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Official Doctor Who New Series Discussion (spoilers)


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Can this be explained away?

 

It was speculated "Mister Saxon" is "Master No. Six." But with Professor Yana, wouldn't this new Master be his seventh regeneration? Or -- and I'm wholly unfamiliar with a lot of the earlier appearances of the Master -- is this his "sixth" series with the Doctor he's appeared in, so that anagram still works?

 

Or, heck, is this even a spoiler now?

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Can this be explained away?

 

It was speculated "Mister Saxon" is "Master No. Six." But with Professor Yana, wouldn't this new Master be his seventh regeneration? Or -- and I'm wholly unfamiliar with a lot of the earlier appearances of the Master -- is this his "sixth" series with the Doctor he's appeared in, so that anagram still works?

 

Or, heck, is this even a spoiler now?

I thought there had only been 4 masters up to now? Thats what wiki says anyway! Yana would be the fifth and Saxon is the sixth
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Oh here we go

if rumors are true, and Saxon truly is the Master, then Simm's Master would indeed be the sixth incarnation of the Master to have appeared on television.

emphases mine.

 

http://www.answers.com/mister%20saxon

 

It also has this

 

Simm would become the seventh or eighth actor to portray the Master, after Delgado, Pratt, Beevers, Ainley, Tipple, Roberts and according to some rumours Jacobi; and since the Pratt/Beevers Master was identified as the thirteenth he would be playing the seventeenth or later incarnation of the Master within the show's continuity.

So I seemed to have been conflating regenerations with televised appearances, with RTD -- correctly! -- using the latter as a story device.

 

That clever, clever bastard.

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An even easier solution is to just assume that the "Master No. Six" stuff was intended for the fans and won't actually play a part in the Master's choice of it as an alias. Much as the oft-repeated "Torchwood" was never acknowledged as being an anagram of Doctor Who within the program itself. And, yeah, I'm not sure why this is in spoilertext either.
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The official BBC website explains it like this:

 

The Doctor has now encountered six versions of The Master. The actors who have played him are:

Master No. One - Roger Delgado (1971-73)

Master No. Two - Peter Pratt (1976) and Geoffrey Beevers (1981)

Master No. Three - Anthony Ainley (1981-1989)

Master No. Four - Eric Roberts (1996)

Master No. Five - Sir Derek Jacobi (2007)

Master No. Six - John Simm (2007)

 

For completists, however, Gordon Tipple played 'The Old Master' in the 1996 TV Movie, appearing very briefly in the pre-titles sequence and without dialogue. It is possible that he also played Master No. Three.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/20.../fact_311.shtml

 

It was definitely described during their episodes that Pratt and Beevers were the final regeneration for the Master, but he kickstarted a regeneration into Ainley's Master after taking over the Keeper of Traken's power.

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Yeah wasn't The Master always trying to steal the Doctors remaining regenerations by taking control of his Eye of Harmony (Heart of the TARDIS in these series). Then when the really horrible scary Master (Pratt and Beavers I think) came around that was his last one but he stole some more somehow. I missed those series :(

 

And I always assumed that it was the Delagardo master in the Movie before he changed again.

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Besides being a nice little moment on its own the show also seems to be echoing the words of Harriet Jones who said something similar (but well-intentioned) in the exact same situation when she was Prime Minister.

 

A small clue some of you might have missed : when Derek Jacobi was talking about the pocket watch and how he got it he mentions he was found as a child "on the fringe of the Silver Devastation". Which was where the Face of Boe was introduced as having arrived from way back in the first season. So hopefully the show isn't just using that character to lead us into the Master's arrival and then dispose of him without providing an explanation as to how the two are connected.

 

I also thought it was cool (and possibly significant) that the alien insectlady lab assistant was also the last of her species. Just like the Master and the Doctor, or so they both thought up until this episode. And the clear parallels between her and Martha as well as all companions in general puts a fanficcy idea into my head of where this storyline might be heading.

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Likewise, ewww.

 

That wasn't where I was going at all.

 

I was thinking it'd be neat if the show somehow had the Doctor have a companion who was the last of the human race. Oddly enough, this episode already established that Cap'n Jack would be a fair contender for that title. So they could make that explicit (ewwww! I mean, make it obvious!) through him or could even choose one of the many people knocking about there at the End of the Universe. Either way, I think it'd be an interesting direction for the show to go on to. And since they've added Barrowman to the cast itself I'm starting to wonder whether this isn't fanficcy so much as a decent guess as to where they're heading with his character.

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Barrowman is just a fantastic actor and plays his role so well. I'm not sure the 'last of the human race' thing would work. The companion is used to relate the audience to the strange situations the Doctor gets in and so has always come from around the current time period (Ace may be an exception)

 

I'm not sure the more laxidasical fans could take another 'alien'.

