CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: A HISTORY OF THE MASTER - PART 2

And so, we continue down the Dark Path of the Doctor's greatest foe. This time, we delve into the 80s Masters....

THE CORPSE MASTER - VERSION 2.0

For the rest of the 70s, the Master disappears from the show.    We know at the end of Deadly Assassin that he's capable of plaguing the Doctor again.   We see his badly super-imposed face on the grandfather clock as it dematerializes on Gallifrey.   And yet, there are no televised signs of the Master until several seasons later in Keeper of Traken.  

            

A major change has occurred between Assassin and Traken.   One that can't be ignored and must, therefore, be explained.  

            

Peter Pratt does not play the Master in Keeper of Traken - Geoffrey Beevers does.   And it's not Beevers behind the same fright mask.   If that were the case, we might be able to overlook the different voice.   But Beevers is done up in make-up.    So the Master really does have a different appearance from the last time we've seen him.  Similar costume, of course - but definitely a different face.  

            

The Doctor mentions at the end of Deadly Assassin that the Master had succeeded in leeching off some considerable energy from the Eye Of Harmony.   That the energy may have been used to, somehow, save him when he fell into the fissure that had been formed in the floor behind him as he was attempting to destroy Gallifrey.  Spandrell and Engin seeing the Master steal off in his TARDIS moments later seems to confirm this theory.

             

I propose that the stolen energy did more than save the Master from a vicious plummet.   That, even after the fall, he still had some energy left over from the Power Source of the Time Lords.   He took that energy and tried to induce another regeneration with it and had partial success.  His body is still not in the best of shape, but it's marginally healthier.    More stable than the one he had before the regeneration attempt, but still only a shadow of the man he once was.   

            

Essentially, this is the 14th incarnation of the Master.   Or, perhaps, a half-incarnation might be more accurate.   He still retains the general appearance of the last Master but is different enough to say that he isn't quite the same body.  

            

Sometime after this partial regeneration, the Beevers Master constructs a whole new TARDIS (some more of that energy he stole from the Eye Of Harmony?  Perhaps he intentionally rationed it because he knew he didn't have enough for a complete regneration: so he used some of it to get a new body and some of it to build a new TARDIS).  Either that, or the Master steals another TARDIS from Gallifrey in an unseen adventure.    Never one to waste a resource, he still held on to the grandfather clock TARDIS that he had been using before.   Parking it in the corner of the console room of his new TARDIS.

            

Tom Baker's Doctor makes no remark about the Master's new appearance when they finally confront each other in Episode Four of Keeper of Traken.   It could be that he just didn't really have the time to make the remark.   Or, perhaps, he's met this version of the Master in an untelevised adventure.    We don't really know.   But we have to acknowledge that this isn't quite the same version of the Master that we saw in Deadly Assassin.   Even the personality is a bit different.   He seems a more mellow and patient character, this time round.   The Pratt Master seemed to be boiling over with rage and full of rash actions.   Whereas this version of the villain is content to sit for years in a calcified Melkur, waiting for his moment to arrange the proper political circumstances to gain Keepership.  I can't see the Pratt Master having the temperment to execute such a plot.   His lack of patience would've gotten the best of him and he would've hatched a scheme that would've taken place much sooner.  

            

The Pratt Master also seemed very ill and close to death.  One more reason why he wouldn't have waited around for so long to execute his plans in Keeper of Traken - he just didn't have the lifespan in him to hang in there!   Whereas the Beevers Master is a stabilised version of the Pratt Master - the deathly illness seems to have passed.   He's still not very physically strong but he's not on the verge of passing away, either.   So he can sit around for long years waiting for the proper moment to become the Keeper of the Traken Union.              

            

So the Beevers Master is a different incarnation of some sort.   But because of the similarities to the Pratt Master, I'd say it was some sort of strange partial regeneration.  

            

THE ANTHONY AINLEY CLIFFHANGERS

            

From Keeper of Traken onwards, the Master becomes a frequent thorn in the Doctor's side, again.   With as many appearances as the Delgado Master, Anthony Ainley's version of the evil Renegade Time Lord plagues the Fifth Doctor heavily and keeps appearing quite regularly during the reigns of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors, too.  The Ainley Master also takes the character arc of a crumbling sanity and a lust for vengeance to an even higher level.    More times than others, his plans for universal domination are put to the side in order to execute vicious plots that will annihilate his greatest foe (Castrovalva, Mark of the Rani, Ultimate Foe).   And when he's not trying to lure the Doctor into some horrible trap, he's unraveling some predicament he's put himself into because his imbalanced psyche is making more and more bad choices (Time Flight, Planet of Fire and Survival).   Only once in a while does the Doctor catch him actually trying to gain power that will help him rule over the cosmos. An undertaking he was almost always up to back in the Perwee Era but never seems to have time for, anymore.  With the stealing of Tremas' body, the Master may have stabilised his physical health - but his mental health seems to be another issue entirely.   

            

During this era, a new mystery develops during the gaps between the televised battles of these two Time Lord rivals.   Back when Barry Letts was producing the show, every story involving the Master ended with a, sort of, "live to fight another day" teaser.    The Master might call the Doctor after escaping the explosion of the Thunderbolt missile or wave menacingly from a Navy hovercraft to let him know he was alive and well and would return to fight him again.    But stories involving the Master during the JNT-era always ended with the Master in a seemingly inescapable dastardly fate.   The walls of Castrovalva were closing in on him or a time-accelerated T-Rex was getting ready to devour him.    A very novel way to resolve the story, yes.   But there was one problem with this new formula: We never learned how the Master escaped from the cliffhanger. 

