Doctor Who mythology: Did the Master hear the sound of drums in the Classic Series?

The New Series era of Doctor Who revealed that major enemy the Master had been hearing the sound of drums across all their lives. But does that mean that they heard it during the Classic Series?

With the major villain celebrating their 50th anniversary in less than a week, it seemed to be as good a time as any to look at the history of the Master. We know that, like the Doctor, they’ve had many faces and many lives. (Not all of them through regeneration, either.) We know that, no matter how they are in terms of personality – calculated or manic, serious or fun-loving – they are always dangerous and psychotic.

There is one other thing that we know about the Master. Ever since they were a child, they heard the sound of drums in their head. Maybe this sound ended after The End of Time, maybe it didn’t. But we know that every incarnation up to and including John Simm’s Master heard it. Right?

Well, that’s the interesting thing. The “sound of drums” is a relatively recent invention for the character. While some fans may have been surprised that neither Michelle Gomez’s nor Sacha Dhawan’s Masters ever mentioned hearing the drums, the fact is that this is true of most Masters. In fact, despite the revelation that the Master had been hearing this sound since childhood, there’s actually no hint of him hearing any such sound in the Classic Series at all.

Now, the simplest explanation is that the sound of drums is just a retcon of the show’s mythology by Russell T Davies. But could there be more to it than that?

The Untempered Schizm

One thing we need to look at is the origin of the sound. We know that the Master had been hearing it since childhood when he looked into the Untempered Schizm on Gallifrey. More importantly, we know that the sound itself is nothing more than a tiny signal – a link for Gallifrey to escape from the Time War, or at least, to break the time lock on it.

This is something that’s rather crucial. The Master’s personal history was directly affected by the Time War in a big way. In fact, from the High Council’s perspective, they didn’t send the signal back into the Master’s history until the end of the Time War.

There are two possibilities with this. It could be that the sound of drums was always part of the Master’s history. We know that in Doctor Who, there are bootstrap paradoxes – time remaining fixed, with the past and the future intertwined, unable to be changed. But, at the same time, we also know that “time can be rewritten”. Was the Master’s history one of those times?

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Rewriting history?

If the Master of the Classic Series had never heard the sound of drums – not until their own history was changed in the Time War – then it would make sense. As mentioned, none of the earlier incarnations had even mentioned hearing any sound at all. It could be that they were keeping quiet about it. But considering that Simm’s incarnation kept making a huge deal out of hearing it, that seems a little unlikely. His own history being changed by the Time War – even in a small way – would account for this.

It would also fit with the Master’s timeline, too. Taken from the perspective of Gallifrey and the Time Lords in The End of Time, the Master had already fled from the war to the end of the universe and disguised himself as a human. It would be during this time that the Master’s history would be significantly altered. Not enough to change who he is, at least not on a fundamental level. But enough to push him in the direction that Gallifrey wanted. This would explain why Derek Jacobi’s incarnation is the first Master to be shown hearing “the sound of drums”.

The path to evil

This brings me to my last point. Whether they’d heard the sound of drums or not, it’s likely that there were other reasons for the Master becoming evil. After all, while he’d heard the sound during his first incarnation, he and the Doctor had been friends for quite a while on Gallifrey. It’s unlikely that he became completely evil just because of a noise in his head.

Other explanations have been given for his journey into darkness. David A. McIntee wrote such an example for the 1997 Second Doctor novel The Dark Path. In 2003, Joseph Lidster wrote a very different explanation in the Seventh Doctor audio Master, where it was revealed that the cause of the Master’s evil was as a direct consequence of one of the Doctor’s earliest mistakes.

So did the Master hear the sound of drums in the Classic Series? All we can say is “maybe”. In a series like Doctor Who – where time really can be rewritten – the Master never hearing a sound that he’d heard all his life is definitely a strong possibility.

What do you think? Do you think the Master heard the sound of drums in the Classic Series? Or was his own history simply retconned? Let us know in the comments below.