Doctor Who interview: Chris McKeon, writer of The Final Game and Time’s Champion

Featuring the Third Doctor, the Daleks and the Master, The Final Game is an ambitious tribute to Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado. We speak with its writer, Chris McKeon.

(Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

We chat with writer Chris McKeon on writing the audio adaptation of Doctor Who: The Final Game, recasting two iconic roles, and what we can expect in the future.

For many fans of Doctor Who, particularly the Classic Series, The Final Game is a bit legendary when it comes to unmade stories. Originally planned for Jon Pertwee’s era as the Third Doctor, the story was meant to be the final story for Roger Delgado’s Master.

When the Master was introduced in Pertwee’s second season, he quickly proved to be considerably popular. A key reason for this was because of Delgado himself. The first actor to ever play the Doctor’s archenemy, he gave the role a great deal of charm, style, and sophistication. But he never shied away from the more terrifying or menacing aspects of the character.

After appearing in many stories in the Third Doctor’s era, the production team had planned to give the Master a huge sendoff in The Final Game. Sadly, Delgado died in a sudden and tragic accident in 1973, so as a result, the story was never made.

Until now.

Since August last year, Black Glove Studio and Studio Severn have been releasing installments of Doctor Who: The Final Game. For fans of the Third Doctor’s era, the audio adaptation has been an extremely enjoyable one to listen to, acting as a huge tribute to both Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado.

The project has been entirely written by Chris McKeon. We were lucky enough to arrange an interview with him, and discussed not just the making of this ambitious project, but also his own take on the Sixth Doctor’s regeneration in the novel Time’s Champion, and what we can expect next.

The Final Game reveals the final battle between Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and Roger Delgado’s Master. What made Chris McKeon want to tell this story?

Image Courtesy Chris McKeon

Bringing The Final Game to life

Doctor Who Watch: What made you want to adapt The Final Game?

Chris McKeon: I decided to adapt The Final Game when the 100th anniversary of Roger Delgado’s birth arrived in 2018. I felt then how this was the best time to tell what would have been his final story as the Master, since fandom was aware of Delgado’s centennial and would be thinking about his lost, final story.

DWW: It’s certainly been a popular one for fans to speculate over. How did you go about adapting something that fans have known very little about for decades?

CM: Since there was no script or even a story outline, I had a near-clean slate to adapt the story. My starting point was the characters and deciding which ones were required for the story and which I wanted to include to strengthen it. For example, the Third Doctor, the Master, and Sarah Jane Smith are required for a story set during Season 11 of the Classic Series. From there, it makes sense to include UNIT characters, so the Brigadier joins the team, as well as Sgt Benton.

Since this is a story set at the end of Season 11, the first reaction is to exclude Mike Yates given his story arc of that portion of the era. But I saw an opportunity to explore his character and personal interactions in ways left uncharted onscreen in 1974, so he also appears. From there, I make the choices about which supporting monsters I want to include to drive the story conflict, and since when last seen the Master allied himself with the Daleks, it makes good sense to use them as a strong threat in the story.

Then I figure how to engage the audience with something less expected from the characters to spark the storyline, and so the Master’s arrival on Earth and surrender to UNIT is something that seems a good way to surprise and interest the audience. And the story goes from there…

DWW: What made you want to adapt The Final Game as an audio production instead of a novel?

CM: Good question! Current Doctor Who has many media for good stories, and outside of television the program has a large audio adventure audience. I felt that the best way to share The Final Game with the largest audience possible was to adapt the adventure to an audio format. Also, I decided that the best way to honor Roger Delgado’s memory was to produce a story where you could hear a vocal performance of his character, as well as the other characters from that era of Doctor Who.

Along with recasting the Third Doctor, McKeon also had the challenge of recasting Roger Delgado’s iconic Master.

Image Courtesy Chris McKeon

Recasting two iconic roles

DWW: Which neatly brings me to my next question. The Final Game features many strong performances, but the two that really stand out are Marshall Tankersley as the Doctor and Terry Cooper as the Master. Their performances are incredibly uncanny, and it’s extremely easy to picture both Pertwee and Delgado. Since they’re both so crucial to this story, how much of a challenge was it to cast both of those key roles?

CM: Marshall and Terry are miraculous in their performances! I knew before starting the casting that this story would rise or fall on the strength of its actors, and its two leads, the Doctor and the Master, had to be as close in vocal sound as possible to the original actors, Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado.

Marshall was very easy to find, in that when I did a YouTube search for Third Doctor impressions, I found a video he had posted sampling his impression of Pertwee’s Doctor. I’m very grateful he left good contact information and for how willing and available he was to participate!

Finding a voice for the Delgado Master was very difficult, but not for lack of wonderfully-talented voice actors. What I found is that while it is easy to find actors who can voice a wonderful “general” Master – meaning a voice who a listener can identify as “the Master” – it is extremely hard to find someone who sounds very much like Roger Delgado. Perhaps because the original actor has such a specific voice, and yet it is in many ways simply his own voice.

