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'Master'

CD audio adventure released October 2003, 4 episodes

Writer: Joseph Lidster
Director: Gary Russell

Roots: Jack the Ripper, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Intertextuality: Death and the other Time Lord 'gods' are from the Virgin New Adventures. The Doctor has known "one or two" Adjudicators, namely Roz Forrestor and Chris Cwej also from the Virgin New Adventures. Professor Summerfield is a reference to Benny Summerfield.

Goofs: The Master at time sounds like Andy Serkis's Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Dialogue Disasters: 'No, damn you, woman! No!'

Dialogue Triumphs: 'I fear Jade is much more than your maid.' 'Yes, she's also my cook and my housekeeper.'

'Well use it then. End the game. Take my life.'

'So what am I, Doctor? Death's champion?'

'I could eat a horse.' / 'Funny you should say that...'

Double Entendres: Most of Jade's lines about 'The Master is waiting,' etc.

'That wind is starting to pick up.' 'Yes, it doesn't sound too pleasant, does it?'

Continuity: Perfugium is an Earth colony in the far future, part of an empire ruled by an Empress. Imperials are the currency used. It was founded by the Uttersons "many years ago".

Victor Schaeffer is an Adjudicator ('Colony in Space' - see also Intertextuality).

Time Lords have telepathic abilities. Gallifrey has rivers and forests. The river Lethe is near where the Doctor and the Master grew up. They were bullied at school by Torvic. The Doctor and Master (but more so the Doctor) were responsible for Torvic's death, an incident that eventually led to their departures from Gallifrey in atonement. The Master is an accomplished surgeon and works at the local sanatorium. He goes by the alias Doctor John Smith. Ten years (to the day) prior to the adventure he was found wandering the streets with amnesia. He was taken in by Wilston-Croft, and inherited the house when Wilston-Croft died. He owns copies of "The Divided Self" by Dr Julia Steer "Man: Two Hearts in One Mind" by Professor Summerfield and various medical, psychological, and fictional texts, including ones by Dostoyevski, Welsh and Robert Louis Stevenson. As John Smith, his favourite desert is marinated figs with a raspberry coulis, he grows tomatoes, makes his own wine, enjoys theatre, books, and the company of friends, and he is not fond of dogs or people with shifty eyes. The Time Lords have telepathic abilities, and their presence can cause others to act as they do.

Death is a non-corporeal entity that can control time, fate, and twist people to her will. She appears in the guise of as Jade (as green is the colour of Death of Perfugium).

The Doctor goes by the alias Doctor Vaughan Sutton. Someone once told him that exposure to evil can corrode the soul [most likely in 'Primeval']. He made a deal with Death to give the Master ten years of a new life as a good man, then to kill him. He's happy to defy Death whenever possible, whatever the consequences. He no longer plays spoons, nor mixes his metaphors. His family would be quite happy if the Doctor's antics were erased from history.

Links: Zagreus (Jade paraphrases the poem), The Keeper of Traken, Dust Breeding, Colony in Space, Excelis Decays (The Doctor's alias is a reference to Grayvorn's Vaughan Sutton alias). "End my life" is a nod to the Doctor's conversation with his would-be assassin in The Happiness Patrol.

Location: A house on Perfugium, an Earth colony in the far future. A mall somewhere.

The Bottom Line: 'Do you believe in Evil?'

A rather gripping suspense/psychological thriller, combining elements of both the earlier Big Finish audios and the New Adventures. This isn't so much about what the Master is, as about what he isn't. It does somehow feel a bit like cheating to say that he became evil through the influence of Death. Geoffrey Beevers gives a chilling performance which, as with 'Dust Breeding', makes us truly thankful that Anthony Ainley has disassociated himself from Big Finish!

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