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A small clue some of you might have missed : when Derek Jacobi was talking about the pocket watch and how he got it he mentions he was found as a child "on the fringe of the Silver Devastation". Which was where the Face of Boe was introduced as having arrived from way back in the first season. So hopefully the show isn't just using that character to lead us into the Master's arrival and then dispose of him without providing an explanation as to how the two are connected.

 

Good spot mate. In the Confidential programme after last saturdays show, there was a mention by one of the guys (Russell T Davies himself if I remember) that there was something else going to be revealed concerning Boe, so that links in nicely.

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Maybe he only had the one Chameleon Arch? And I think The Master may have been the only one available to him. We still don't know how the Time Lords died or where. From that episode it seems as though The Master survived because he was human at that time, so it may be to do with Time Lord DNA.

 

I think we may have a Time War Arc in the near future.

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Maybe he only had the one Chameleon Arch? And I think The Master may have been the only one available to him. We still don't know how the Time Lords died or where. From that episode it seems as though The Master survived because he was human at that time, so it may be to do with Time Lord DNA.

I'm willing to bet The Master will have been the only one not to be fighting in the Time War.

 

Also, previous to his possible encounter with Boe he had been trapped inside the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS for a while, I forget how he gets out I think its in one of the canon books with McGann

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Could Boe have saved more Time Lords?

 

Unlikely. Here's his dying words to the Doctor :

 

"I am the last of my kind just as you are the last of yours, Doctor. But, know this, Time Lord....you are not alone."

 

It seems clear to me that at the time he was told this the Doctor was literally the only remaining Time Lord alive in existence. The Master was human with his Gallifreyan consciousness suspended in the watch. Nevertheless, the fact that some remnant of his people exists in some potential form was what was being communicated. Whether the YANNA equals You Are Not Alone stuff was just Russel T. Davies playing about or some sort of legitimate hint to the Doctor within the confines of the story remains to be seen. Is it the Face of Boe playing wordgames or just the show's creative staff?

 

I wouldn't be so sure that it was the Face of Boe who was necessarily responsible per se for the Master's survival so much as he was merely aware of it. And I wonder if the Master being human at the end of time wasn't a strategy to survive the Time War so much as an escape route from the justice of his fellow Time Lords which serendipitously saved him from the War as well. He didn't seem to have any clue or to care at all about what the Doctor was yelling ("There's only us now, it's over! It doesn't have to be like this!" was a nice touch), the gist of which seemed to be trying to inform the Master that everyone else was dead and that it was time to forgive and forget.

 

Whatever. We'll see how it all turns out in the end.

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"I am the last of my kind just as you are the last of yours, Doctor. But, know this, Time Lord....you are not alone."

 

It seems clear to me that at the time he was told this the Doctor was literally the only remaining Time Lord alive in existence. The Master was human with his Gallifreyan consciousness suspended in the watch. Nevertheless, the fact that some remnant of his people exists in some potential form was what was being communicated. Whether the YANNA equals You Are Not Alone stuff was just Russel T. Davies playing about or some sort of legitimate hint to the Doctor within the confines of the story remains to be seen. Is it the Face of Boe playing wordgames or just the show's creative staff?

Good point.

 

Personally I think it was Boe that did it. He knew what was to come and knew that The Master could hold a key to eveyrthing. We've not had an end of season finale without another twist of some sort and I think The Master's role in it isn't as evil as we're led to believe.

 

They both know that without each other they are useless. Remember 'A universe without The Doctor is unthinkable'

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As I see it, there are 2 ways back to the 21st century for the Doctor and his 2 companions.

 

1. The Masters Tardis is somewhere around - and the camelion circuit works (ie. it's not the column that Anthony Aimley's Master used to have!).

I think this is unlikely with the comments above on the face of boe, and that the 2nd option seems more obvious. However, I'm sure I say Tennant in the confidential episode in a black interior Tardis when being interviewed. Might have imagined it though.

 

2. The Doctor fixes Jack's time travel wrist band that he explained he used to get back from 200100 to present day. More likely as it was mentioned clearly in the episode on saturday and links in with the Boe speculation above.

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Hah. I saw a Youtube video of people having the same reaction. :lol:

 

Wow. I was expecting far more resolution to the setting of last week's episode. The show took us out of there in, what, two seconds?

 

The Master is not only the Evil Doctor but Evil Tony Blair as well.

 

Gallifrey. Squeee!

 

I'm making a bet that the Toclefane are gonna turn out to somehow be the Gallifreyans themselves. The last remnants of their consciousness placed into mechanical form, taking on the name of the childhood boogeyman they irrationally feared? They were certainly presented as infantile and simplistic and the show is going out of its way to imply that there's some mystery behind them and that they're more than just Aliens of the Week. We'll see.

 

All in all, this is the sort of thing that plays to the strengths (or is that weaknesses?) of Russel T. Davies. Over the top, filled with inexplicable little turns, hackneyed attempts at political commentary, odd nods to both modern and classic continuity, and a shmaltzy emphasis on the Companion's family. Except everything somehow became more than the sum of its parts and turned into pure awesome. Can't wait for the season finale.

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