Doctor Who: How Dust Breeding helped to shape some major mythology

Dust Breeding follows Mike Tucker’s earlier Seventh Doctor and Ace story The Genocide Machine, and features one or two returning characters…

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

In 2001, the Doctor was reunited with an old enemy. We look back on Dust Breeding, how it featured a brilliant surprise, and how it helped to shape Doctor Who mythology over the past two decades.

It’s strange to look back on the audio Dust Breeding. Over eighteen years old, on the surface, the story doesn’t look like anything major. But, along with bringing back a major villain, it would also turn out to be a key audio that would shape a great deal of Big Finish’s mythology for Doctor Who.

The story itself is a bit of an odd one. Written by Mike Tucker, Dust Breeding begins with the Doctor planning to “rescue” a painting and add to his own personal art collection – a collection filled with paintings and artifacts that he’s happened to “rescue” when they were supposed to have been destroyed. The latest painting he plans to obtain is The Scream by Edvard Munch, which is apparently meant to disappear on the planet Duchamp 331 in “mysterious circumstances”…

Dust Breeding follows Mike Tucker’s earlier Seventh Doctor and Ace audio The Genocide Machine, with Louise Faulkner reprising her role of Bev Tarrant. It’s also in some ways a sequel to the novel Storm Harvest, which he co-wrote with Robert Perry.

There are a number of odd or eccentric characters in this story. One character that stands out is Madame Salvadori. Played by Caroline John – best known to Doctor Who fans for her role of Liz Shaw – Salvadori is clearly someone who’s used to both money and to getting her own way. And she doesn’t seem too worried about using morals to do that.

But the biggest standout character is definitely Seta. Played by Geoffrey Beevers, he really brings a sinister edge to the villain he plays. Like Caroline John, he’s also known for another role in Doctor Who. However, unlike John, there’s a key (and very spoiler filled) reason for that…

Geoffrey Beevers has played the Master on audio many times, including the excellent story Mastermind. But his return to the role in Dust Breeding came as a surprise to many in 2001.

(Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions)

A key surprise

If you’re aware of who Beevers has played before and who he’s played since for Big Finish, then you’ll probably have worked out the key twist already. However, back in 2001, the return of the Master was actually a genuine surprise.

The fact that Beevers was involved wasn’t a huge indication – after all, at this point, Big Finish often cast key actors in new roles all the time, and Beevers had only played the Master once before on television, in The Keeper of Traken. So his casting wasn’t the big giveaway that it appears to be now, even when his full “alias” is given as “Mr. Seta”. (Unsurprisingly, Big Finish left out the “Mr.” part when crediting the character, so that the anagram was considerably less obvious.)

Apparently, Big Finish did want the considerably more recognizable Anthony Ainley to resume his old role with this story. Unfortunately, an agreement couldn’t be reached, and Geoffrey Beevers was brought back instead.

However, this turned out to be a huge gain, both for Big Finish and for fans. Because it allowed a new and fresh appreciation to form for Beevers’s distinctive interpretation. Unsurprisingly, his Master was effectively overshadowed once Ainley took over on television, but Beevers was himself brilliant in the role, and so it was great to hear him play the iconic character once more. While he only played the role once more in 2003 – before the villain had almost a decade long absense from Big Finish – it was with Dust Breeding that his version of the character was brought back, at least.

The story of the Master’s struggle for survival has been explored for a long time. But has recent audio Planet of Dust revealed the end of that story?

(Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions)

Beginning a major storyline

And that’s something else that’s important. In this story, the Doctor and the Master aren’t simply meeting out of order, as they would later do in quite a few Big Finish stories. Instead, this story reveals that the body that the Master had previously possessed – Nyssa’s father Tremas played by Ainley – had been effectively separated from him and destroyed, reducing him to his previously decayed state.

This is a particularly major storyline. Across many audios over the years, particularly Mastermind, it would be revealed that – no matter who the Master possessed – the Beevers incarnation would be who the possessed body would inevitably revert to.

Now, after 2007, we knew that the Master would find a way to regenerate properly again. We were even introduced to his subsequent incarnation in 2012 with Alex Macqueen’s Master. We just didn’t know how.

More from Winter is Coming

• For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
• Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
• Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
• Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
• Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”

The beginning and the end

Recently, the end of Beevers’s Master was explored in Ravenous 4, particularly within Planet of Dust. I can’t help but suspect that title’s a nod to the story that brought back Beevers’s Master in the first place. If it is, it’s quite an appropriate one.

If I’m honest, Dust Breeding isn’t one of my favorite stories. While some of the characters are great, others not so much. (The mad artist Damien, who has quite a significant role in this story, comes across as more annoying and frustrating rather than threatening.)

But Dust Breeding is still enjoyable, particularly in how it handles the return of the Master. The cliffhanger to part two is still effective, and Beevers himself returns to the role so easily. Considering it had been twenty years since he had last played it, that’s quite impressive. And hearing him opposite McCoy gives us some truly great scenes.

For both bringing in a major villain into the audios and for creating an arc that lasted for almost two decades, Dust Breeding is undoubtedly an essential listen for Doctor Who fans.

Have you listened to Dust Breeding? Do you think it reintroduced Beevers’s Master well? What do you think of Beevers’s take on the character? Let us know in the comments below.