Doctor Who has already presented us with a female Master in print, but would series 8 be so bold as to introduce this concept? Christopher Morley examines the evidence.
The Master, as we all know, has got himself into many a scrape- Harvest Of Time finding him in perhaps the biggest pile of temporal doo-doo he'll ever face. While he has a little help from his new ' allies', the Sild, in breaking free of UNIT confinement ( Alastair Reynolds' story set after The Sea Devils), they're not entirely sympathetic to his cause- seeking to use his mind to conquer the entirety of time & space. You'd think he might have learned not to go making friends like that after the collapse of similar arrangements with the Nestene Consciousness ( Terror Of The Autons ) & the Axons ( The Claws Of Axos ).
The Master, as we all know, has got himself into many a scrape- Harvest Of Time finding him in perhaps the biggest pile of temporal doo-doo he'll ever face. While he has a little help from his new ' allies', the Sild, in breaking free of UNIT confinement ( Alastair Reynolds' story set after The Sea Devils), they're not entirely sympathetic to his cause- seeking to use his mind to conquer the entirety of time & space. You'd think he might have learned not to go making friends like that after the collapse of similar arrangements with the Nestene Consciousness ( Terror Of The Autons ) & the Axons ( The Claws Of Axos ).
But it seems he
didn't pay a jot of attention. The Third Doctor & Jo Grant,
meanwhile, are called in to investigate a rapidly accelerating
mystery on an oil rig in the North Sea. Some of the crew have been
acting strangely, & severe weather fluctuations are being
reported...interestingly enough the lady in charge of the operation
could be a descendant of a former companion! Step forward Edwina
Eddie' McCrimmon...
Part of the
Sild's plan is to rewrite time- which might explain how everyone at
UNIT, including the Brigadier, is starting to forget all about their
dastardly prisoner. He won't enjoy his freedom all that long, though.
For when he & the Doctor leave Earth well behind to see for
themselves the destruction the Sild have wreaked on another world
he's got a surprise coming! All his incarnations/bodies save for the
one he's currently inhabiting are being kept as unconscious
prisoners, including one who looks like ' a politician'...
Its implied that
he has control over his post-regenerative appearance, too. Which
would explain how his wish to be ' young & strong' was granted
after a fatal shot from Chantho in Utopia!
And perhaps just to mess with things, one of the others is a
woman.....heresy, or a progressive hint towards the future? The
casting of Keeley Hawes as Mrs Delphox in Episode 5 of Series 8,
rumoured to be titled Time Heist
( written by Steve Thompson) could after all serve as the
introduction to such a lady Master. So either Reynolds knows
something we don't, or he's just having a little fun toying with us-
though its not exactly impossible that ' Delphox' is simply an alias
cooked up to hide her true identity from the Twelfth Doctor until
exactly the right moment of revelation.
What better way
to really shake things up? And it would be in keeping with the '
wait, what?' nature of certain past surprises in New-Who.
Remember 'Rose Tyler is the Bad Wolf' & Ten's sort-of
regeneration that still counted as one, not to mention ' River Song
is Amy & Rory's daughter'? The reveal of Hawes as Ms Master would
have the potential to trump the lot. And its not as if hiding his
identity hasn't been done before! Perhaps most obviously in his
dealings with the Third Doctor ( starting the trend by adopting
aliases drawn from the use of the word ' Master' in some other
permutation, Colonel Masters the most obvious example). Then there's
' Master in another language/tongue' ( Reverend Magister making good
use of Latin) or ' Master of disguise' ( his campy costume as 'Kalid'
in Time-Flight).
'Delphox' would
surely be his/her greatest veil yet, though. The scene would then be
set for the two old friends/foes to resume their battles- Hawes
hopefully having been sat down & made to watch all of Season 8 of
Classic Who in a bid
to inject some menace into her. It could at least prove the perfect
tonic to all the ' Charles Dance for the new Master'
speculation/hype. In a further twist, she could actually prove to be
what Derek Jacobi was to John Simm- his 'Professor Yana' Master
acting as a foil for the introduction of another new body into the
role. Imagine the surprise factor- the Hawes Master is somehow killed
off & begins to regenerate, revealing none other than Charles
Dance ( or whoever else is in mind to play the role, though there is
a lot of support for the Game Of Thrones man,
Steve John Shepherd mentioned as another possible candidate).
Could the
Hawes/Dance Masters also have access to Type 44 TARDISes? Just how
different they are from the old faithful Type 40 isn't really
explored by Reynolds, though the Third Doctor ( from whom,
incidentally, Peter Capaldi appears to have taken rather a lot of
inspiration) does at least tell us that this newer model has a '
charged vacuum resonator'. Makes things a lot clearer, no?
In keeping with
the spirit of Season 8, Harvest Of Time
really does feel as if it would have been a perfect addition to the
televised first run of Doctor-Master tangles. The spirit of both
rivalry & great respect for each other's intellect runs
throughout, just as well on the page as in telly-land. Indeed at
times its almost as if the author has simply taken his own TARDIS off
to sit in on Pertwee-era script meetings!
Could the next
step be for him to be invited to write for the series itself? After
all, several authors have been invited to contribute to New-Who
since the reboot ( Neil Gaiman the obvious example, having written
both The Doctor's Wife
& Nightmare In Silver
for the Eleventh) and with Reynolds's understanding/fandom of the
Third Doctor's time rivalling Peter Capaldi & indeed Mark Gatiss
( whom it should be noted started out writing for Who
novel ranges. Last Of The Gaderene
something of a labour of love, his pen also behind the likes of The
Roundheads & St
Anthony's Fire).
And in dangling
the possibility of a future female Master before us, Alastair could
just have sparked quite a debate! As we've outlined above, there
could be a real clamour for such an experiment- Keeley Hawes
potentially taking on quite a mantle. Could she pull it off? A glance
at selected examples of her body of work should prove that if chosen,
she could take the Master in new & interesting directions...
Perhaps she & Capaldi's Doctor could build on the Gene Hunt-Alex Drake dynamic of Ashes To Ashes, thrown into the mix with a little Pertwee- Delgado.
Perhaps she & Capaldi's Doctor could build on the Gene Hunt-Alex Drake dynamic of Ashes To Ashes, thrown into the mix with a little Pertwee- Delgado.
Of course there
will be ' traditionalists' who would most likely scoff at the notion
of the Master as a member of the fairer sex. But no less than Steven
Moffatt himself has said the programme needs to change- just listen to him talking to Alan Yentob at the Hay Arts Festival.
If the Doctor can be played by anyone- presumably including a lady,
if the right one came along- then why not the Master?
If you have an
opinion on the issue, add your voice to the debate! After all Ms
Hawes is only one possible candidate for the role among the confirmed Series 8 guest stars, there's also the recently announced Michelle Gomez who could fit the part. But is there an actress
you'd love to see handed the chance to take up the Master's laser
screwdriver?
