Doctor Who: The War Master – Why the ending needed to be made first
By James Aggas
The first volume of Doctor Who spin-off The War Master was in some ways the ending of the series. But why did it need to be made first?
We’re currently just weeks (maybe even days?) away from the release of the latest box set in The War Master series, Rage of the Time Lords. I’m hugely excited for this release. The War Master is currently one of my favorite ongoing Doctor Who spin-offs, and I loved both of the first two volumes for very different reasons.
One thing that’s interesting about the series is that the first volume, Only the Good, is actually the end of the series, chronologically speaking. While it’s exciting that we’re continually discovering more of the devious schemes and manipulations that Derek Jacobi’s incarnation of the Master got up to during the Time War, the first box set explicitly reveals the events that lead into Utopia, the incarnation’s only on-screen appearance.
Considering that this is distinctly the ending of his story, why would it be revealed so early? The most likely reason is former showrunner Russell T Davies.
In Utopia, Professor Yana revealed he had been found as a child. Did this present a problem when creating a series featuring Derek Jacobi’s incarnation?
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
The baby problem
In issue 519 of Doctor Who Magazine, director and producer of the series Scott Handcock revealed that initially, Davies wasn’t very keen on the idea.
"I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that he initially went, ‘But Derek Jacobi wasn’t the Master in the Time War – he was found as a baby on the shores of the Silver Devastation!’"
In Human Nature, the Doctor had memories of growing up on Earth as John Smith. These memories were clearly a fiction, but the same wasn’t apparently true of the Master’s memories, at least according to Davies. Thankfully, Handcock was able to work with him so that a story solution could be reached.
"We had long discussions about how it all fits in, and Russell came back and went, ‘Yep, absolutely, that all makes sense!’ So the story that we tell with [Only the Good] goes together with everything that we saw on TV, and it’s something that Russell himself quite liked the idea of when we suggested it to him."
Honestly, it’s not surprising that Davies approved of the idea once they found a way to make it work. Because why wouldn’t you want Derek Jacobi to play the Master in a full-on series?
Simple solution
So Big Finish made the first box set to reveal how the War Master became Professor Yana in the TV series. Not just for Russell T Davies, but also I suspect, for the fans who would’ve been equally curious as to how it was possible. Surprisingly, the solution was pretty simple.
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The end of The Heavenly Paradigm explores the events that John Simm’s Master had mentioned in The Sound of Drums – the Master running away from the Time War after he saw the Dalek Emperor take control of something called “the Cruciform”. The Master arrives at the end of the universe, he makes his TARDIS take off without him automatically, we hear him use the Chameleon Arch…and then we hear a baby crying.
So it’s as simple as that. Nothing too complicated, just the reveal that the Chameleon Arch can change a Time Lord’s physical age as well as their species. Like I said, it’s simple, but it’s definitely effective.
So that’s how the War Master went from being the ruthless Time Lord that he was to the genuinely kind Professor Yana in Utopia. We now know where Yana came from.
But what else did the Master get up to during the Time War? What happened when he met the Eighth Doctor? And why won’t the Doctor remember this incarnation when they meet again in Utopia? I can’t wait to find out when Rage of the Time Lords is released.
Next. How Big Finish helped to make the Eighth Doctor my Doctor. dark
Are you glad that we now have a series featuring Derek Jacobi as the Master? Were you hesitant about the idea because of what had previously been established in Utopia? Do you think the explanation of where Professor Yana came from works? Let us know in the comments below.