            

He would just simply arrive in his next story and the only explanations we would get were things like: "So you managed to escape Castrovalva, after all" or "I'm indestructible.   The whole universe knows that!".   We would never actually find out the precise details of how he had survived the last peril the Doctor had left him in.   This wasn't too bad when he was stranded on Xeriphas or his Tissue Compressor was used to play havoc with the inner dimensions of his TARDIS.    But when more serious stuff happens to him, it's a bit annoying to not get some satisfying answers.   I can't foresee a special episode in the New Series in which the Master finally sits down and tells the Doctor how he got away from all those nasty scrapes back when he was possessing Tremas' body so all we can do, as fans, is speculate.   Here, in my opinion, are the most likely explanations to the various cliffhangers that happened during the Ainley Master Era: 

Castrovalva:

THE CLIFFHANGER:  There he is, hoisted by his own petards in the most succinct of fashions.   The newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor and his companions manage to escape the recursive occlusion that's been engineered around them, but the Master doesn't quite make it out as the outer doors of Castrovalva close for the final time.  Even worse, the citizens of the fictitious town he has created seem to be tearing him to pieces, too.   This one really looks completely inescapable.  

THE SOLUTION:    We see just a few minutes earlier that the Master does have a device of some sort that enables him to wink Castrovalvans out of existence with the mere pressing of a button.    No doubt, he gets that device out in his struggles with the mob and puts it to good work.   Once he's cleared away the riot, he legs it back to his TARDIS and turns it on full blast.   Using the time machine to burst out of the trap - he manages to break free, this time.   Perhaps, on the first try, he was attempting to escape without damaging his TARDIS.   But, this time, he's thrown caution to the wind.   Better to live with a damaged TARDIS than to die with one fully intact.     And he does wreck his ship in the worst of ways.   The heart of his TARDIS is almost completely extinguished.    Which sets us up, quite neatly, for the problem he's trying to solve in Time Flight.   He used a last remaining bit of TARDIS energy to get him to the Xeraphin temple on pre-historic Earth and then set himself to work on re-vitalizing his TARDIS.  

Time Flight:

THE CLIFFHANGER:  It's just a little unclear what actually does happen at the end of Time Flight.   The Doctor, somehow, materializes his TARDIS just seconds before the Master is meant to land there.   It somehow sends the Master's TARDIS back to Xeriphas where he'll most likely be stranded because the Xeriphans will, somehow, set themselves' free from being the power source of his time vessel.   It's a bit confusing but, basically, the Master is stranded on Xeriphas.   We think.   Sort of....

THE SOLUTION:  We almost get a complete explanation in King's Demons.  No doubt, when the Master does end up on Xeriphas, the beings in the sarcophagus thingy at the heart of his TARDIS manage to free themselves and the renegade Time Lord is trapped there with no means of powering his ship.   But then, he comes across Kamelion.   Apparently, he was left lying around by an unknown alien race that had used the shape-shifter as a tool in a failed invasion of the planet.  We're not exactly sure how a shape-shifter would be useful for such a thing (Kamelion took on the form of various Xeriphan leaders who instructed the people to surrender to the invaders but the commonfolk refused to listen and fought them off?), but the Maser avails himself of the android and uses it as a means to re-fuel his TARDIS.   My guess is, Kamelion takes on the forms of various influential Xeraphin statesmen and convinces the populace that they should give the Master the freedom of mobility again.   If nothing else, it gets him off their world!   Perhaps it was something even more elaborate than that.   Kamelion's impersonations actually, somehow, trick the Xeraphin to go back into the sarcophagus and they become, once more, the power source for the Master's TARDIS.   But, this time, they don't escape.   For all we know, every time we saw the Master's TARDIS after that, the entire race of the Xeraphin was trapped inside of it - acting as petrol!    

The King's Demons:

THE CLIFFHANGER: Like Time Flight, this one is pretty low-level, too.   And, also, a bit unclear.   We're given the impression that the Master's TARDIS isn't going to work very well, anymore, because the Doctor turned on his tissue compressor and left it running in the console room.   This, apparently, was going to do some nasty damage to the infrastructure and make it unsteerable so that the Master would no longer be able to properly execute his masterplan of systematically changing the histories of various important planets and re-molding the political structure of the Universe to suit his purposes.  

THE SOLUTION:  The tissue compressor does do a lot of damage to the Master's TARDIS but he manages to fix the damage and make his TARDIS steerable again (it seems to go exactly where he wants it to go during The Five Doctors  and Planet of Fire and various other subsequent adventures).   However, it would seem that the Doctor's trick with the tissue compressor inspires the Master to experiment with the effectiveness of the weapon.   Which results in the horrible accident that causes him to shrink to the size of a doll and re-enlist Kamelion to aid him in restoring himself to a normal stature.   

Planet of Fire:

THE CLIFFHANGER:   This is the biggie.   Easily, the most intense Master Cliffhanger during the entire Ainley Era.    The Master employs the numismaton gas on Planet Sarn to bring himself back to proper size.   However, he's mistimed things a bit.   The gas reverts to a normal flame before the evil renegade can climb out of the miniaturized room he grew out of.    He is burnt to a total crisp.  

