The Two Masters (#213)

    Big Finish Main Range

 

John Dorney is quickly coming into his own as one of the pre-eminent writers for Doctor Who at Big Finish. This is fantastic stuff! Two Masters, played by Beevers and Macqueen, are wandering the universe playing cat and mouse in turns, trying to kill each other. And they’re quite good at the game though not really at killing each other. Apparently the Master burns one of his incarnations (separate for the one who is burned on Trakken, I take it) in an attempt to fool the Cult of the Heretic, a group who wants to regenerate the universe using Time Lord DNA. Wow. What a concept! And it sure works out in a most spectacular way…

 

I love how the two Masters interact, how the 7th Doctor is the perfect foil for the conniving schemes of these two by out-scheming them all, and even the revisit with the Rocket Men, as neutered as they may be. There are gaps in time where time is ceasing to exist. And the Doctor is looking into the problem in order to fix it. The Master, on the other hand, doesn’t care so much about the gaps in time as he cares about getting revenge on himself. And off to go into the twists and turns of the plot! But it’s a plot that doesn’t have all that much mumbo jumbo and what is there is quite understandable. Just a fantastic storyline and well worth a listen! It wraps up the trilogy in a fantastic way, outshining all of the other stories easily.


Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Geoffrey Beevers (The Old Master), Alex Macqueen (The New Master), Lauren Crace (Jemima), Russ Bain (Blore/Baron Jarvill), Esther Hall (Tazmeena/Bauza/Mum), James Garnon (Sebastian/Gorlan), Neil Edmond (Sarlon/Gorlan/Time Lord). Other parts portrayed by members of the cast.

Writer: John Dorney

Director: Jamie Anderson

Release: June 2016

© Laura Vilensky 2019