Beevers puts in his finest work in what I can honestly say is my favourite Master story. It delves into the Master’s beginnings with his childhood and that first act to start him down his dark path. Or so it seems at first as the climax features a shocking twist that paints the Doctor in a grimmer light. Master is much more psychological and introspective than most Doctor Who stories, the vast majority of the story is less on plot and more on discussions between characters on what makes a killer who they are, what can drive someone to perform acts of evil, whether it is through their own choice or something else at work. It’s not a cheerful story and it has one massive downer of an ending but that’s sort of the point and what makes the Master such a tragic villain and how things could’ve been between him and the Doctor. If you’re a fan of the Master, then this is a must listen.

Master is a work of art.  It might be, out of all the hundreds of Big Finish audios I have listened to so far, the single most emotionally moving story I've encountered yet.

I really like all the characters here.  Not only does the Master and the Doctor have a number of incredible scenes and lines here, but the supporting cast is all very memorable.  I got invested in Victor and Jacqueline, and they worked really well as friends of the Master's assumed identity.

The audio is at its best when it is nothing but quiet build-up, mystery, and a growing sense of dread and darkness.  I love the framing device of the Doctor relaying this story to a sniper.  It's very good an a cool take on the Master and Doctor's past together.  Death showing up was quite the twist, and I kept waiting for it to be revealed she is some secret alien in disguise or something, but no.  It's Death, personified and with a very specific agenda here.  It's good stuff all around and absolutely gets a recommendation from me.

Not only one of the best Doctor Who stories, but one of the best stories ever written of all time! The setting, the characters, the dialogues, absolutely everything is perfect on this story!