THE SOLUTION:   The most likely solution is provided in the novelization of Mark of the Rani (not sure why Eric Saward didn't include this dialogue in the script!).   Quite simply, the flame reverts back to numismaton gas a few moments after the Doctor departs.   The restorative power of the gas is so potent that it can even bring the Master's charred remains back to life.   My guess is, it was an extremely strong surge of numismaton gas!    

Mark of the Rani:  

THE CLIFFHANGER:   Having tampered with the console of the Rani's TARDIS, the Doctor causes the ship to spiral out of control when his two enemies attempt to dematerialize from the collapsing mineshaft they've landed in.   The act of sabotage also seems to create some random time spillage.   Which accelerates the growth rate of an embriyonic T-Rex that the Rani has been experimenting on.   When last we see the Rani and the Master, they look like they are about to become the lunch of the greatest pre-historic carnivore.   

THE SOLUTION:   This one, I felt, didn't require much thought.   The Master just whips out his tissue-compression-eliminator and puts paid to the beast.   They get the Rani's TARDIS back under control and she eventually brings him back to 19th-century Killingworth where he can pick his TARDIS back up and go out into the Universe, again, to cause a bunch of mischief.   Michief that will eventually lead to an ongoing partnership with Sabalom Glitz and yet another infiltration of the Matrix on Gallifrey.   

The Ultimate Foe:

THE CLIFFHANGER:  After two really vicious end-of-story fates, things became a bit mellow, once more.   Believing to have retrieved a data storage unit containing the earliest archives of Gallifreyan knowledge, the Master uploads it into his TARDIS console.   That nasty Valeyard tricked him, though.   The data unit is actually a limbo-atrophier.   A vicious device that seems to have caused the Master and Glitz to be frozen in time.  

THE SOLUTION:    Again, not a hard one to work out (which frustrates me all the more that lazy script editors couldn't have taken the time to deal with this!).    The Doctor is already providing part of the answer at the end of Trial of a Time Lord.   He requests that the Inquisitor will exercise leniency in the retrieval of Glitz as they clean up the Matrix.    No doubt, the Time Lords do fix up the Matrix and pull the Master's TARDIS out of the mess.   The limbo-atrophier is shut down and an attempt is made by the Time Lords to keep the Master prisoner on Gallifrey.   But, let's be honest, the Master can run circles around the Time Lords.   He was breaking out of his jail cell minutes after they threw him in it.   He retrieved his TARDIS and escaped back into Time and Space.   Eventually, of course, his journeys will lead him to the planet of the Cheetah People.   More than likely, he was brought there by a kitling that was hunting on another planet that the Master was visiting.  This would explain why the Master has no TARDIS to "take him home" when the Doctor arrives there.   

SPECIAL NOTE:            

You will note, of course, that I offered no explanation for what happened to the Master between the The Five Doctors and Planet of Fire.   That's because no explanation is really needed.   This is the one occasion during the Ainley Era when there is no real cliffhanger to be resolved.    Rassilon simply sends the Master back to his TARDIS where he is allowed to resume his travels.    But during those travels, of course, he starts those fateful experiments with his tissue compressor that lead to the events of Planet of Fire.    

Well, that sorts that out. Stay with us as we explore the 96 Telemovie and the various incarnations we've been seeing in the New Series...

Missed Part One? Here's a link: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/10/chronologies-and-timelines-master-part-1.html

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE MASTER - PART 1

It's been quite a while since I've done a "Chronologies And Timelines" essay so I felt it was time to tackle another major villain and sort out their past. This way, I can do several installments before we get all the way through their history. Like all fans, I enjoy a good multi-part saga...

As I point out right in the opening paragraph - he doesn't actually need to have the order of his stories worked out. If you want to get technical, this is almost a "Fixing Continuity Glitches" piece. However, since we're taking the time to go through all the glitches in the order in which they arise, I feel I can apply the label I'm using.



THE MASTER .... FILLING IN THE GAPS

To do a history of this particular long-term baddie is silly, of course.   Unlike the Cybermen and Daleks and other such recurring nasties, the Master and the Doctor seem to have always encountered each other in a linear fashion.    We learn in End of Time that they are required to "remain parallel to each other in the Causal Nexus" (or words to that effect).   Which was, ultimately, a vocalization of the "Gallifreyan Mean Time" theory that fans have held to be true for quite a while, now.  The confirmation of its existence, of course, makes "A Probable History of the Master" a completely useless venture.        

            
But, there are some other aspects of the Master's past that require serious examination.    While we know that the Master and the Doctor are meeting each other chronologically, there's a lot of things going on between their meetings that need a serious shedding of light upon them.   Certain mysteries exist within those gaps of time between their altercations that require some solving.   Or, at least, some conjecture that might help to solve them.

            
LIFE TOGETHER ON GALLIFREY

The very beginning of the Doctor/Master relationship seems to go all the way back to their childhood on Gallifrey.   That's the huge implication that is made during certain bits of dialogue in the New Series, at least.   According to New Who, we are led to believe that the Master and the Doctor were pretty good chums as they grew up.   The biggest indicator of this is that sequence in The End of Time as they lay on the ground together in the wasteland in London.    The Master starts speaking of how they used to run through fields together on his father's estates and stare longingly at the sky.   It's almost a bit romantic, really.

            
But there is a sequence from the Classic Series that seems to refute this.   It's that moment in Rassilon's Tomb during The Five Doctors where they stand before the pi-inspired chessboard and the First Doctor doesn't seem to recognize the Master as he enters the room.  

