Favourite incarnation of The Master.

[Adrian McNair]

Having just viewed the disappointing yet at times gripping 29th season finale of the newly revived Doctor Who, The Last of the Time Lords, I'd have to say that John Simm really stole the season with his portrayal of everyone's favourite Gallifreyian renegade. He was excellent foil for the good Doctor.

So, without further ado, out of all of The Master's depictions on Dr Who, which has been your favourite?

[mr friendly guy]

You forgot Peter Pratt ("The Deadly assassin"), Geoffrey Beavers ("The Keeper of Traken") and Eric Roberts (The 8th doctor movie, but thats understandable ).

For me it would have to be a toss up between Roger Delgado and John Simms.

[Patrick Degan]

Beat me to it —i'd toyed with the idea of this poll. You should also have included a second category for Sir Derek Jacobi for his performance in the character from "The Scream Of The Shalika".

Overall, I'd still favour Roger Delgado: urbane, witty, and scientific. Even willing to work with the Doctor or UNIT if the need for it arose. Peter Pratt was an excellent one-off and worked perfectly for "The Deadly Assassin".

[Crazedwraith]

I confess to only having seen the Master in his most recent Jaccobi/Simm incarnations. So I shan't vote in to the poll.

Obviously of the two Simm Master got the vast majority of the screen time, Jaccobi was only really the Master for a couple of minutes, playing The Professor before that. Still I must say that I wish Jaccobi had had a lot more screen time as the Master because his brief stint was totally awesome.

SimMaster spent most of time being zany is a crude parallel of the Eccleston/Tennant regeneration. He was fun but ultimately lacked the gravitas of Jaccobi.

[Vanas]

Simm was good, if somewhat hyper, and Jacobi's momentary stint was brilliant.

Still, Roger Delgado must have my respect. His Master is an archetypal supervillain, and just plain superb.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

For me, as with most amuricans, Simm was the first master I'd been exposed to, and maybe that's caused me to be a bit prejudiced but having seen a good many of the other masters performances I have to say that I still think he's the best.

Here Come the Drums!

[Imperial Overlord]

I've got to go with Delgado, but Jacobi had an awesome five minutes as the Master.

[Stark]

Here Come the Drums!

The meaningless filler-exposition drums with nothing to do with the story?

I'd have to say Jacobi or Delgado. Simm's portrayl is tainted by the awful writing ('oh ho I know you won't kill yourself lol' 'yeah right I won't. No wait I will haha I am dead, oh wait no I'm not'). Jacobi's cold fury was interesting and not in the middle of a retarded 'let's not save the day I've got a stupid plan' plot.

[Patrick Degan]

For me, as with most amuricans, Simm was the first master I'd been exposed to, and maybe that's caused me to be a bit prejudiced but having seen a good many of the other masters performances I have to say that I still think he's the best.

I think many more Americans first encountered the Master as Peter Pratt or Anthony Ainley. Doctor Who's been around a lot longer in the United States than the present series running on SciFi and BBC America.

The real standout moment in Jacobi's performance is Yana's transformation into the Master, as you see his features harden and the kindly face of the professor changes into a mask of cold malevolence. Extra points to Sir Derek for that moment.

[Drooling Iguana]

Still I must say that I wish Jaccobi had had a lot more screen time as the Master because his brief stint was totally awesome.

Here you go.

[Johonebesus]

So I'm the only one who liked Ainley, the Master through the eighties? Maybe it's just because he was the first one I saw (except for the mummy), but for me he's the real Master. After him it's Delgado.

Only having seen Utopia, I have to say I wasn't impressed with the new Master. I guess it stands to reason that the Doctor wouldn't be the only one to get a new personality with a new face, but Simm just seemed much too goofy for the Master. He seemed an awful lot like Tennant.

As I said, I've only seen Utopia, but has there been any explanation for how the Master is still alive, let alone has more regenerations? He had used them all up by the time we first meet him, and every other incarnation was the result of a trick of some sort. He shouldn't have been able to just regenerate normally.

For that matter, has his escape from the TARDIS been explained? I thought the Fox movie was cannon, so he ought to be gone for good.

Frankly, I'd rather see the Meddler.

[Drooling Iguana]

As I said, I've only seen Utopia, but has there been any explanation for how the Master is still alive, let alone has more regenerations? He had used them all up by the time we first meet him, and every other incarnation was the result of a trick of some sort. He shouldn't have been able to just regenerate normally.

For that matter, has his escape from the TARDIS been explained? I thought the Fox movie was cannon, so he ought to be gone for good.

He was resurrected by the Time Lords to fight the Daleks.

