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The Master is a recurring character on long running British series Doctor Who. Easily the most oft appearing single character on the series other than the Doctor and his companions, the Master became a cunning adversary, ruthlessly exploiting anyone and anything he could in order to advance his plans. He is known to have attempted the destruction of whole planets for his personal gain on at least two occasions and seems to enjoy the sheer chaos he can create simply by killing people. A Time Lord who is reputed to be a former schoolmate of the Doctor himself, the Master first appeared at the start of the program's eighth season. Early 70s Doctor Who producer Barry Letts had been thinking of the Doctor as somewhat of a cross between a latter day Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. But, he thought, every Holmes needed a Moriarty and every Bond needed a similarly melodramatic villain. In fact, Letts was so in love with the idea that the Doctor needed such a nemesis that he decided to use the character in every story of that season. Later seasons would limit the new character's appearances to no more than twice annually.

Contents 1 Early Life 2 A Functioning TARDIS 3 The Tissue Compression Eliminator 4 Known Forms

Early Life

Little is known about the character's background. According to 2007's The Sound of Drums, Time Lord Children are taken from their families to attend "the Academy" at the age of 8. However, it is known that there is more than one such academy. 1976's The Deadly Assassin makes it clear that the Master actually attended the prestigious Prydonian academy on Gallifrey, as did the Doctor himself.

At the academy, the young initiate would be asked to gaze into the vortex, to be confronted with the raw power and size of all of time and space. "Some were inspired" commented the Doctor in "The Sound of Drums." "Others," he continued, clearly referring to the Master "were driven mad."

The Doctor has claimed on several occasions that they were once friends, but some fans suggest that this must have been after their time at the academy, since the Doctor's first incarnation clearly does not recognize the Master in The Five Doctors.

Like the Doctor, at some point the Master chose to be a renegade from Time Lord society, fleeing the planet and erasing his own bio data extract from the records. Unlike the Doctor, however, it quickly became clear that the Master was meddling in time purely for his own benefit.

A Functioning TARDIS

Over the course of the years, the Master has possessed at least one TARDIS of his own (and probably more than one). The Master's TARDIS is clearly newer than the Doctor's, possessing (among other things) a newer model of dematerialization circuit. It's also clearly in better working order. For example, the Master's chameleon circuit is functional, allowing his TARDIS to take the form of a horse and carriage, a grandfather clock, a Greek column and a fireplace among others.

The Tissue Compression Eliminator

Among the many, maniacal devices that the Master has designed is one that he has remained particularly faithful to. The tissue compression eliminator is a weapon roughly the size and shape of a small flashlight. When fired at living matter, it drastically reduces the size of the targeted organism, invariably resulting in violent death. The Master apparently so enjoys this effect that he almost always seems to have one of the devices in his later appearances. Frequently, this results in a trail of shriveled doll-like corpses wherever the Master goes.

Known Forms

When the Master first appeared in 1971's Terror of the Autons, he was played by actor Roger Delgado. Delgado played the character as a suave, sophisticated plotter who treated his plans as a sort of gentleman's game with the Doctor. Although clearly more skilled than the Doctor in many technical disciplines, he clearly admired the Doctor's own unique skill set and perhaps even liked the Doctor. Moreover, the admiration seems to have been somewhat mutual. This changed, however, with the Master's next form.

As a Time Lord, the Master was at some time capable of regenerating like the Doctor himself. However, when Roger Delgado was tragically killed following his appearance in the season 10 story Frontier in Space, the Master would stop appearing on the show altogether for several years. When he re-appeared in 1976's The Deadly Assassin, the Master had reputedly reached the end of the thirteen lives allotted to Time Lords. He clung to life as an emaciated husk, his blackened skin peeling off his bones like a member of the walking dead. This incarnation, played first by Peter Pratt, had become significantly embittered, perhaps by his current predicament, perhaps by his repeated defeats at the hands of the Doctor. Whatever the reason, however, it was now clear that he had begun to actively seek the Doctor's death. More importantly, however, it now seemed that his primary goal had now become that of survival at all costs.

