Masterology Part 5 – Hello You & The Professor

Gustaff Behr continues the series examining each incarnation of the Master.

• Catch-up on part one of this article here.
• Catch-up on part two of this article here.
• Catch-up on part three of this article here.
• Catch-up on part four of this article here.

This is the part where I’m supposed to do the whole ‘intro’ paragraph thing. The Master. Rival Time Lord. Arch enemy of the Doctor. But you know all that already. Instead, let’s get to the fun stuff. “Masterology” is the study of the Master, focusing in-depth on each of the various incarnations, chronology, aims and a psychological personality deconstruction of the multiple bodies, specifically concerning psychoanalytical, behavioural and social-cognitive perspectives. Sounds fun eh? Let’s continue with…

Hello You – Alex MacQueen

The MacQueen Master was the first incarnation of the Master after acquiring his new regenerative cycle. A theatrical attention seeker, this Master incorporated the strongest aspects of all his previous incarnations to become an intellectual megalomaniac, master schemer who used genuinely polite mannerisms to enhance his evil.

On the surface, this Master was a lot like the Sixth Doctor in the ego department. He had the ‘stop-what-you’re-doing-and-only-pay-attention-to-me’ personality about him. He was very condescending and sarcastic in his replies to people. The MacQueen Master, now with a lot of new lives breathed into him, showed a radical change by being particularly more willing to go into dangerous – even hostile – situations than his other incarnations. This highlights how little he has to fear now given his new lease on life. He not only made deals with the Eminence and the Daleks for universal domination, but he also showed signs of extreme anti-obedience syndrome and unwarranted arrogance, openly and casually mocking both his allies while fully aware that they could kill him anytime they wanted. He seemed unable to see or reluctant to care that while still a Time Lord, his body and life was still frail compared to the fire power of those around him.

This form was perhaps the most practical of all his incarnations past and future. He showed a dangerously high genre savviness of his surroundings that made this incarnation extremely hyper-competent in battle. His plans were meticulous, and like his Beevers incarnation, this Master liked to plan for every possible obstacle, but instead of waiting for the contingency to be activated by his opponents, this Master openly went out of his way to close off those obstacles beforehand. Savvy remember? Defeating this Master was usually down to pot luck or this incarnation’s overconfidence which seemed to take off like a rocket only after he’d come out on top.

While every Master has showed a degree of disrespect for the workings of time travel and the timelines in general, this Master surpassed all others with his brazen attitude towards it, citing that he would simply use his TARDIS to cross his own timeline and try to achieve the same plan that just failed once more without any concern for the paradoxes or personal dangers involved in doing so. Additionally, this Master had no qualms about the paradoxes involved should he kill the Seventh Doctor after already coming off of a fight with his Eighth incarnation (TV Movie) and indirectly being responsible for the former’s regeneration into the latter as well as that event starting a chain that would eventually lead to the creation of this current incarnation.

This Master was also unorthodox in his malice. While he was no different than most Masters when it came to killing, he was more interested in being ‘pointlessly cruel’ and very spiteful, opting to humiliate and punish his opponents especially after he’d bested them. He preferred to let others believe they’d defeated him before turning the tides and took great pleasure in emotionally humiliating them after he took back control, revealing that he had never actually lost it.

Much like the Seventh Doctor, this Master preferred to set up the dominos and then watch them fall. He wanted to wield an army, but unlike most of his other incarnations, he was just too lazy to build one up himself, instead letting others do the ‘work’ before sweeping in and stealing everything.

The eventual regeneration from Alex MacQueen to Derek Jacobi is unseen and popular fan theory insists that the former is simply a younger version of the latter. Given the MacQueen Master’s dangerously savvy nature, common sense and logic provide radical contradictions personality wise.

The Master mentioned going into hiding out of fear in The Sound of Drums whilst the War Doctor is given the task of locating him in the novel Engines of War, but being unsuccessful. As touched upon, it wouldn’t have been in the MacQueen Master’s style to just wipe his own Time Lord memories as his face would still be recognizable to whoever eventually was sent to locate him. Given how careful this Master was, it makes more sense to instigate a voluntary regeneration, change his whole body and then remove his memories – in theory creating the perfect disguise. In his own words, a disguise so perfect he himself would forget who he really was.

After the Doctor accidentally helped Professor Yana unlock his Time Lord heritage after many many years, the Master took full control again and while short lived in his awakened persona, this Master still managed to give the Doctor and his friends a run for their money.

The Professor – Derek Jacobi

Most of the Jacobi Master persona remained hidden so it’s difficult to do a full breakdown, but there are still plenty of elements that bubbled to the surface during his short tenure. For one thing, this Master was extremely aggressive towards his assistant after regaining his memories, citing that her constant cultural ticks drove him insane during their time together. He was abusive, smug and condescending, citing that since he was the one provoked, he now had the right to defend himself. Like his Roberts incarnation, this Master favored killing methodologies that were extreme and that pointed to a personality favoring mutilation and intense agony. He enjoyed causing as much pain as he could. This is a very vindictive mindset, as well as highly sadistic.

A notable character tick of this Master was his blatant misogyny. He considered it an embarrassment to be defeated by a woman and was shown to be humiliated by the mere thought of it. He was also very dramatic, welcoming his upcoming regeneration in a grandiose fashion, despite being in pain.

Worth noting is that this Master came the closest of any incarnation (past and future) to actually killing the Doctor and within seconds of being reborn too. He managed to unleash a Futurekind epidemic, trap the Doctor in the distant future and steal his TARDIS. If it wasn’t for Jack’s Vortex Manipulator, it’s clear that this Master would’ve come out victorious.

After fatally injuring his assistant Chantho, she shot the Master in the heart in her last moments and he regenerated into a much younger form, stealing the Doctor’s TARDIS and escaped to London in the early 21st century.

Join me next month when we examine the Master as portrayed by John Simm.