[Patrick Degan]

Only having seen Utopia, I have to say I wasn't impressed with the new Master. I guess it stands to reason that the Doctor wouldn't be the only one to get a new personality with a new face, but Simm just seemed much too goofy for the Master. He seemed an awful lot like Tennant.

The Simm Master wasn't just "goofy". Something went wrong with that regeneration (given the screaming) and the Master wound up with a radically-altered personality. Indulging a sadistic streak the allegedly-mad Ainley Master never would have, and taking chances with paradox which his previous selves would never have even entertained as an idea. I'd venture that having to live with the memory that he proved a worse coward than the Doctor ever accused himself of being slightly unhinged him as it was. But the "games" he plays with the Doctor, Jack, the Jones family, the human race, for an entire year, the wild mood-swings and evident lack of self-control, went far beyond delaying an execution to pull the wings off a fly and veered into outright psychosis.

The Master had a regeneration go wrong once before and the result was a twisted body. This regeneration gave him a thoroughly twisted mind. What we saw was a man who was batshit-insane.

[Adrian McNair]

You forgot Peter Pratt ("The Deadly assassin"), Geoffrey Beavers ("The Keeper of Traken") and Eric Roberts (The 8th doctor movie, but thats understandable ).

Beat me to it —i'd toyed with the idea of this poll. You should also have included a second category for Sir Derek Jacobi for his performance in the character from "The Scream Of The Shalika".

Oh, I was fully aware of those other incarnations prior to creating this thread, but they simply weren't memorable enough to get their own poll options. Hence, that's what the 'Other' option is for.

[B5B7]

It was a toss up between Delgado and Ainley, and whilst I was tempted to go for Delgado as the original, I visualized them both in my mind and Delgado is saturnine and urbane but Ainley got an edge from a slightly mischievous element.

John Simm seemed to be really enjoying himself in the role [and it was a pleasure seeing him again after 'Life On Mars'], but his character lacks the sustained presence of the above two.
Derek Jacobi is a great actor and brought this to the role, but as The Master had too short a time to become a favourite.

[Hillary]

The Simm Master wasn't just "goofy". Something went wrong with that regeneration (given the screaming) and the Master wound up with a radically-altered personality. Indulging a sadistic streak the allegedly-mad Ainley Master never would have, and taking chances with paradox which his previous selves would never have even entertained as an idea. I'd venture that having to live with the memory that he proved a worse coward than the Doctor ever accused himself of being slightly unhinged him as it was. But the "games" he plays with the Doctor, Jack, the Jones family, the human race, for an entire year, the wild mood-swings and evident lack of self-control, went far beyond delaying an execution to pull the wings off a fly and veered into outright psychosis.

I'd have to take some issue with this. The Master always had a sadistic streak within him - in his very first appearance he showed obvious enjoyment, killing a man by way of a living-plastic armchair. He never showed any signs of improvement. As for taking chances with the Paradox machine, the Master has always lived on the edge, using creatures and technology more powerful than he is - even teaming up with the Daleks. Taking risks to seize power is his stock in trade.

The manic side is something we haven't seen before, I agree but he has always been rather unhinged.

The Master had a regeneration go wrong once before and the result was a twisted body

This wasn't a regeneration gone wrong, it was that he had run out of regenerations, this was the Master at the end of his final regeneration - he was after the power of the eye of harmony in order to give him a new body. In the Keeper of Traken, he returned as the same broken creature but stole the body of Nyssa's father. Presumably, when the Time Lords revived him they gave him a new set of regenerations.

[Patrick Degan]

The Simm Master wasn't just "goofy". Something went wrong with that regeneration (given the screaming) and the Master wound up with a radically-altered personality. Indulging a sadistic streak the allegedly-mad Ainley Master never would have, and taking chances with paradox which his previous selves would never have even entertained as an idea. I'd venture that having to live with the memory that he proved a worse coward than the Doctor ever accused himself of being slightly unhinged him as it was. But the "games" he plays with the Doctor, Jack, the Jones family, the human race, for an entire year, the wild mood-swings and evident lack of self-control, went far beyond delaying an execution to pull the wings off a fly and veered into outright psychosis.

I'd have to take some issue with this. The Master always had a sadistic streak within him - in his very first appearance he showed obvious enjoyment, killing a man by way of a living-plastic armchair. He never showed any signs of improvement.

This was different. The incident with the plastic chair at least served two definite purposes: the test of a new form of killer Auton as well as the quick disposal of a witness. The Master's previous sadism at least had some measure of efficiency to it. His prolonged torture of the Doctor aboard the Valiant, on the other hand, was simply torture for the fun of it. This is one very sick man we're talking about here.

