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Doctor Who: The Master – Looking ahead to the villain’s 50th anniversary

By James Aggas

We know that the Master heard "the sound of drums" since he was a child. But does that mean he heard it during the classic series...?(C) BBC/BBC Worldwide - Photographer: Simon Ridgway
We know that the Master heard "the sound of drums" since he was a child. But does that mean he heard it during the classic series...?(C) BBC/BBC Worldwide - Photographer: Simon Ridgway /
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We’ve just celebrated Doctor Who’s 57th anniversary. But there’s another anniversary to look forward to – one that’s certainly big to fans of the show’s greatest villain…

Did you all enjoy Doctor Who Day yesterday? We certainly did. Along with the annual watch of An Unearthly Child and An Adventure in Space and Time, we also got plenty of hints and reveals from both the BBC and Big Finish Productions over upcoming stories. On top of that, we also looked ahead to the sixtieth anniversary, and speculated how Chris Chibnall might be building towards that already.

However, before then, Whovians have another major anniversary to look forward to. Not of the show itself, but of one of its biggest antagonists. Believe it or not, the Master’s fiftieth anniversary will be arriving in January. (Yes, it took over seven years for the show’s biggest villain to be created.)

Obviously, while we have an exciting new Dalek story to look forward to on television, it’s not looking likely that the TV series will do anything to celebrate such a huge landmark for the villain. (Although Sacha Dhawan’s new Master was very welcome in this year’s series.) But there are a few things that we can look forward to featuring Doctor Who‘s other legendary Time Lord.

Masterful certainly stands out as a highlight for next year. But what else can we look forward to?

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

Masters old and new

This month has already seen the release of Doctor Who anthology I Am The Master from BBC Books. (Which we’re currently reading and enjoying immensely.) And we can look forward to both Eric Roberts’s incarnation getting his own audio box set, as well as a reunion between the Master, Jo, and Nyssa in the next volume of The War Master.

But what looks set to be the absolute highlight of next year is definitely Masterful. Featuring no less than eight Masters (at the very least), this is sure to be a huge highlight of 2021 for Doctor Who fans, regardless of medium. And, as it’ll be released during the villain’s anniversary month, (if not the day itself, although we’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed,) fans won’t have long to wait for it.

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Is there anything else we should be looking forward to during the Master’s 50th anniversary year? Right now, it’s hard to say. With John Simm making his Big Finish debut in Masterful, could we expect even more of his Master, perhaps even in a box set of his own? Might we expect stories featuring Masters originally portrayed by actors no longer with us, including Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley? We can only speculate and hope at this point.

One thing we can do on the villain’s 50th anniversary is to enjoy our favorite stories of them. Whether it’s Terror of the Autons, Utopia or The Doctor Falls, or even off-the-screen entirely (I regularly find any excuse I can to relisten to The Two Masters), Jan 2 will be a great day to enjoy many stories of one of Doctor Who‘s greatest villains. And we can hardly wait for it.

Next. Captain Jack returns in Revolution of the Daleks!. dark

Are you a fan of the Master? Will you be celebrating their fiftieth-anniversary in the new year? Which Master is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

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