The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience[8] as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. On 31 July 1963, Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants. As originally written, the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors. When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any "bug-eyed monsters". According to producer Verity Lambert; "We didn't have a lot of choice — we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald [Wilson] was so adamant that we shouldn't make it. Had we had anything else ready we would have made that." Nation's script became the second Doctor Who serial – The Daleks (also known as The Mutants). The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series' most popular monsters, and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.
The BBC drama department's serials division produced the programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC 1. Due to his increasingly poor health, the first actor to play the Doctor, William Hartnell, was replaced by the younger Patrick Troughton in 1966. In 1970 Jon Pertwee replaced Troughton and the series at that point moved from black and white to colour. In 1974 Tom Baker was cast as the Doctor. His eccentric style of dress and quirky personality became hugely popular, with viewing figures for the show returning to a level not seen since the height of "Dalekmania" a decade earlier. In 1981, after a record seven years in the role, Baker was replaced by Peter Davison, at 29 by far the youngest actor to be cast as the character in the series' first run, and in 1984 Colin Baker replaced Davison. In 1985 the channel's controller Michael Grade attempted to cancel the series, but this became an 18-month hiatus instead. He also had Colin Baker removed from the starring role in 1986. The role was recast with Sylvester McCoy, but falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the show and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production ended in 1989 by Peter Cregeen, the BBC's new head of series. Although it was effectively cancelled with the decision not to commission a planned 27th season, which would have been broadcast in 1990, the BBC repeatedly affirmed, over several years, that the series would return.
While in-house production had ceased, the BBC hoped to find an independent production company to relaunch the show. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC about such a venture as early as July 1989, while the 26th season was still in production. Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as an international co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor, the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), but was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.
Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 2003. In September of that year, BBC Television announced the in-house production of a new series after several years of attempts by BBC Worldwide to find backing for a feature film version. The executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales head of drama Julie Gardner.
Starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, Doctor Who finally returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005. Eccleston left after one series and was replaced by David Tennant. There have since been eleven further series in 2006–2008, 2010–2015, 2017–2018, 2020, and Christmas/New Year's Day specials every year since 2005, with the exception of 2018. No full series was broadcast in 2009, although four additional specials starring Tennant were made. Davies left the show in 2010 after the end of series 4 and the David Tennant specials were completed. Steven Moffat, a writer under Davies, was announced as his successor, along with Matt Smith as the new Doctor. Smith decided to leave the role of the Doctor in the 50th anniversary year. He was replaced by Peter Capaldi.
In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down after the 2017 finale, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall in 2018. The tenth series debuted in April 2017, with a Christmas special preceding it in 2016. Jodie Whittaker was announced as the first female Doctor, and has appeared in two series and is scheduled to reprise her role in a third, shorter series.
The 2005 version of Doctor Who is a direct plot continuation of the original 1963–1989 series and the 1996 telefilm. This is similar to the 1988 continuation of Mission Impossible, but differs from most other series relaunches which have either been reboots (for example, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman) or set in the same universe as the original but in a different time period and with different characters (for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs).
The Master, or "Missy (short for Mistress)" in their female incarnation, is a recurring character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works. They are a renegade alien Time Lord and the childhood friend and later enemy of the title character, the Doctor. They were most recently portrayed by Sacha Dhawan.
Multiple actors have played the Master since the character's introduction in 1971. Within the show's narrative, the change in actors and subsequent change of the character's appearance is sometimes explained as the Master taking possession of other characters' bodies or as a consequence of regeneration, which is a biological attribute that allows Time Lords to survive fatal injuries or old age.
The Master was originally played by Roger Delgado from 1971 until his death in 1973.[1] The role was subsequently played by Peter Pratt, Geoffrey Beevers, and Anthony Ainley, with Ainley reprising the role regularly through the 1980s until the series’s cancellation in 1989. Eric Roberts took on the role for the 1996 Doctor Who TV film. Since the show's revival in 2005, the Master has been portrayed by Derek Jacobi, John Simm, Michelle Gomez, and Sacha Dhawan.
Beevers, Roberts, Jacobi, Simm, and Gomez have reprised the role in audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions. At the same time, Alex Macqueen, Gina McKee, Mark Gatiss, James Dreyfus, and Milo Parker portrayed incarnations unique to Big Finish.
Origins
The creative team conceived of the Master as a recurring villain, first appearing in Terror of the Autons (1971). The Master's title was deliberately chosen by producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks because, like the Doctor, it was a title conferred by an academic degree. A sketch of three "new characters" for 1971 (the other two being Jo Grant and Mike Yates) suggested he was conceived to be of "equal, perhaps even superior rank, to the Doctor."[2]
Letts only had one man in mind for the role: Roger Delgado, who had a long history of playing villains and had already made three attempts to be cast in the series.[3] He had worked previously with Letts and was a good friend of Jon Pertwee.
Malcolm Hulke spoke of the character and his relationship with the Doctor: "There was a peculiar relationship between the Master and the Doctor: one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to eliminate the Doctor...you see the Doctor was the only person like him at the time in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a funny sort of way they were partners in crime."[4]
An unrelated character also known as the Master, who ruled over the Land of Fiction, had previously appeared in the 1968 serial The Mind Robber opposite the Second Doctor.[5]
Aims and character
A would-be universal conqueror, the Master wants to control the universe. In The Deadly Assassin (1976), his ambitions are described as becoming "the master of all matter".[6] He also had a secondary objective: to make the Doctor suffer. In The Sea Devils (1972), the Master mentions that the "pleasure" of seeing the destruction of the human race, of which the Doctor is fond, would be "a reward in itself.
Encounters with the Third Doctor
The Master, as played by Roger Delgado, makes his first appearance in Terror of the Autons (1971), where he allies with the Nestene Consciousness to help them invade Earth. The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) convinces the Master to stop this plan at the last minute, and the Master subsequently escapes, albeit with his TARDIS left non-functioning after the Doctor confiscates the ship's dematerialisation circuit.[8]
Having become a main character in the show's eighth season, the Master reappears in The Mind of Evil, where he regains his TARDIS's circuit from the Doctor after attempting to launch a nerve gas missile that would initiate World War III.[9] The Master is seen again in another incursion on Earth in The Claws of Axos,[10] and then fails to hold the galaxy to ransom using a doomsday weapon on the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472 in Colony in Space.[11] In The Dæmons, The Master is finally captured on Earth by the organization UNIT after Jo Grant (Katy Manning) prevents the alien Azal (Stephen Thorne) from giving The Master his powers.[12]
In The Sea Devils (1972), the Master is shown to be imprisoned on an island off the coast of England. He convinces the governor of the prison, Colonel Trenchard (Clive Morton), to help him steal electronics from HMS Seaspite, the nearby naval base. This allows the Master to contact the reptilian Sea Devils, the former rulers of Earth, so he can help them retake the planet from humanity. The Master convinces the Doctor to help him build machinery that would bring the Sea Devils out of their millions of years of hibernation. Still, the Doctor sabotages the device by overloading it, destroying the Sea Devil base, and preventing war between humanity and reptiles. The Master subsequently escapes in a hovercraft. The Doctor reveals in this serial that the Master was once a "very good friend" of his.[13]
Delgado's last appearance as the Master is in Frontier in Space (1973), where he works alongside the Dalek and Ogron races to provoke a war between the Human and Draconian Empires. The scheme fails, and the Master escapes after he shoots at the Doctor.[14]
Delgado was slated to return in a serial called The Final Game, which would have been the season 11 finale. However, he died in a car crash in June 1973, and the story was never produced.