Doctor Who parallels: The Keeper of Traken/Utopia – the Master’s return

The Keeper of Traken was a huge story, featuring the Master’s return after a very long gap. And, as we all know, this wasn’t the only time the character made a shocking reappearance…

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

With both The Keeper of Traken and Utopia, we look at two very different approaches in Doctor Who to the same key idea: in this case, the return of the Master.

Re-watching Tom Baker’s penultimate serial, The Keeper of Traken, I was suddenly reminded of another Doctor Who story. One very different, in some ways, but at the same time, also featured a similar story element. The episode was Utopia. The key idea it shared with Traken? The Master’s surprise return.

Like I said, in some ways, they’re two very different stories. The Fourth Doctor adventure is about a dangerous evil corrupting a peaceful empire. The Tenth Doctor’s story was about a group of humans trying to survive the very end of the universe.

But it’s interesting looking at both stories and their approaches to the same twist. In both cases, the Master’s return is revealed very late in the story. After being hidden inside a TARDIS disguised as a creature called Melkur, the Master’s true form is only revealed to the audience (but not the Doctor) at the end of Traken‘s third episode.

In Utopia, it’s only revealed about half an hour into the story that Professor Yana is really the Master. Or, at least initially, another Time Lord. Even after he opens the fob watch containing his real self, he still takes a couple of minutes to truly reveal himself as the Master. (But we all knew. The sound clips of previous Master’s voices was a pretty big clue, at least for Classic Series fans.)

Setting up the next incarnation

Even more interesting is that, while both stories feature new actors playing the role of the Master, they’re essentially only really there to introduce the real new Master. Don’t get me wrong, both Geoffrey Beevers and Derek Jacobi are fantastic Masters in their own right. But unfortunately, they didn’t get much screen time.

Beevers played the disfigured incarnation that Peter Pratt originally played in The Deadly Assassin about half a decade previously, so the incarnation had already been established, at least. But The Keeper of Traken is Beevers’s only on-screen performance in the role, with Anthony Ainley taking over the part in the story’s final moments.

Likewise, Derek Jacobi’s Master only had Utopia. And technically, he didn’t even have the whole episode. For most of the time, he was playing Professor Yana, who had no idea of who he really was. It’s only in the last ten minutes that Jacobi gets to play the full evilness of the character, before getting shot by Chantho and regenerating into John Simm.

Opposite transitions

So in both cases, an old Master was introduced to lead into the new one. While Jacobi had never played the role before this episode, (well, with the exception of the non-canon Scream of the Shalka,) his Master embodied a lot of clear traits that some of the older incarnations had, such as having a sense of class and pure malevolence. These traits are clearly meant to be a contrast to Simm’s more manic and fun-loving incarnation.

Oddly enough, the transition from Beevers to Ainley goes in almost the opposite direction. While the disfigured Master was hardly similar to Simm’s, he was also very different to Delgado’s incarnation. Delgado’s Master was evil, but he was also polite and surprisingly charming, too. His successor, on the other hand, was far more openly vicious and cruel.

But it’s clear that, with Ainley sporting a goatee and being more polite than his previous incarnation, there was essentially an attempt at replicating the success of Delgado, to some extent. And honestly, I’m not sure that was the best way to go.

While Ainley’s Master was great in his first couple of stories, later ones weren’t quite as strong. The writers tried hard to capture the success of Delgado at times while failing to understand what made his Master so fantastic in the first place.

A stronger approach?

Out of the two stories, which had the biggest impact? Which had the better approach overall?

While I do love The Keeper of Traken and thought it brought back the Master very well, the Master’s return in Utopia is just about perfect. Even when we basically knew that John Simm had to be playing the Doctor’s greatest enemy, and even when there were rumors that Derek Jacobi was playing the part as well, the actual reveal itself was still a huge shock.

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That was mainly down to how much the writing helped to set up the twist in plain sight. Particularly with the character of Yana, who seemed like such a sweet and genuinely kind character that it was hard to imagine how he possibly could be one of the most evil Time Lords who ever lived. Until Yana got out his fob watch…

While Derek Jacobi’s incarnation was far too short-lived on-screen, there was no question that he was still magnificent in the role. And, I must admit, seeing the Master finally regenerate was incredibly satisfying. Despite being another Time Lord himself, we had actually never seen that happen before. (The closest thing we had seen to a regeneration for the villain was the ending of The Keeper of Traken, where Beevers’s incarnation possessed the character of Tremas.)

The Keeper of Traken did handle the Master’s return brilliantly, I must say. That story features a couple of iconic moments, and the revelation of the Master’s return at the end of part three is especially brilliant.

But Utopia features one of the greatest shock returns in Doctor Who history, and one that’s still hard to beat. After a gap of over a decade since his last appearance, the Master’s return in this story was exactly as amazing as it needed to be.

Which return of the Master do you prefer? Do you think Geoffrey Beevers or Derek Jacobi were underused? Let us know in the comments below.