           

            "Have we met, somewhere?" the Doctor inquires.

            "Believe it or not, we studied together at the Academy." the Master replies.  

           

This bit really seems to indicate that they barely knew each other back in their days of growing up on Gallifrey.   That the Doctor was, perhaps, in a different grade at school and the Master and the Doctor knew each other more by name than association.  It definitely doesn't seem to imply that they ran together like close friends on his father's estate - that's for sure!  

            
This scene seems to support more the idea that the Doctor and Master first met properly when both were already out in the Universe travelling.   As I will explain in the next section, Terror of the Autons was definitely not their first encounter.   The two rivals clashed a few times before that.   Probably sometime during the end of the Doctor's second incarnation.   The First Doctor being almost totally unaware of the Master when they meet in the Death Zone certainly seems to lend credence to that notion.    So then, how do we reconcile this with the way their past is portrayed in the New Series? 

            
We can go two routes with this: the more mundane one being that, perhaps, the Master's Dad liked letting Gallifreyan kids run around on his estates.   That his property was some sort of field trip that all students at the Academy took.   So, even though the two didn't know each other properly during their childhood, the Master just assumed that the Doctor must have spent some time running around in his Dad's back yard.   And he guessed that, like him, the Doctor probably stared longingly towards the heavens when he did take the field trip.   

            
The more likely explanation, however, is that the Doctor and the Master were good friends during their childhood but that the First Doctor is just having trouble recognizing him due to certain external influences going on at the time.   The two are breaking the Laws of Gallifreyan Mean Time since the Master from the future is encountering the Doctor from the past.   On top of that, the Master is in the body he stole from Tremas on the planet Traken.   Such factors might make it very difficult for them to achieve the telepathic recognition that all Time Lords seem to have the moment they meet.    Let's remember, the Third Doctor also had a bit of trouble placing the Master during The Five Doctors, too.   So I suggest that this is, more likely, the case.   The Master even knows that some major Time Laws are being broken, here, so he treads lightly.   He gives a vague answer to establish his acquaintance with the First Doctor and then moves on with the discussion.   Knowing it's not a good idea to get too elaborate with things.  

            
"Yes, we were practically best friends.   Remember when we used to run around at my Dad's place?  You just don't recognize me cause I'm in a stolen body and we're meeting each other out-of-sequence..."  would not have been the appropriate thing to say during such a context.   Better to remain discreet and ensure that the Time Lines aren't damaged.  

            
In this way, we can get the contradiction between New and Classic Series to reconcile.   And we can believe that these two Time Lords have known each other since their earliest days.  

           

            
JUST BEFORE THE AUTONS START SPREADING THEIR TERROR

With their backstory on Gallifrey now cleared up, let's look at what happened just before their first meeting on the actual show.   Basically, before that fateful moment in Terror of the Autons where the horsebox materializes and Roger Delgado starts stirring up trouble.    Classic Who doesn't talk much about the history of these two rivals before this story.   But there does seem to be some insinuation that the two of them have fought a few times before.   And we're not talking about some Prydonian Debate Club during their time at the Academy.    But after both had fled Time Lord society and became renegades.   That seems to be the implication, at least, from what the Third Doctor says to the Time Lord who confronts him on the gantry of the radio telescope during Episode One of Terror.  The way the Doctor describes his history with the Master, we get the impression that the two Time Lords' TARDISes have landed in the same location in Time and Space on, at least, a few occasions.   

More than likely, this took place in the "Season 6b" era of the Second Doctor (go read The Discontinuity Guide for an explanation of what this is - I really haven't the time to explain it, here!).  It's difficult to imagine that some unseen clashes took place before Season 6b.   One would think that Jamie would've, at least, made mention of the Master at some point in a televised adventure if these encounters had occurred.   Or that the Master might even make an appearance on the screen during the "rogues' gallery" presentation the Doctor makes during his trial in The War Games.   So I think the fights between the Second Doctor and the Master happen during those secret missions that he undertakes for the Time Lords after his trial but before his exile is truly implemented.   That hidden era that gets The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors to make canonical sense.    

            
It's entirely possible that the C.I.A. sent the Doctor to specific places where they knew the Master was causing problems and used their reluctant agent to foil the sinister renegade's plans.  Alternatively, one suspects there were times during Season 6b where the Doctor was allowed to travel without dual control from the Time Lords and, coincidentally, showed up in the middle of one of the Master's evil plots and put paid to it. More than likely, it was a combination of these two influences that caused the first few clashes between these two Renegade Time Lords before we bore witness to a televised battle of wills. 

            
A bit more can be gleaned from the very brief discussion on the radio telescope between Doctor and the Time Lord that comes to warn him.   It would seem that the Master was an inferior rival in those earlier unseen altercations.   This isn't just the Doctor talking trash, either.   The Time Lord seems to agree that the Master was a pretty weak villain.   This would insinuate to me that, perhaps, the Master left Gallifrey at a much later time than the Doctor did.   And the Doctor's sheer level of experience travelling through the Universe made him a superior enemy who could easily crush the Master's plots without having to put too much effort into it.   The Master, being less experienced because he left Gallifrey at a later date, was just not able to put up much of a fight.   Chances are, he was just too busy trying to figure out how to live outside of Time Lord society to represent much of a challenge.  We almost get the impression he was a bit of a bumbler in those early days. 

