Posted in: BBC, Disney+, TV | Tagged: doctor who, jodie whittaker, peter capaldi, Sacha Dhawan
Doctor Who has a wonderfully evil and clever Big Bad in The Master, a constantly retconned character, with Sacha Dhawan being the maddest yet.
Article Summary
- Sacha Dhawan breathes chaotic life into Doctor Who’s arch-villain, The Master, with a blend of madness and pain.
- The Master, a Doctor Who staple, evolves with each actor, reflecting new layers of evil and complexity.
- From Delgado to Dhawan, The Master remains The Doctor’s most cunning, villainous counterpart across the eras.
- Could there be a Big Finish future for Dhawan’s Master and Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor?
Of all the Big Bads of Doctor Who, The Master is the closest to a nemesis the Doctor has. He’s like the Joker to Batman. Unlike the Daleks, the Cybermen, or the Sontarans, The Master is the only enemy who is the Doctor’s equal in guile and intellect. He’s the flip side of the Doctor, evil against good. Every actor who played The Master, like every actor who plays The Doctor, has a flavour all their own. Sacha Dhawan is the latest Master.
The Master always had a consistent quality as the yin to the Doctor’s yang. They were both agents of Chaos, but in D&D terms, The Master was Chaotic Evil versus The Doctor’s Chaotic Good. Both have worked with figures of authority and armies but only to serve their greater agenda. If The War Chief (Philip Modoc) from “The War Games” was the first iteration of The Master, the character has undergone an interesting evolution. In “The War Games,” he wanted the Doctor as his ally and wanted to convince him to come to his side rather than plot against him or kill him.
By the time the “official” Master showed up in the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) era, Roger Delgado played him as an elegant evil mastermind who methodically manipulated the greedy and power-hungry and used hypnosis to stay behind the scenes as a mastermind. The War Chief believed in aiding the Warlord in his campaign to take over the galaxy as a way to bring order to a chaotic universe. The Master never really had a reason for trying to take over the world other than megalomania. When Delgado passed away, it scuppered the series writers’ original plan to reveal The Master as The Doctor’s brother. That has never been canon, nor did many fans ever really want it to be. By the time Anthony Ainsley played the last Master of the classic era, he was a cackling mustache-twirling villain who did evil things for the sake of evil.
When Russell T. Davies brought back the Master in 2007, he was first a resentful, bitter older Derek Jacobi before regenerating into a younger, more gleefully murderous John Simm. Simm played The Master as someone who had been unjustly sinned against and was taking revenge on the universe for what the Time Lords did to him. Steven Moffat gender-swapped the character into Missy (Michelle Gomez) and introduced an undercurrent of sexual tension to her relationship with The Doctor (Peter Capaldi), yearning for both his acceptance and a reluctant wish for redemption. One of the bright spots of Chris Chibnall‘s run was to create a Master who not only brought back the air of resentment that Simm did but also with an even bigger psychotic murderous stream. Sacha Dhawan played the character with an even greater sense of malicious glee but added a layer of pain, insecurity, and uncertainty, underscoring his psychosis. Every version of the Master has been the result of the writers retconning to add more layers to the character, yet keeping him or her consistently recognisable as a villainous counterpart to The Doctor.
Dhawan has his own Big Finish audio series coming up, and it’s only a matter of time before he faces off against Jodie Whittaker‘s Doctor again and likely crossovers with the other Masters and Doctors.
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