Doctor Who Superlatives: Most Underused Character – The Master

Doctor Who // BBC

Our next Doctor Who superlative goes to The Master (John Simm) for ‘Underused Character’ of season 10!

We’re taking another break this week to give out a superlative to a character. And it goes to “Most Underused” and it goes to John Simm’s Master!

The issue with how the Masters were used in the final episodes ended up being a large sore spot for the fans. But especially, the Master played by John Simm. While I wrote an article about how he was actually used a significant amount in World Enough and Time, the character himself was very much underused.

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The Master spent most of his time as Razor in the penultimate episode of the season, and then was mainly used for either comedic relief or the tragic death of Missy in The Doctor Falls. Talk about two different ends of the spectrum! We got to see the Master do what he does best, manipulate people for his own gain. But had we not known Simm was coming back, it would have really felt like we barely saw him!

So, if he was in two episodes, how was he underused?

He was underused because The Master’s storyline wasn’t used, in my opinion, to the fullest. Anytime a character like the Master comes back, it seems like there should be multiple episodes surrounded by the character. He should have been used throughout the second half of the season.

It shouldn’t have been him in disguise until the last three minutes of World Enough and Time. We should have heard knocking (even though that was fixed, apparently). We should have had Missy realize something was wrong. It was her time stream that was getting out of place! And definitely, he should have had some kind of cameo at the end of Eaters of Light to get us ready for the episodes.

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Was he underused? It depends on your definition. If you wanted to see “The Master” in all his goatee-glory, then yes, he was absolutely underused. If you’re okay with the fact that we only saw him in costume and then not much in The Doctor Falls, he was used pretty well.

But for the sake of this superlative, we’re going to say he was underused.