            
Which leads some fans to believe that the Monk that was seen during the First Doctor's era was, in fact, an earlier incarnation of the Master.   Dialogue from the radio telescope scene helps support this idea.   The Doctor claims in that particular conversation to have little trouble in dealing with the Master before the events of Terror of the Autons and we see him almost running circles around the Monk during The Time Meddler and The Dalek Masterplan.   So I can see why some fans might believe in such a notion.   But the Monk being the Master is just a bit too big of a stretch for me.   The Monk bumbles just a bit too much for me to believe these two are one and the same man.   In my book, he's an entirely different Renegade Time Lord. Although, I do wish we'd seen more of the Monk in later years.   Not only to quash this particular fan theory, but because the Monk was a genuinely fun villain.   

            
Of course, one more important fact comes out in this all-important-but-very-brief discussion with the Doctor and the Time Lord on the gantry: The Master may have been a rubbish foe at one point - but he's not anymore.   We learn in later stories like Colony In Space and The Sea Devils that the Master has stolen some important files from the Time Lords (which would insinuate the first of several instances where he's managed to tap into the Matrix).   That, somehow, this knowledge that he's gathered has made him a greater threat to the Universe.   This is the whole reason why the Time Lord comes to warn the Doctor.   Had there not been this visit from him, the Doctor might have underestimated the strength of his old enemy and the Master could've completely succeeded in assisting the Autons in their conquest of Earth.  In fact, the Master does almost win in that story.  Had the Doctor not persuaded him to shut down the bridgehead he'd established in the last few minutes of the episode, the Nestene Consciousness would've gained a legitimate foothold on Earth through the machinations of this evil renegade.  

            
So, the Master's first theft from the Matrix seems to be a pivotal point in his lives and an important moment in his backstory before we see him for the first time in the series.   Before this discovery, both the Doctor and the Time Lords back on Gallifrey seemed to consider him a low-level threat.   But after he steals some secrets from the Matrix, his status becomes upgraded.   He truly becomes worthy of being the Moriarity to the Doctor's Sherlock.  It's a significant thing to note in his pre-show history.    

            
THE CORPSE MASTER

And so begins the Endless Enmity.   Delgado Master battles Pertwee Doctor on several occasions and Fandom, in general, revels in the whole thing.   Even claims that there was no greater time for the Master than this one (having grown up in the 80s, I find myself disputing that - I loved my Ainley Master!).     But then, of course, tragedy strikes.   Roger Delgado has a horrible accident and the Master's reign is cut short.    Although, arguably, had Delgado lived - an even worse fate was awaiting the Master.   But that's another story entirely....

            
The Master seemingly disappears from the Doctor's life until we see him several seasons later in The Deadly Assassin.   He's a very different man, now.    Decrepit and skeletal, he has lost all his charm and become unabashedly evil.   Apparently, he's reached the end of his regeneration cycle and has become a sort of burnt-out husk of who he once was.    The Master, in this incarnation, is actually quite awesome.   Even in the cheap fright mask!   It's nice to see the veneer stripped away and the truly wretched creature that was hiding beneath rise to the surface.   

But how exactly did the Master get this way? 

            
We know that Chancellor Goth somehow found him on the planet Tersurus like this.   He was on the verge of death and it seems that Goth nursed him back to life.  Or a close approximation, thereof.    We don't know if the Chancellor stumbled upon him, somehow, by accident or specifically went out into the Universe to save him.  The latter idea is entirely possible.  Perhaps knowing that he would not become Lord President compelled the Gallifreyan statesman to find an accomplice that would be willing to do some dirty work for him to help change future events.

            
But still, what led the Master to being that burnt-out husk that gets found on Tersurus?   We can only theorize, of course.  

            
Some like to believe that this was the next incarnation after the Delgado Master.   That Delgado Master was the twefth incarnation and Pratt Master was thirteenth.   Some even like to believe that Delgado Master was the thirteenth and Pratt was some weird mutation caused by an attempt to regenerate when there were no incarnations left.    I have trouble believing either of these ideas.  

            
I'm more inclined to believe that Delgado might've actually been the first incarnation.  Or, at the very least, a very early incarnation of the Master.   That, shortly after Frontier In Space, he gets really reckless and starts going through incarnations at a very rapid pace.   Plans keep going bad for him and he's getting brutally injured over and over and having to induce regenerations very quickly.   Some bodies, perhaps, only last a matter of days before he has to seek a new one.   Perhaps he even needs to assume a disguise once or twice and doesn't happen to have the proper materials or equipment on him to do so.  So, instead, he just regenerates.   Delgado Master was, perhaps, his second or third incarnation but he rips through fourth to twelfth in a very short time.      

            
Such rapid regenerations are not healthy for a Time Lord, of course.  It's a bit like us eating poorly and smoking too much.   We suddenly find ourselves very ill and close to death because of the punishment we've put our body through.    The Master that was played by Peter Pratt is the equivalent of that.   As the Master finds himself inducing his twelfth regeneration, it's too much for him.    He doesn't quite get the body he wanted or expected.   Instead, he's an emaciated skeletal figure who is deathly ill.    Perhaps he tries to take his TARDIS to somewhere where he can get medical help and ends up on the planet Tersurus.    From the sounds of things, this wasn't his intended destination.   But who knows what he'd been up to when the twelfth regeneration occurs?   Was he in the middle of some sinister plot on Tersurus that went bad?   Or was he trying to get somewhere else and, in his weakened state, wasn't able to program his TARDIS properly and ended up on Tersurus?   We can't say for sure.   But this is where Goth finds him.     