Thankfully, people who were helping me online to find actors to help suggested Terry Cooper, perhaps as the Brigadier, which was an unfilled role at the time. When I heard Terry’s speaking voice I quickly realized how close he was naturally to Roger Delgado’s voice.

When he agreed to audition, I arranged a Skype call with Marshall Tankersley to get his reaction to Terry’s impression. During the call, I could see Marshall and he could see me, but we could only hear Terry. When Terry began reading the Master’s lines from the provided scene, Marshall’s eyes went wide and we both smiled and shook with amazement!

After Terry left the call, I asked Marshall his opinion, and in an honestly moving moment, Marshall said: “It’s like Roger Delgado joined our Skype call.” And hearing Marshall, it was like Jon Pertwee was with us too. I knew then that Terry was the Delgado Master.

DWW: That’s fantastic. Especially hearing that Tankersley was so thrilled with it. Now, for the overall production and who else has worked to give us this story. Tell us a little bit about Black Glove Studio and Studio Severn.

CM: I really feel amazed and honored to work with Marshall, Terry, and the whole cast of The Final Game. Black Glove Studio is the group I started to recruit voice actors for the audio adventures I prepare and write. Studio Severn is the group run by Gareth Severn, who is an incredibly-talented vocal performer, sound designer, musician, and wonderfully nice guy!

Gareth also writes his own stories for audio, such as the 10th Doctor/Donna adventure Rebirth, for which the first part is available to hear on YouTube. Gareth has other audio adventures unrelated to Doctor Who, which he is currently developing, and his scripts are wonderful!

In 2008, Chris McKeon – in part with Craig Hinton – wrote Time’s Champion. We ask him what it was like working on such an ambitious novel.

(Image Courtesy: BBC Studios, BritBox.)

Time’s Champion

DWW: Speaking of other projects, I wanted to talk about one of the biggest ones you’ve worked on: the novel Time’s Champion. Handling the Sixth Doctor’s regeneration while also telling his final battle against the Valeyard was an equally huge story to tell. What was it like working on that?

CM: Goodness, working on Time’s Champion was an absolute joy! It was daunting and challenging, but still a joy. What made it daunting was the realization that I was entering almost totally uncharted territory within Doctor Who continuity: the exploration of the Valeyard’s character and the revelation of his origin. This was just before Big Finish released their stories featuring the Valeyard, so I had very little to use as reference for the character beyond the 1986 television adventures and some of the late Craig Hinton’s Sixth Doctor novels from the 1990s.

Even so, it was pure wonder to plan and write the story while approaching the enigma of the Valeyard, with the understanding that at the story’s end, the reader would know what he was and more of who he was.

What I found most surprising was my reaction as a writer to the character. I started with the intention to defeat the Valeyard, but by the end, I found him so tragic and lost that causing his defeat was, although necessary, very heartbreaking.

I found the Valeyard as someone who ultimately believes himself the hero of his own story, but the story is not even his own. This was a true tragedy, but a wondrous tragedy even so, and a true triumph for the Sixth Doctor, especially for his selfless reasons for regeneration.

DWW: Do you think you’ll revisit the novel at some point?

CM: I am certain to return to the novel in the future because I have already begun exploring an audio adaptation for Time’s Champion, and one which will reveal a few more corners of Gallifrey’s history, such as the creation of the Matrix, the Time Lords of the Dark Times, and how the Master knows of the Valeyard’s identity.

The last episode of The Final Game gave us a huge cliffhanger. How will this ambitious series end?

Image Courtesy Chris McKeon

The finale – What to expect

DWW: Well that definitely sounds exciting! Now, back to The Final Game. This is something you’ve been working on for quite a long time now. With the seventh and final episode due soon, how does it feel knowing that this ambitious project is nearing its completion?

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CM: With the conclusion of The Final Game near after two years of production, I feel very humbled and joyful to see this story emerge as a finished event. I feel joyful to have met and worked with so many wonderful people in the cast, and I feel honored to produce a tribute to Roger Delgado, as well as Jon Pertwee since his own centennial passed during the production of this story. I really feel that we all have done not only fun for fans, but right and worthy to offer as a celebration to these actors’ legacies.

DWW: Final two questions: any hints of what we can expect from the final episode? And any idea of exactly when we can expect the finale to be released?

CM: For the final episode of The Final Game (pun intended!) you can expect to hear: how the Doctor resolves his moral dilemma of killing the Master; the grave danger facing a familiar character; how the Daleks encounter an unexpected opposition; a showdown between the Doctor and the Master glimpsed in some promotional material for The Day of the Doctor; a fitting callback to The Mind of Evil, and a re-evaluation of an impending regeneration. If all goes smoothly with the sound design for this episode, we can expect to hear The Final Game: Part Seven released by late May or early June.

All of this sounds fantastic, and we’re very eager at Doctor Who Watch to hear the final episode of this extremely well-made adaptation. If you haven’t listened to The Final Game yet, make sure to check it out on Studio Severn’s YouTube channel. Once again: massive thanks to Chris McKeon for taking part in this interview!