As for taking chances with the Paradox machine, the Master has always lived on the edge, using creatures and technology more powerful than he is - even teaming up with the Daleks. Taking risks to seize power is his stock in trade.

The Master had never before consciously risked wreaking complete havoc with time. Even he observed some limitations with respect to the Laws of Time. His one-time alliance with the Daleks doesn't even begin to compare on the scale of what he risks with the Paradox Machine.

The manic side is something we haven't seen before, I agree but he has always been rather unhinged.

Not to the extent where he makes Ainley's Master seem the paragon of rationality by comparison.

The Master had a regeneration go wrong once before and the result was a twisted body

This wasn't a regeneration gone wrong, it was that he had run out of regenerations, this was the Master at the end of his final regeneration - he was after the power of the eye of harmony in order to give him a new body.

Which says his twelfth regeneration hadn't gone horribly wrong... how, exactly? We've seen other Time Lords on their last regenerations (Salyavin/Chronotis and Azmael). Neither of them wound up as half-rotting walking corpses for having gone through their entire regen cycles.

[Johonebesus]

This wasn't a regeneration gone wrong, it was that he had run out of regenerations, this was the Master at the end of his final regeneration - he was after the power of the eye of harmony in order to give him a new body.

Which says his twelfth regeneration hadn't gone horribly wrong... how, exactly? We've seen other Time Lords on their last regenerations (Salyavin/Chronotis and Azmael). Neither of them wound up as half-rotting walking corpses for having gone through their entire regen cycles.

Was there an explicit explanation for his condition? I always had the idea that it was because he took extraordinary measures to prolong his life before he first showed up like that.

[Patrick Degan]

Was there an explicit explanation for his condition? I always had the idea that it was because he took extraordinary measures to prolong his life before he first showed up like that.

There was never an explanation as to how the Master wound up the way he did. Robert Holmes only needed to show a man who was very desperate to do anything whatsoever to save his own life.

[Big Orange]

I voted for Sir Derek Jacobi - even though his role was far too short it was very, very sweet and was perhaps the best fictional plot revelation in recent years.

But I agree with Patrick Degan that the John Simm's Master was more needlessly sadistic and deranged than his earlier incarnations - not only was his year long taunting of his captives pointless, what was the need of killing off one tenth of the global population when he could've achieved overwhelming military domination over Earth without killing many people?

An obvious clue about what was driving the Master on to very the brink of insanity was hearing the constant Sound of Drums within his brain.

However while he ran terrible gamble with the Paradox Machine and used Earth as a base to launch a invasion fleet at the rest of the cosmos, I heard about the Master allegedly making one third of the known Universe go bye-bye in a early 80s DW episode...

[Patrick Degan]

However while he ran terrible gamble with the Paradox Machine and used Earth as a base to launch a invasion fleet at the rest of the cosmos, I heard about the Master allegedly making one third of the known Universe go bye-bye in a early 80s DW episode...

That was "Logopolis" and that happened because the Master didn't really know what the fuck he was doing when he interfered with the Logopolitans' block-transfer computational research.

[DaveJB]

There was never an explanation as to how the Master wound up the way he did. Robert Holmes only needed to show a man who was very desperate to do anything whatsoever to save his own life.

According to the novels, the Master had already used up all his regenerations by the time of the Delgado version, and what we saw in Deadly Assassin/Keeper of Traken was the Delgado version, hideously scarred and mangled after Susan sabotaged his TARDIS and blew him up.

[mr friendly guy]

There was never an explanation as to how the Master wound up the way he did. Robert Holmes only needed to show a man who was very desperate to do anything whatsoever to save his own life.

According to the novels, the Master had already used up all his regenerations by the time of the Delgado version, and what we saw in Deadly Assassin/Keeper of Traken was the Delgado version, hideously scarred and mangled after Susan sabotaged his TARDIS and blew him up.

That sucked. So bad. That is all.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Delgado's Master was the first incarnation of the character I had seen, I think with "The Daemons," specifically. After that I'm most familiar with Ainley's incarnation. I don't really watch the new series so I'm not familiar with Jacobi/Simm at all.

In my opinion Ainley was always good, and a pretty smart interpretation to make of the character in the 1980s, particularly in respect to the incarnations of the Doctor who stood up against him during the time. Compared to Delgado, though, Ainley is a bit too overt in his evilness and villainy, a bit of a Snidely Whiplash.

So my favourite would be Delgado, because to me he always had the air of a classic gentleman's villain; evil but with class, especially being a chief antagonist to Pertwee's sophisticated Third Doctor.

[Dartzap]

Babel Colour has done a great job, yet again