            
Believing that the Roger Delgado Master was the incarnation just before this one doesn't make sense for me, though.   We know the Delgado Incarnation existed for, at least, a few years.   We believe this because we see him fighting the Third Doctor in the same body for a handful of seasons on the show.    Whereas the Peter Pratt Master seems to be the result of regeneration burn-out.    I find it hard to believe that a body that stayed stable for several years could then turn into something so horrific-looking.   I'm more inclined to think that Delgado was the final long-lasting  body that the Master had.  That a sort of "regeneration sprint" occurred sometime after the last time we saw Roger Delgado as the Master.    After that, he went through a series of bodies very quickly and the result was a thirteenth incarnation that was in a terrible state.  

            
I also have a hard time agreeing that the Pratt Master was the result of an attempt to regenerate for a thirteenth time.   We see in Twin Dilemna what the result of such an effort is - a Time Lord just dies.   Yes, the Master was probably more single-minded than Azmael and might've clung so hard to life that he created some terrible fourteenth half-life.   Perhaps he was on Tersurus trying to use some sort of artificial means of extending his life that went wrong.   We saw him do something similar in Deadly Assassin, Keeper Of Traken and the 96 Telemovie, after all. But it all seems like too much of a stretch, really.  

            
Peter Pratt is the Thirteenth Master.   Roger Delgado was probably either the First, Second or Third Master.    A bunch of Masters existed between the two of them that we never got to see and lived only for a very short time.   This seems to make the most sense to me. 

            
Okay, Early Days Master (or, alternatively, the Master of the 70s) is out of the way. When we embark upon Part 2, we'll explore such urgent questions as: "Why does the Master look different in Keeper of Traken?" and "How the hell did the Ainley Master get out of so many of his inescapable cliffhangers at the end of his stories?"

Stay tuned....






Wondering what I meant about Season 6b? Here's another entry I did a while back that explains the idea a bit and also discusses a wild speculation of my own...

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/06/fixing-continuity-glitches-double.html

ANALYTICAL: COMPANION RETROSPECTIVE - CLARA OSWALD - PART 2

And so, we continue with our retrospective on Clara Oswald. Now that the Mystery of the Impossible Girl has been solved and the Doctor has been granted a whole new regeneration cycle, Clara can start having a legitimate love life....

PART TWO - CLARA AND TWELVE

A SEASON FOR CLARA

As if to atone for an ongoing story arc during the latter half of Series Seven that interfered with her character development, Series Eight gives Clara a tremendous amount of extra attention. In fact, it has been referred to as: Clara's Season. Not since those early days of New Who when it was more about Rose than it was the Doctor has the personal life of a companion been put under such a microscope. And, while there was a lot to enjoy about Rose's existence outside the TARDIS, Clara proves to have a far more interesting earthbound lifestyle to delve into.

Having Clara work as a teacher at Coal Hill School was a nice continuity reference during the Fiftieth Anniversary - but now it has to become a legitimate setting for a whole series of adventures that work as subplots throughout the season. The biggest of which, of course, is her blossoming romance with Danny Pink. But, before we can get to all that, Clara has to adjust to the new man that is beating his brow at her.

Not since Peri and Six have we seen a companion reject a new Doctor so vehemently. But, as she goes through her adjustments, several of those character traits that were more talked about than displayed are finally shown quite clearly. As Vastra confronts her in her veil - we see Clara's sense of intellectualism almost savagely revealed. When the Doctor and Clara meet in the restaurant - the "bossy control freak" she admits to being in the previous story also comes out. As was mentioned in Part One of this essay - we didn't see her authoritative nature so clearly because Doctor Eleven was so quick to roll over whenever she started ordering him around. But Twelve is a personality that won't be pushed in any direction he doesn't want to go. When Clara tries to get him to do what she wants she has to try much harder. So we see that bossy control freak all the more clearly. The clash of wills throws things into a sort of sharp relief. And Clara's desire to control everyone and be in charge of everything is as plain as the wideness of her face!

But perhaps the most important development in Clara's character occurs when the Doctor appears to abandon her and she has to confront the leader of the androids all on her own. During that scene, our Impossible Girl truly becomes a fully-fledged companion. She can stand on her own two feet in a crisis, now. She doesn't need the Doctor to solve things. From a writer's standpoint, she can now propel the plot forward totally on her own if she needs to. There have been moments in Series Seven where she comes pretty close to doing this. Nightmare In Silver, for instance, has her acting quite independently for large chunks of time. But she is only mildly effective. She still needs the Doctor to get anything serious done. During that pivotal moment in Deep Breath, we get the sincere impression that she really could have kept talking her way out of the predicament. She doesn't truly need the Doctor to show up. And, if fact, when he does - he doesn't truly save her. He's just trapped with her, now. This really is the first time that Clara flies solo and really rocks at it. From this point, onward, we will continue to see moments such as these. Where Clara really can take care of herself, now and get things done without the Doctor holding her hand.

Of course, the Doctor taking her hand at the end of that sequence shows something important about the dynamic between them. Yes, he has changed. But he is still the Doctor who will always have her back. This isn't quite enough for Clara, though. She is still ready to leave him at the end of the story. It is only when Eleven makes that fateful phone call to her from the past that she can truly manage to accept this new Doctor. But once the call is made - she is able to let this stranger into her heart. The friendship between the Doctor and Clara can continue, now.


