Does Missy Remind You of Delgado’s Master?

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

No incarnation of the Master exists outside of the lineage; each one, no matter what the actors take on the role, reflects upon those that have been, and, eventually, those that are yet to come.

However, there’s on interpretation that casts a long shadow over the others; one that brought a magnetic intensity, and a cunning, evil charm – and it’s also the first.

The debt that each subsequent performance owes to Roger Delgado is great; so it comes as no surprise that a little of that Delgado magnetism finds its way into the current incarnation of the Master.

Speaking to Stuff in advance of Doctor Who’s return with The Magician’s Apprentice, both Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez have been sharing their thoughts on the Master’s previous manifestations.

“I think in Steven’s writing, each Doctor and each Master is somehow still imbued with where that character came from,” Gomez says. “I didn’t go back and look at all the other Masters because I often get intimated by other people’s greatness, and it was a big deal going from male to female, so I didn’t really take a look at those other Masters, except a little bit of Delgado.”

It’s unsurprising that, come the change from the Master to Missy, that Gomez would go back to the first, and perhaps most iconic, version of the Master, “But I feel that was done for me,” she adds. “It’s on the page.”

Capaldi considers the point for a moment, and agrees. “I think that’s very interesting, I think you do carry Roger Delgado. There is something in your face, your very fine structure, your eyes,” Capaldi says. “You have a very distinctive and powerful look and Delgado had a very distinctive and powerful look.”

Those relationships, Capaldi says, are central to Doctor Who. “It doesn’t work without the companion, or the nemesis. It’s the nature of the drama. He doesn’t want to roam [time and space] on his own, he wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.” “Or witness,” Gomez says

“And in one way he needs to be humanised, which is one of the roles of the companion,” Capaldi says. “But the companion also makes him more alien. And obviously,” gesturing to Gomez, “he needs a Moriarty.”

So does Missy remind you of Delgado’s Master? How does her performance compare to other Master’s? How would you like to see Capaldi’s Doctor and Missy relationship develop?

Doctor Who returns this Saturday with The Magician’s Apprentice on BBC 1 at 7.40pm but you knew that, right?

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