Having survived his execution on Skaro by using a Deathworm Morphant, the renegade Time Lord known as the Master forced the Doctor's TARDIS to land in 1999 San Francisco, where, after the Seventh Doctor was critically injured, the Master possessed the body of paramedic Bruce Gerhardt. Though he was ultimately sucked into the Eye of Harmony in his battle with the Eighth Doctor, the Master persisted in Bruce's body, escaping into the Time Vortex where he encountered River Song and discovered Kolstan.

After a briefly successful escape attempt to 23rd century Earth through manipulating Lila Kreeg, Bruce's body ultimately succumbed to the Vortex and was broken down into atoms, leaving the Master only an essence.

Biography[]

Stealing Bruce's body[]

Main article: Morphant Master's possession of Bruce Gerhardt

When the Old Master was tried and executed by the Daleks, he made a request for the Seventh Doctor to return his remains to Gallifrey, only to use a Deathworm Morphant to take the Doctor's TARDIS to 1999 San Francisco, where he possessed the body of ambulance driver Bruce Gerhardt after he had gone home and to bed after taking the Doctor to hospital to be healed from a gunshot wound.

The next morning, the Master awoke, now inhabiting Bruce's body, but realised that the American's body had started decaying and would not last long and launched his scheme to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, with his first act being the murder of Bruce's wife. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) He then used Bruce's memories to track the Doctor to Walker General Hospital, (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) beginning what he dubbed the "Regeneration Operation". (PROSE: The Secret Diary of the Master)

Battling the Eighth Doctor[]

Main article: Regeneration Operation

Learning from Bruce's colleagues that the Doctor had died on the operating table and that his body had apparently been stolen, the Master was also informed by Nurse Curtis that the young gang member who had been present when the Doctor was shot, Chang Lee, had also stolen the Doctor's possessions, including the TARDIS key. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) Heading to the TARDIS, the Master found Lee already inside, (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) and regaled him with stories of the Doctor's supposed villainy, claiming that the Doctor had stolen his lives and home, and was several notorious villains in history including Genghis Khan. With Lee's help, the Master was able to open the Eye of Harmony, discovered that the Doctor had regenerated into a new body, and that the Doctor was apparently half-human. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).)

Stealing Bruce's ambulance by murdering his paramedic partner, the Master and Lee answered Dr. Grace Holloway's request for an ambulance to collect the Doctor, (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) and agreed to take them to Professor Wagg's atomic clock at the Institute for Technological Advancement and Research and repair the timing malfunction the Master caused with the clock's beryllium chip, when he was really planning to bring the Doctor back to the TARDIS. Realising the Master's true identity, the Doctor and Grace escaped, but before they could do so, the Master secretly possessed Grace's mind. When the Doctor got back to the TARDIS to fix the timing malfunction, the Master had Grace knock the Doctor out and put him in restraints.

Having donned more traditional Gallifreyan robes, the Master boasted of his plans to the restrained Doctor, accidentally letting it slip that he had lost his lives trying to destroy the Doctor, exposing his earlier lies to Lee. After killing Lee for refusing to follow his orders, the Master forcibly opened the Eye using Grace's retina so that he could steal the Doctor's regenerations. Although the Master was able to initiate the transfer process that would give him access to the Doctor's remaining regenerations, Grace was able to prevent this by rerouting the TARDIS' power and sending the ship into a temporal orbit. Grace released the Doctor from his restraints, but the Master threw Grace off of a balcony inside the Cloister Room, killing her. With the Master's body dying as the Doctor's regenerations were returned to him, the two Time Lords fought near the Eye of Harmony, culminating in the Master falling into it when he leapt at the Doctor and misjudged the angle. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).)

According to one account, when the Master stole a fraction of the Doctor's regeneration energy, he trasncended Bruce's body and got stuck in an incomplete regenerative state as a Watcher. Grace Holloway perceived him as a brilliant white figure with a lumpy unformed face and a snarl which spoke with Bruce's voice. As in other accounts, this Watcher Master physically fought the Doctor and was trapped in the Eye of Harmony. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film)

Fates beyond the Eye of Harmony[]

Shortly after his defeat, the Master laid a final trap for the Doctor, leaving a crystalline structure on the Eye that would give the Doctor amnesia. However, the Doctor was subconsciously guided by Rassilon to recover his memories by visiting his previous seven selves. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) Whilst exploring the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS, River Song thought she heard an American screaming from within the walls. (GAME: The Eternity Clock)