A NEW TRAIT STARTS EMERGING....

With everything now settled between Clara and Twelve, our Coal Hill teacher can settle back into her double-life quite comfortably. But a new development quickly presents itself: she meets Danny Pink. Bossy control freak that she is, she is quite comfortable pushing the relationship along as Danny stumbles and trips over himself over and over during Into the Dalek.

But as things start to heat up between the two of them, we start seeing a new character trait developing in our heroine. Certain that Danny won't accept her travels with the Doctor, she begins to try to find ways to cover up the experiences with lies. At first, she's not very good at it. In Listen, she does a terrible job of trying to explain away how she knows Danny's real name. But we see her really starting to hit her stride in The Caretaker.  It's only during In the Forest of the Night, when Danny finds irrefutable evidence that she is still travelling with the Doctor that she must truly come clean. Otherwise, Clara is doing a magnificent job as a liar.

Her new-found skill doesn't just help her with her relationship with Danny.  At the beginning of Death In Heaven, she lies up a storm to keep herself alive when the Cybermen have captured her. Their cold, logical brains really aren't sure if they've got the Doctor or not. This moment also echoes the confrontation in Deep Breath. It's another sequence where we see a Clara Oswald who can stand for herself if she needs to. But, this time, she uses deceit. She bluffs rather than calling out someone else's as she did when she confronted the leader of the androids beneath the restaurant. When she brags to Bonnie in Zygon Inversion about her magnificent skills as a liar, we more than believe her. We've seen the evidence.


OTHER IMPORTANT SERIES EIGHT DEVELOPMENTS...

The love story of Danny and Clara dominates Series Eight. But there are, at least, two other pivotal things that occur in the season that we definitely need to take note of:

LISTEN - After the big reveal in Name of the Doctor that Clara has been travelling through the Doctor's timeline as a sort of phantom that influences his lives over and over, she takes things one step further. In Listen, she accidentally uses the TARDIS to travel into the Doctor's childhood and actually helps to shape one of the most crucial decisions he will ever make. She hides under the bed in the barn he sometimes escapes to when he's crying himself to sleep and hints at a time when he will return to this barn as an adult. She tells him of an important decision he must face that day and that he needs to remember who he is and that the choice should not be made based on fear. She's referring to, of course, that scene in Day of the Doctor where he feels he must use the Moment to destroy the Daleks and Time Lords in order to save the Universe. Her mot precis may have saved the Doctor from making his worst mistake, ever. If Clara's status as The Ultimate Companion wasn't large enough, already - then the conclusion of Listen definitely cements it.

KILL THE MOON/MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - By the end of Deep Breath, Clara has accepted the fact that the Doctor is a colder man, now. That, ultimately, he's a good man - it's just harder to see that in this new incarnation. But at the conclusion of Kill The Moon, it becomes too hard to see that and Clara is now certain that she wants out. Mummy On The Orient Express becomes a sort of break-up story between Clara and Twelve. They're taking one last trip together and then calling it off. Or, at least, that's what it's meant to be. In many ways, none of us are fooled. We know the Doctor will, somehow, win her back and their travels will continue. But it still shows some interesting nuances to Clara's character. This new Doctor is a harder man to love and she accepts that. But she has her limits. The Doctor finds those limitis during this "rocky moment" in their friendship. But she also teaches Clara some important things about him. That, sometimes, he has to make difficult decisions and she needs to respect him for that. So what should have been a parting of the ways actually makes their friendship more solid.

It also, however, increases her skills as a liar. At the end of Mummy On The Orient Express, Clara starts fibbing to the Doctor, too. It doesn't take the Doctor long to figure it out, though. By Midway through Flatline, he's calling her out on the carpet. The quick reversal of roles, however, strengthens their relationship still further. They see that they are accountable to each other. The Doctor must curb his rudeness and Clara must watch how manipulative she can be. We also see Clara growing stronger and more independent as she must play the role of the Doctor throughout the bulk of the story. The breakthrough she has in Deep Breath manifests itself all the more, here. Clara is proud of herself and has every right to be. She is now capable of saving people just as well as the Doctor does.

There's also a very subtle moment during the Doctor's confrontation with the Boneless that we should touch upon. Watch how often they cut to the look on Clara's face as the Time Lord beats back the two-dimensional invaders. After a few episodes of facing difficult decisions, her heart is racing as she watches the Doctor stare down evil and defeat it at its core. She is convinced, in this moment, that the Doctor that she loves is still there.


LOSING DANNY...

And so we reach In The Forest Of The Night and the relationship between Danny and Clara reaches a crucial point. Danny discovers that Clara has been lying to him about travelling with the Doctor. Patient boyfriend that he is, he forgives her and asks that they have an important sit-down where she can tell him the proper truth of things.

We see the control freak at her best as she calls Danny on his way to her flat and tries to go through the whole process over the phone with a room full of flash cards. She is so scared of losing Danny that she is trying every possible strategy she can to keep him. As she confesses just how truly deep her love is for him (she admits to her love for the first time in The Caretaker - but, here, she proclaims that there is no one she will ever love again) the most horrific twist of fate occurs. She loses Danny.

A good chunk of the season finale involves Clara trying to get Danny back. Her first attempt is another example of a situation that should've ruined her friendship with the Doctor but, instead, enhances it. Betrayed to the very core, the Doctor still doesn't care that his best friend would do such a thing to him. We wonder if there has ever been a companion he has been this fond of.

