The Master is a Time Lord, like The Doctor, from Gallifrey. Over the years we have been told that, in their youth, they were friends. They went to the same school – the Prydonian Academy. They were both interested in temporal mechanics and traveling beyond Gallifrey. But while The Doctor sought to do good in the universe, The Master turned to evil. The most recent information about him suggests that he began to go insane even before they knew each other at school. A Time Lord ritual involved taking the new candidates, at the age of eight, to look into infinity through the Untempered Schism. This always produced a minority who went mad. But in the case of The Master it seems to have reached new levels. His insanity is clear from his earliest appearances as The Doctor’s nemesis.

Third Doctor

The Master often formed alliances with other beings in order to put his plans for universal conquest or just conquest of Earth in motion. He was first seen in the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons, working with the Nestene Consciousness and its plastic minions.

In The Mind of Evil, he poses as a scientist called Professor Emile Keller to use a machine, partially built by himself, that contains within it an alien mind that feeds on negative human emotions. It is ostensibly being used to ‘cure’ criminals at Stangmore prison, but The Master is only interested in getting control of the fortress like prison and its convict population in order to steal a nuclear missile and hold the world to ransom.

In The Claws of Axos, he is not so much the ally of the Axos entity but its prisoner. He trades information about how to subdue the Human inhabitants of Earth for his freedom, and works with them against The Doctor, but only for his own ends.

In Colony in Space, The Master has either himself, personally, or with help, stolen details of something called “The Doomsday Weapon” from the Time Lords. This weapon is on a planet called Uxarieus where farming colonists and miners are locked in a dispute about the land. The Master pretends to be an adjudicator sent to settle the dispute while seeking information about the weapon. He tries to persuade The Doctor to rule the galaxy with him using the weapon, but of course The Doctor refuses. The guardian of the weapon asks The Doctor to destroy it, and he does, leaving the planet free of the radiation that was killing the crops and the colonists free to start again. The Master escapes!

In The Dæmons, The Master has disguised himself as the vicar of a small village, calling himself Mr Magister. (Master). With a ‘coven’ of hypnotised villagers he raises the Dæmons from the planet Dæmos, who are apparently the reason why humans see the devil as a horned beast. As usual he bites off more than he can chew and this time he is captured by the U.N.I.T. troops.

The Sea Devils sees The Master as a prisoner in a special prison just to keep him under control. But he hypnotised the governor and used him to mastermind his plot to use the Sea Devils to overthrow the Human race. He fails, but escapes and goes on the run again.

The Time Monster sees The Master posing as a professor again. Professor Thascales (Greek for Master) to get government facilities to build a time dilation device to summon a Chronovore (the time monster) from ancient Atlantis. He fails to control the creature of time and is almost destroyed by his ambition. Only The Doctor’s intervention saves him before he flees once more in his TARDIS.

In Frontier in Space The Master is in league with the Ogrons, the servants of the Daleks and is trying to force a war between Earth and Draconia to the mutual benefit of him and his allies. Naturally the plan fails when The Doctor exposes the plot to both the Earth and Draconian authorities.

The Master’s attempts to conquer Earth end there. On screen because he is being hunted by the Time Lords. In reality because of the tragic death of Roger Delgado.

Roger Delgado
Born March 1, 1918
Whitechapel, London
Died June 18, 1973 (aged 55)
Turkey

Fourth Doctor

In The Deadly Assassin The Master has used his thirteen lives and is a decaying body hidden away in a tower of the Panopticon on Gallifrey. He has an ally among the Time Lords as he tries to seize the power of the Eye of Harmony to gain himself a new regeneration.

The decayed Master was played by Peter Pratt in this episode.

The Keeper of Traken sees The Master, still in a decayed form, using the good, decent people of Traken in a plot to gain the power held by their Keeper, a wise citizen of Traken chosen to live a long life devoted to the harmony of their galaxy. Having used and killed several Traken consuls he is finally defeated, so The Doctor thinks. But later the decayed Master appears from inside a grandfather clock and merges with Tremas, the father of Nyssa, taking his body for himself.

The decayed Master was played by Geoffrey Beevers, while Tremas, an anagram of Master, was Anthony Ainley, henceforth known as The Master.

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In Logopolis The Master seeks to use the Lopolitan skill with numbers to his own ends. The plan fails because he kills several of the Logopolitans and the city and the planet itself starts to be subject to forces of entropy. When that entropy threatens the whole universe, he must work with The Doctor to prevent it, but even then he tries to save the universe to use it for his own ends. The Doctor stops his plan but suffers a fatal fall and has to regenerate.

Fifth Doctor

In Castrovalva The Master has taken another disguise, posing as a citizen of the strangely beautiful city of Castrovalva. The Doctor eventually realises that the city is not real. It is a figment of The Master’s imagination, designed to trap him.

Time-Flight. Another disguise for The Master. The strangest of all as he appears as Kalid, a bald, overweight, apparently mad magician who has power over matter and time and can hypnotise people into believing they are in a normal place when in fact they are his slaves. With help from the crew of the Concorde The Master has forced into a time contour his plans are thwarted. AGAIN.

The King's Demons sees yet ANOTHER disguise by The Master. This time he is Sir Gilles Estram, champion of King John of England. The Master plans to prevent the Magna Carta being signed, the beginning of parliamentary democracy on Earth – and ultimately the universe. This time he also uses a disguised robot, Kamelion, posing as the King, but The Doctor sees through both disguises in the end.

