In the fires of the Last Great Time War, the Doctor and the Master are thrust together once more—but this go-round, it’s with a very interesting combination of faces.
Big Finish has announced that the third season of audio dramas in its Derek Jacobi-lead “War Master” series will guest star Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, across four new audio adventures that will see the iconic Doctor Who archnemesis go down an even darker path than we’d expect of the Master.
The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords will see the Master pull together a dastardly scheme to defeat the Daleks for good, and end the infamous Time War—the war that would not just see Gallifrey destroyed, but himself so traumatized that he would flee to the end of the universe and mask his memories, becoming the humble Professor Yana in the 2007 episode “Utopia”. As ever when it comes to the Master’s plans, only the Doctor is capable of stopping his former friend. But will the Doctor actually want to? After all, the Master is not the only Time Lord we know who went through some pretty radical changes thanks to the stresses of a War across all of time and existence.
It’s an incredibly fascinating idea to play with — especially for the ramifications it has as to why the Tenth Doctor doesn’t recognise who Professor Yana really is when they encounter each other again in “Utopia.” Can we expect some timey-wimey nonsense to wipe out their memories of this adventure by the end of Rage of the Time Lords? Did the Eighth Doctor’s transformation into the War Doctor have something to do with it?
We’ll have to wait and see—but this is Doctor Who. It’s Doctor Who in the Time War, at that. There will probably be some wibbly-wobbly goodness to give us the fabulous excuse of having Derek Jacobi and Paul McGann acting alongside each other. The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords is set to release in July 2019.