Sadly, Clara never gets what she wants. She comes so close, several times, to saving Danny. But the soldier's sense of right and wrong, in the end, forces him to stay dead. Once more, we see Clara have to process a deep sense of loss in the same way that she did during Rings of Akhaten. This time, she learns to let go of Danny during a dream sequence in Last Christmas. She will remember him for five minutes every day. But, otherwise, she will get on with her life.

We also get the second "false parting of the ways" for Series 8. In an attempt to protect the other's feelings, the Doctor and Clara lie to each other at the end of Death In Heaven. Both try to claim that they have a better life awaiting them, now, and that they don't need to travel together anymore. Fortunately, they discover the truth in the next story and are re-united. All thanks to help of Santa Claus.

Clara's season reaches its conclusion.


SERIES 9

Some new arcs get introduced into Clara's story as we embark upon her latest and final season. The most important one being this deathwish that she seems to have developed. With Danny now gone, she has lost the will to live. Or, at the very least, she no longer fears death. She is reckless, now. As reckless as the Doctor. But, as the Doctor says himself, she's far more delicate. This reckless streak could become her undoing. And, inevitably, it does.

But we don't really start seeing this til the second story of the season. In Under The Lake, she is openly asking for danger and excitement as the TARDIS materializes in the underwater base. We continue to see this sort of spirit at work in Clara throughout the ensuing stories. Sometimes, it's only subtly hinted at. On other occasions (most specifically, Face The Raven) it becomes a serious problem.

But before all that can happen, we see something else of significance occur in Clara during The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar. Clara has gotten quite good at "playing the Doctor" during the last series. So much so, that UNIT actively seeks her as a consultant at the beginning of the story. As things progress, she does a great job standing up to Missy out on the terrace of the cafe. However, as Witch's Familiar ensues, Clara is seriously humbled by the Doctor's arch enemy/best friend.  Time and again, Missy manipulates her into all kinds of situations where the Time Lady exhibits total control over her. Our bossy control freak is brought to her knees as she must plead with the Doctor from inside a Dalek casing to save her. She learns the hard way that she might be good at playing the Doctor - but only the Doctor can truly be the Doctor.

Still, she does bounce back and starts showing more independence and strength as the season progresses. She, very much, takes charge of things at the underwater base in Before The Flood while the Doctor is busy messing around in the past. She shows that can she still get the Doctor to do what she wants in The Girl Who Died by convincing him to save the Vikings when he thinks he should just leave them to their fate.  And she has a most impressive battle of wills against Bonnie in The Zygon Inversion.

Missy may have taken Clara down a peg - but she is far from broken.


LOSING CLARA

But then we arrive at Face The Raven and Clara's recklessness reaches its ultimate conclusion. It's re-enforced quite heavily early on in the episode when Clara almost slides out of the TARDIS while it's hovering over London. Rigsy and the Doctor have a moment where they remark upon it. Both are concerned about her. They have reason to be.

It's nice in her final episode that the writer still remembers some of Clara's other prominent traits. When the young Janus girl who has been disguised as a boy doesn't want them to enter her home, Clara uses her skills with children to get them in. She might be a bossy control freak - but she has her gentler side, too. And it comes out the most when she's around kids.

As Clara takes the chronolock from Rigsy, her fate is sealed. She is sure that it will just buy them extra time to investigate the murder on the trap street but we know otherwise. All this flirting with danger that the young schoolteacher has been doing is finally catching up with her.

Clara makes an interesting admission in her final moments. She sees how she's become this way ever since she lost Danny. That, maybe, this is what she's wanted all along.

After a brave but tearful farewell, Clara faces the raven.


REFUSING TO LET CLARA GO

As we embark upon the final two episodes, we are under the impression that the Doctor is seeking revenge on the people responsible for Clara's death. But somewhere during Heaven Sent, he works out who is torturers are and adjusts his plans accordingly.

Seeing into the Doctor's "mind palace" gives us some interesting insights into who he is. We also see the full depth of his attachment to Clara. He escapes from all his predicaments by imagining how he tells her how he got out of them while hanging about in the console room, afterwards. It could be entirely possible that he does this with whoever his current companion is. But the strength of Clara's character truly shines through when she yells at him to accept her death and move on.The Doctor's memory of who she is and what she represents is so strong that he knows she would want him to do this. That he may want to give up - but she still needs him to win.

When the Doctor, at last, finds Gallifrey - he does not seem to care. He knows he's in a society that has the technology to bring back Clara and that's all that matters. The political fireworks that he initiates in Hell Bent is just one elaborate plan to get him to an extraction chamber so that he can save his best friend. But we become even more amazed when we learn that his resistance to reveal the identity of the Hybrid for over four billion years was all part of a long game he'd been playing to recover her. Has there been a companion that the Doctor has made a bigger sacrifice for?


EPILOGUE

As if it was some sort of divine punishment for breaking all his own rules, the Doctor loses his memories of Clara and must move on without her, after all. They have what appears to be a final meeting in the TARDIS/diner that Clara and Ashildr now control. It's a very sad wistful sequence that lays the whole story of the longest-serving companion in the New Series gently to rest.

Ultimately, Clara must return to the fate that awaits her at the end of Face The Raven. But she's currently in a fully-functioning TARDIS with someone else who is also immortal.

That wiggle room that she discusses with Me could go on for quite some time....



Missed part one? Here be the link: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/09/analytical-companion-retrospective.html