There were many rumours on Gallifrey concerning what happened to the Master after he was sucked into the Eye of Harmony in the Doctor's TARDIS. Some rumours stated that he was saved from inside the Time Vortex by the mythical Esterath; others said that he remained trapped in the TARDIS with his mind transferred into an android body to become the Doctor's "companion or pet"; still others claimed that this was the death that he would later be resurrected from by the Time Lords to fight in the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)

A "listless-looking" Ninth Doctor who existed as a separate future for the Eighth Doctor from the "man with big ears" (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows) was the contemporary of an incarnation of the Master who, far from being contained within the Doctor's TARDIS, was back to operating his own TARDIS. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)

In one account from the Time War, the Master's resurrection by the Time Lords damaged the Doctor's TARDIS's control console, with the lingering trauma of the Master's extraction from the TARDIS causing it to adopt a new appearance shortly after the Doctor regenerated at the conclusion of the Time War. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time War)

Initial escape attempts[]

As the Eye of Harmony tried to break him down into pure energy, the Master managed to ride the energy into a spare room, which the Doctor's TARDIS then ejected into the Time Vortex to protect the Doctor. The Master, having reconstituted his stolen body, would remain stranded in the Vortex for hundreds of years, rooting through the Doctor's possessions in search of something to help him escape. (AUDIO: The Lifeboat and the Deathboat) Nevertheless, the power of the Eye had re-energised the decaying body he had stolen from Bruce, enabling him to continue to use it. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)

The Master managed to capture a child of the Vormatoda. Inspired by a VHS he found in the TARDIS' spare room, the Master brainwashed and disguised it as his daughter "Alison". In the mean time the Vormatoda began attacking passing timeships in search of its child, leaving components which the Master could salvage. He eventually built a form of ship around the jettisoned TARDIS room but was still stuck in the Vortex. After her vortex manipulator stalled mid-transit, he rescued River Song via the tractor beam he'd acquired. With him posing as "Daniel", she began to help him retrieving bits of wreckage from victims of the Vormatoda, including a piece of a prison ship that had been transporting psychopath Kaliopi Mileska. During Mileska's rampage, his true identity was revealed and River discovered the truth about Alison. She managed to break Alison's brainwashing, allowing her to return to her natural form and reunite with her parent. With the Vormatoda now attacking his structure, the Master managed to escape the Vortex with Kaliopi in a stasis pod from the prison ship. (AUDIO: The Lifeboat and the Deathboat)

Still in Bruce's body, (COMIC: The Abominable Showmen) the Master was greeted by a female incarnation of himself known as Missy, who had developed a plan to form a band to hypnotise viewers of The Battle of the Bands Beyond the Stars. His decaying thirteenth incarnation, an incarnation possessing the body of Tremas and an incarnation going by the name "Saxon" all joined in the plan, and the team spent "decades" practising. (COMIC: The Five Masters) After unveiling their presence to the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald, (COMIC: The Abominable Showmen) the Masters prepared for their performance. However, the "Tremas" Master began to fight with Missy over the control of her device, believing that he alone could hold the universe in his grasp. The Decayed Master joined in the struggle, followed rapidly by the "Deathworm" Master, and the group soon became involved in a full on brawl. The five were quickly disqualified, seemingly destroying them. (COMIC: The Five Masters)

The Master eventually found himself on Kolstan, where he met Artron, and posed as an assistant sent by the Time Lords. When the Eighth Doctor arrived in a future Master's TARDIS, the Master inflicted a fatal wound on the Doctor and used this to force Artron to operate a machine that would transfer the energy of the native Kolstani into him. However, Artron was able to adjust the machine so that he would absorb the power of the Kolstani instead, although this unintentionally turned them into the Ravenous. When Artron used the power of the Kolstani to disappear with the Doctor, the Master used his future TARDIS to escape to the Time Lord station that all his incarnations used as a base.

Meeting with the the War Master and Missy, the Master worked with them to stop the Ravenous's alliance with the Eleven. As a result of being the only one of his present selves occupying a non-Time Lord body, the Master could not be eaten by the Ravenous. Due to this, the Master served as the group's negotiator. The Master, having aided the "War" Master and Missy in granting his future self a new regenerative cycle, had his mind wiped by his successors and was thrown back into the Time Vortex in order to preserve their timeline. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)

Working with Lila Kreeg[]

Having been trapped in the Vortex for what felt like "an eternity", the Master, now noticeably older, managed to make psychic contact with Lila Kreeg on several occasions. Though at first he did little beyond the extension of teasing holiday greetings and wishing for his own freedom, (WC: Listen to the voice of your Master!, The Master wants to be your Santa Claus, Will you be the Master's valentine...?) he eventually began tempting Lila to aid in his escape.

