Calantha believes she is ready to deal with whatever the Master throws at her – but can anyone truly be that prepared?

James Goss picks up the baton for this final part of the Killing Time set, returning us to the homeworld of the Stagnant Protocol and the War Master’s battle of wits with Calantha. She’s now in charge and is starting to form alliances with perhaps the last race she should – and a certain renegade Time Lord is not going to get in her way, no matter who he tries to ally himself with, and what tricks he pulls. But of course the Master is playing three-dimensional chess while she’s simply playing checkers, and while he never underestimates her, he knows what her endgame will be – and has a trick up his sleeve that he’s used a long time before in order to deal with it…

Derek Jacobi and Alexandria Riley go head to head for much of this, and both reveal the darker sides to their characters when appropriate (which, to be fair, is a great deal of the time in this story). I’d love to have learned more about Laura Doddington’s character, Lady Sutlumu – her employers are trying some different tricks of their own.

I also want to say a few words about Rob Harvey’s score for the whole set: there’s an art to composition of this nature, particularly when it’s not pastiching a particular era of the show. The quadruple drumbeat that we know plays in the Master’s head turns up periodically (and of course is in the theme tune), but there are more subtle effects, such as the use of a choral chant when a certain race is mentioned – something that the TV series established in the RTD years.

Verdict: Probably the best War Master set overall capped off with a Masterful performance. 10/10

Paul Simpson

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