Geoffrey Beevers would play a similarly emaciated Master in 1981's The Keeper of Traken. This time, the Master would find a way out of his predicament, using the enormous powers of the Keeper of the Traken Union to steal the body of one of Traken's citizens. From that point on in the classic series, the Master would be played by Anthony Ainley.

Having secured a temporary solution for his continued survival, the Ainley Master once again returned to menace the Doctor on a regular basis, persisting in this form until the final televised story of the classic series (1989's Survival). Although Ainley seems to have wanted to play the Master as a dark and brooding character, he was apparently overruled by directors who wanted an almost comically exaggerated performance from him. This resulted in Ainley's master coming across as both more homicidal than his predecessors and less mentally stable. Some critics have also commented that this incarnation was a little bit on the unintentionally comical side. Ainley's incarnation of the character would also manage to return (with little to no explanation) after being apparently killed on multiple occasions.

It wasn't until Ainleys final televised performance in the role that he was allowed to be the darker character that he apparently had always intended. In "Survival," the Ainley Master had contracted a virus that turned its targets into violent cat people. By the end of the story, he had sprouted long cat-like incisors and had distinctly feline eyes.

The Master returned in the very next televised Doctor Who adventure, the much maligned Doctor Who: The TV Movie. The movie opened with the Master apparently being executed by the Daleks. However, it was unclear how the Daleks had captured him, why they wanted him dead or why they would (clearly out of Dalek character) allow the Doctor to come and collect the Master's remains without immediately trying to exterminate him. Current series writer/producer Russell T. Davies may have hinted at his own explanation for two of these questions in an article he wrote for the 2006 Doctor Who Annual. In it, he suggests that during the Time War, the Time Lords attempted to make peace with the Daleks via something called "The Act of Master Restitution." The suggests that the Time Lords actually handed the Master over to the Daleks and that the Daleks may have been pretending to be or (less likely) genuinely at peace with the Time Lords when the Doctor collected the Master's remains. In the brief glimpse this scene provided of the character, the Master was played by Gordon Tipple, but the strong resemblance to Ainley's Master suggests that this may have indeed been Ainley's incarnation.

But, this was not the end of the character. On the Doctor's journey home, the Master burst out of his containment vessel. This time, he emerged as a glowing green blob-like snake who was referred to as a "morphant" in the novelization of the TV Movie. The book version also claims that the morphant was an animal that the Master had managed to posses, much like he had earlier possessed the body of Tremas. It further states that this had become possible for the Master due to his continued experimentation to ensure his own survival. However, none of this additional information actually appears on screen, so its canonicity is not clear.

Upon attacking an ambulance driver named Bruce (played by Eric Roberts), the morphant Master was able to take control of Bruce's body. But, this form was clearly unstable, decaying zombie-like throughout the course of the movie. This form also sported the cat's eyes the Master had acquired in "Survival." Roberts played a more stylish version of the character, sporting at first, a leather jacket and dark glasses and later, an exaggerated version of Gallifreyan ceremonial robes. He appeared back to his old coolly calculating self in this incarnation, but some fans criticize both the actor's somewhat stilted performance and his American accent - something the character had never sported before. This incarnation was presumably destroyed when the Master was sucked into the link to The Eye of Harmony in the Doctor's TARDIS.

Although the TV Movie was the last televised appearance of the character for several years, the character continued to appear in various spinoff novels and audio dramas. Among these was a notable appearance of the character in the web-based animated drama Scream of the Shalka. In it, the Doctor had transferred the Master's mind to an android body that had some sort of inhibitor preventing it from leaving the TARDIS (and perhaps forcing the Master to behave himself). In this incarnation, the Master was played by respected actor Derek Jacobi. As with all spinoff materials, however, the cononicity of this play is debatable. In any case, the play is clearly set in another universe than the new series because Richard E. Grant plays the Doctor's ninth incarnation instead of Christopher Eccleston.

Nevertheless, Jacobi did return to play the Master on television in 2007's Utopia. Jacobi's Master, however, was wounded at the end of the episode, forcing him to regenerate into a new form. The new (and presumably current) form of the Master is played by actor John Simm, who starred in the British version of the series Life on Mars.