In a time of war, everyone must be on their guard – if you don’t believe me, check with the new vicar, Reverend Magister…

There have been occasional stories for the Master after Frontier in Space that you wish could have been seen on screen with Roger Delgado in the part, but never quite as much as this. That’s not saying that Derek Jacobi hasn’t put his distinct stamp on the part of the renegade Time Lord, but from his first appearance as the Reverend (and you just imagine the look on his face as he takes the familiar alias once more), Jacobi is very much in the same mode as the part’s creator – and it makes for a chilling tale.

Something that I have to keep reminding myself is that, while this is within the Doctor Who universe, this isn’t a tale of the Doctor, and therefore things don’t have to play out within certain expectations. ‘Good’ doesn’t have to triumph, and it’s not always going to in the real world, let alone in a story where the Master’s involved.

Tim Foley takes his time setting up the situation, with the Master not at all centre stage initially. The focus is on Katherine Pearce’s Alice Pritchard, and her relationships with her aunt (Mina Anwar in the second great role I’ve heard her in from Big Finish in the space of a week), Su Douglas’ Lady Raleigh and Laura Riseborough’s Hannah. The background of the paranoia of the early days of the War is put across without feeling too expository, which allows the story of Alice to arise naturally. There’s a feel of a transplanted Salem Witch Trials to latter scenes, and there’s no question of the importance of the Master to events by this stage – with Peter Doggart’s sound design and Scott Handcock’s direction cleverly repositioning things as required.

Verdict: Clever, engaging and showing the Master at his Machiavellian best. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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