Doctor Who Review: ‘And You Will Obey Me’ (Audio)

The Fifth Doctor once again faces the Master, in the opening story of Big Finish’s latest trilogy.

Admittedly, I’m slightly behind in my Big Finish listening, which is why I’ve yet to listen and review Big Finish’s first “season” for 2016 with Five, Nyssa, and Tegan. But while I do plan to catch up on those stories, I couldn’t resist skipping to this one.

My eagerness stems from the fact that ‘And You Will Obey Me’ is the opening story to a pretty exciting trilogy – a trilogy that focuses on not one but two incarnations of the Master, as portrayed by Geoffrey Beevers and Alex Macqueen. There is one incarnation each for the first two stories before the two finally meet in June’s ‘The Two Masters.’

What I liked about ‘And You Will Obey Me’ is how it really embraced the type of story in which Beevers’ incarnation of the Master has usually been involved, both on and off-screen – a constant fight for survival. In his portrayal of the character in ‘The Keeper of Traken,’ as well as Peter Pratt’s performance of the same incarnation in ‘The Deadly Assassin,’ the Master was at the brink of death, struggling to get more life at any cost.

This time, there’s a bit of twist on that idea – when the Fifth Doctor arrives in the village of Hexford, “apparently,” the Master is already dead. (Quotation marks on “apparently” because even Big Finish’s official description of the story makes sure to include that word.)

The first half of the story focuses on both the Doctor trying to find out if his life-long nemesis is really dead or not, and on a large group of characters that are very keen on trying to gain the Master’s TARDIS. The second half is when many questions are answered and all hell breaks loose.

What’s really great about this story is the listener’s working out, bit by bit, what’s really going on, who’s really working with who, and what’s really happened to the Master. As most of these questions are answered, we’re introduced to a number of really interesting characters brought together by one Time Lord. When that Time Lord, however, isn’t our favourite hero in the blue box, but in fact the Universe’s most dangerous psychopath, you know that things aren’t going to end well.

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I have to say that it’s always great to hear Beevers as the Master. He loves bringing pure evil to the role, and with the Master in the horrifyingly decaying form that he’s in, there’s no need for charm on his part, like you would get with Roger Delgado or Macqueen. He’s just pure evil and delights in his own cruelty and malice. Some incarnations, you can’t help but love, but Beevers is the classic example of a villain whom you just love to hate. He’s not in it for much of the first half, but that really helps to build up the tension towards his inevitable appearance.

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This is a really strong start to Big Finish’s Master trilogy. It focuses a lot on characterisation, but also likes to be something of a puzzle box in terms of its plot. And while a lot of questions are answered by the end, a few are left dangling. Something tells me that, when the trilogy concludes with ‘The Two Masters,’ this story is going to strongly benefit from a re-listen.