The Five Doctors sees The Master in a unique position. He is commanded by the High Council of the Time Lords to rescue The Doctor from the Death Zone on Gallifrey where a traitor has trapped several of his incarnations. Naturally it isn’t long before The Master sees personal advancement and goes against The Doctor in pursuit of Rassilon’s immortality. Fortunately for him he doesn’t succeed as those who seek immortality become immortal friezes on the side of Rassilon’s tomb.

Planet of Fire – The Master uses Kamelion, disguised as himself, to pose as the ‘Promised One’ an outsider who will come as a prophet to the people of Sarn, the Planet of Fire. At first he convinces them, and The Doctor and his companions are in danger of being sacrificed to the volcano god. But The Doctor discovers that the REAL Master is trapped in miniature form after an accident with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. He needs the restorative powers of the Numismaton gas within the fire mountain to regain his true self. But The Doctor adds calorific gas to the mix and The Master is, apparently, burnt to death.

Sixth Doctor

It the Mark of the Rani The Master joins up with another devious Time Lord Renegade, The Rani, in a convoluted plot to make 19th century Earth the powerbase for their schemes – having accelerated Earth science and technology through the manipulation of contemporary engineering geniuses like George Stephenson. The Master and The Rani escape when the plot is uncovered, but in a TARDIS that is out of control after The Doctor sabotaged it.

The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe. As The Doctor’s trial for genocide continues, it is revealed that the Matrix has been manipulated by the Valeyard to give false evidence. Interestingly, it is The Master who makes this revelation. He seems to be on The Doctor’s side at first. But his true nature comes out soon enough. Again The Master seeks advantage for himself.

Seventh Doctor

Survival – The Master is trapped on the planet of the Cheetah people, affected by the virus that turns humans into the Cheetah people. He uses on of the infected Humans to get to Earth, but The Doctor drives him back and they fight as the planet is dying. The Doctor escapes back to Earth and the TARDIS but The Master is trapped on the disintegrating world.

This was the last of the ‘classic’ Doctor Who series, but even if it had not been, The Master would not have come back in the form he had been in for nearly ten years.

Anthony Ainley
Born August 20, 1932
London, England
Died May 3, 2004 (aged 71)
Harrow, London, England

Eighth Doctor

The Enemy Within. - The Master has been captured and exterminated on the planet Skaro. The Doctor has agreed to take his remains back to Gallifrey. But The Master is not as dead as he seems. In the form of a pale green protoplasm he escapes from the casket and causes a malfunction of the TARDIS, which makes an emergency landing in San Francisco on the eve of the millennium. The protoplasm Master takes over the body of Bruce, a paramedic who took the injured Doctor to hospital. He hypnotises a teenager, Chang Lee into helping him to trap The Doctor and force him into a machine that will transfer his lives to The Master. Freed from the machine The Doctor and The Master fight to the death and The Master is consumed by the Eye of Harmony, the power source of the TARDIS.

The Master was played briefly by Gordon Tipple as he is executed and afterwards by Eric Roberts.

Tenth Doctor

In Utopia we first meet the brilliant, slightly scatterbrained but apparently benign Professor Yana, and The Doctor works with him to help him send the Human passengers of a rocket ship off to Utopia, the place where they believe all will be well. But the Professor has a fob watch with Gallifreyan symbols on it, and The Doctor and Martha both know that it is not a watch but a repository of a Time Lords identity while he hides in Human form. When the Professor opens it the prophecy of the Face of Boe is revealed. YANA stands for You Are Not Alone and the Professor is REALLY The Master in disguise. He is shot by his assistant, Chan, and regenerates into a younger form, before stealing The Doctor’s TARDIS.

In The Sound of Drums/Last of The Time Lords it is revealed that The Master, unable to go anywhere but Earth in The Doctor’s TARDIS, has become Prime Minister, calling himself Harold Saxon. He takes over the Earth with the help of creatures he calls the Toclafane and makes The Doctor his prisoner as he lays waste to huge parts of the planet and builds huge rocket bases from which to launch an attack on the rest of the galaxy. More than ever his insanity is revealed as he puts his plan into action, but The Doctor is far from a helpless prisoner as long as he has people who believe in him. The whole world has been taught to believe in him and he is restored to youth and power. The Master is shot by his wife, Lucy, who has lost her mind as surely as The Master has. The Doctor holds him in his arms and forgives him for all that he has done, and begs him to regenerate and save himself. Instead he chooses to die and The Doctor, alone, lights his funeral pyre on an empty beach at night. The end of The Master? Possibly not. As the flames die away somebody picks up his ring with mysterious looking Gallifreyan symbols on it.

Professor Yana/The Master is played by Derek Jacobi. Harold Saxon/The Master is played by John Simm.

End of Time - Of course, the Master wasn't finished. The ring was picked up by Mrs Trefusis, one of the Cult of Harold Saxon, who prepared to resurrect him as their spiritual leader. Because of Lucy's intervention the process was only partially successful. The Master returned as a broken, mentally disturbed creature whose body is working against him. He has a rapacious appetite that extends to consuming unfortunate human victims.

He was captured by Joshua Naismith, and forced to repair the Immortality Gate. But of course, The Master had his own plans. He used the Gate to transfer his own DNA pattern onto everyone on planet Earth, wiping out the Human Race.

But even he didn't know that his machinations were a side show to the greater plan of the Time Lords. Trapped in the endless Time War, Lord President Rassilon found way to escape into the real world - through The Master. The drumming in his head was placed there retrospectively by The Time Lords as a way of creating their own destiny.

And that was their own downfall, because when The Master realised he had been manipulated all his life and he fought the Lord President on behalf of The Doctor and the whole of Creation. When they were sent back to the Time Lock he was dragged their as well, leaving the possibility that he might find his way back into the universe again.