War Master: He could watch an entire city burn to the ground with barely a flicker of concern but he only has to hear the opening bars of Dido’s lament and he’s in floods as tears. Does he really want the respect of the Time Lords? Does he really want them to sing songs about him in the Capitol as the man who saved Gallifrey? Just when the Doctor thinks he has seen the worst of the Master, he always manages to sink even lower. He had almost forgotten that there were times when he and the Doctor were friends and worked together. His ultimate aim is to use the Rage to reshape the universe in his image. The Rage is his ‘Master’piece. Even at his worst there is still some good in him. The Doctor and the Master are the perfect balance, the darkness and the light.
The Doctor: The Mater has come to the conclusion that the universe is far more interesting with the Doctor in it. I can’t help but think that if he had an opposing view and killed him for good that he might actually see one of his plans through to fruition. This might be one of the idler uses of the Doctor I have witnessed in some time. He does all the right things, says all the right things but it is all pitched at such a predictable level (he and the Master circle around each other, spit insults, I’m going to stop you, I’d like to see you try, I was always better at Gallifreyan hockey, I copped off with the Rani and you didn’t etc, etc) and lacked the sort of fireworks I imagined by bringing these two great actors together. The Doctor is there to witness the apotheosis of the Master’s great scheme and then to show terrific surprise when that isn’t what he was really up to…and then is in place to defeat him (not by doing anything especially clever, just because that’s what the Doctor does). It’s a lethargic use of the character. And it’s as if McGann knows because it’s not his greatest performance either. I wish the Doctor would just quietly tell the Master ‘look mate, you always lose, your plans always backfire, someone betrays you, your allies turn their backs on you, you miss a vital part in your plan…why don’t you just not bother. Save face.’ The Master knows a darker flame burns inside the Doctor.
Standout Performance: It’s difficult to write a script that trips up
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It’s monstrous. You are playing with the laws of nature as if they were a child’s toys. What gives you the right to do this? To conjure life into existence simply to use it as a weapon?’
‘Gallifrey will never defeat the Daleks with nothing but good intentions and two bleeding hearts!’
Great Ideas: Rassilon might have discovered the secret of immortality but the Master has created life itself. The Rage is a distillation of over 500 species, taking specific qualities from each one. Chief amongst those qualities is rage. A despite to destroy. The War Council agreed to this in principle because they wanted something, anything that would win them the War. The Time Lords have one catastrophic weakness when it comes to defeating the Daleks: compassion. A conscience. They need something as unsympathetic as a virus, all powerful. When put that way what the Master has been up to makes perfect sense. As usual it is over complicated and grandiose but it certainly makes sense of his actions in this set (never let it be said that the Master isn’t well motivated) and for specific purpose within the Time War. Thanks to the Doctor, the Rage has a little piece of Time Lord rage inside it. He hopes with time that because of that he will be able to control it in time. Fully matured it will have the ability to bend matter to its will, change shape to mimic any other creature, read minds, multiply itself, teleportation, maybe even short-range time travel. The Master is mining anti-matter from the moment of the Big Bang and feeding it into the Rage. The more knowledge the Rage acquires, the more dangerous it becomes. Because of this story there is a little piece of both the Doctor and the Master in everything in the universe, darkness and light. That reveal is the best moment in the story, but it’s treated as an aside rather than being what this story is about.
Isn’t it Odd: Can you imagine a more vanilla synopsis for a Doctor/Master story than that? I mean that’s ALL of them, isn’t it? The Doctor and the War Master crawling on their hands and knees in a grubby vent? This is the best use of these characters? The Master gets an ‘I am your father’ moment with the Rage. There’s almost a scene where Llewelyn explores the Doctor/Master dynamic from before they were adversaries but just as it threatened to get interesting, the Master cuts off the ‘moment’ before it becomes one. I’m glad the Master says he ‘almost’ plans for every eventuality because that is clearly not the case. Something always trips up his lunatic schemes. He turns on a sixpence when the Rage refuses to obey, and works with the Doctor to bring it down. It’s almost as quick as a turnaround as Terror of the Autons. I’m so bored of Big Finish wanting to have their cake and eat it, They want the New Series creations (River the War Master) to meet the classic Doctors and rather than take the Terrance Dicks/Robert Holmes approach of simply making continuity ad malleable thing for the sake of a story, they try and please fandom by restoring everything to its factory settings by the end of the story. The War Master first met the tenth Doctor, if he now meets the eighth then he needs to lose his memory. Amnesia is always their go-to explanation. It's all so obvious.
Standout Scene: Did anybody think that there wouldn’t be a moment when the Rage turns its back on the Master? His hubris knows no bounds and this downfall was always going to come.
Result: ‘The weapon. It’s been born…’ This is what happens when fans get their own way. As I mentioned in my review of the previous story this is a two parter where the Master is fully exposed and Derek Jacobi is given a considerable amount of material. The Master spells out his motives, has a showdown with the Doctor and pulls a rabbit out of his hat at the climax. This is a War Master story that is all about the War Master. And it’s predictable as hell, lacking interest in many areas and wastes a fine incarnation of this character on a banal re-tread of so many other Master tales. That’s the problem with the character, he’s been done to death. There’s no way of offering in terrific new insights into him because that has also been done to death. The absolute best approach with the War Master is to stick him in the shadows and to show the effect that he has on the people he comes into contact with. That is exactly why Master of Callous worked so well. We got close to those people and watched as their lives went to hell when his plans sprang into life. If you place the Master front and centre you get a story like The Darkness and the Light; a been there, done that extravaganza where the Doctor and the Master dance around each other and ultimately his plans are pulled apart effortlessly. It diminishes him as a character to have him this visible. Jacobi and McGann should have been sparring viciously. Instead they go through the motions. Some of the ideas are pretty exciting but when they are hung on a narrative this familiar, it’s just concepts hanging in the air. Ultimately the Rage isn’t anyway near as terrifying as advertised. Big Finish has had far more success with scarier monsters by applying some subtlety and toning down on the modulated voice. Sometimes less is more. A run-around, but one lacking passion: 3/10
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