The Master’s menagerie is nearly complete – there’s just one vital component missing…

Tim Foley’s opener for this two-part tale presents us with a world where the Master is totally in control – or at least, so he thinks, and he’s pretty justified in that assessment. Some of those working for him may not be best impressed with the way that he operates, and the occasional insanity that ensues – you have to suspect that working as a henchman for the Joker would have the same sort of problems – but he is utterly ruthless in what he wants to achieve and the extent to which he’ll go to get there. And then the Doctor arrives – but there’s something definitely off kilter about him. He may not be what the person who calls him needs.

This gives Paul McGann the chance to play a different side to the eighth Doctor, and it’s been fascinating over the last couple of months hearing the early version (in the new Lucie stories), the ongoing one (in Ravenous 3) and now this Time War adjacent iteration (at least based on the Master’s comments – so perhaps need some salt taken with them). McGann’s been playing this part now continuously for nearly two decades, and director Scott Handcock takes him to new areas here.

Special mention too to Katherine Pearce, returning as Alice, and Dominic Thorburn as Mandrake, both of whom give strong performances, particularly in scenes with Derek Jacobi’s Master – there’s a palpable sense of the corruption that the Master brings with him…

Verdict: Bringing the threads from the first two episodes together, this sets up an intriguing finale. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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