Continuing to visit Lila in her dreams, the Master promised Lila power in return for her assistance. His efforts paid off and she freed him, though he had to kill her colleague Eddi Bhole in the process. He and Lila made an agreement whilst she had him trapped in a containment field, deciding to takeover Drake Interplanetary. The Master killed Magnus Drake, stole his identity and took over his company, appointing Lila as the lead scientist. (AUDIO: Faustian) The Master turned Drake Interplanetary into the most powerful company on Earth, (AUDIO: Prey) and built up an arsenal of weapons at a secret facility. He also confiscated the technology Lila had used to free him. (AUDIO: Vengeance)

While posing as Drake, he was hunted by Vienna Salvatori, who shot down the Master's airship with him and Lila inside during an assassination attempt. The Master and Lila landed in the slums, and after some encounters with the local gangs, managed to escape to the London Underground. The Master and Vienna fought, and he was knocked down by her into the path of a train. She thought him to be dead, however he actually survived and was retrieved by company security. (AUDIO: Prey) At this time, the Daleks invaded London, with the Dalek Litigator intending to carry out his death sentence on the Master.

Relishing the chance for vengeance, the Master and Lila formed an alliance with Vienna, and fought off the invasion with his arsenal. He confronted the surviving Daleks alone, torturing and killing the Dalek Supreme and forcing the Litigator to flee by temporal shift. Taking their saucer for himself, he tried to tempt Lila to join him in leaving the planet and devastate it as they left. She refused and used her technology, which had been recreated by a Dalek duplicate of Drake, to send the saucer into the Time Vortex with him aboard. The Master grabbed hold of her, begging her to help him, but Lila gave him a final push to send him away. (AUDIO: Vengeance) In the Vortex the Master was broken down, lingering only as an essence in a patch of dark time. (AUDIO: Nemesis Express)

Infiltrating the Kairos[]

The Vortex drive of the Kairos reconstituted the Master as it passed through the patch of dark time and he began feeding on the life force of the crew to stabilise himself. He manipulated the people of the third class compartment, including Passion was a thief in hiding, so he could feed on them and lure Vienna to the ship for his revenge. After fully manifesting he revealed his manipulations to Passion and Vienna and challenged them to follow him as he escaped to a higher class. (AUDIO: Nemesis Express)

In the upper class the Master took over the running of a hunting party and politely greeted Passion and Vienna when they caught up with him, as they'd been stripped of their weaposn so were unable to harm him. He manipulated the hunting to target an infant Chronovore, which he captured to use as a weapon and lure its parent. The parent's arrival threw the ship into chaos, enabling him to reach the control deck. (AUDIO: Capture the Chronovore!)

Needing to leave the Vortex to fully stabilise his form, the Master captured Passion and Vienna when they caught up with him and hypnotised Passion so she would put the Kairos on a collision course with Earth. Passion tricked him however, being able to resist his hypnosis, and sent the ship back to the patch of dark time instead where the Master was pulled apart again. (AUDIO: Passion)

Destruction[]

The Master was eventually drawn back into the Eye of Harmony, (AUDIO: Planet of Dust) where his essence was left wandering the Time Vortex as Bruce's body was slowly destroyed. Nearing his ultimate destruction, the Master was rescued from the Vortex by a being named Esterath, the controller of the focal point of the Omniverse known as the Glory. After being told that it was time for the Glory to gain another controller, the Master was resurrected into the body of a recently deceased vagrant on the streets of 2001 Brixton. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Alternate timelines[]

In an aborted timeline, the Bruce Master was brought to the ruins of Kiameth with four of his other incarnations, as well as Kamelion and Jo Grant by accident, by the Saxon Master, who intended to use the Attornium to take their lives in a desperate bid for his own survival after he had unleashed a sentient entropy wave. When the Masters decided to sacrifice Jo for fun, they were interrupted by Missy, who used the time scoop to scatter the Masters along the timeline of Kiameth, to see if any of them would find a chance of redemption by either stopping the wave or salvaging something from its aftermath.

The Bruce Master found himself at a beach house on an isolate planet, where found the Decayed Master had formed a relationship with a woman named Kitty, his decaying appearance hidden by a perception filter. After a talk with Kitty, the Bruce Master convinced the Decayed Master to show Kitty his true appearance, lying that she had grown to love him enough to look past it. As he had predicted, Kitty was horrified by his previous incarnation's decaying body, and the Bruce Master left the planet with Kamelion. When he joined forces with the Young and Saxon Masters against Missy, the Bruce Master was killed when Kamelion, who had been working with Missy, exploded, though the Saxon Master managed to escape. However, the actions of the War Master caused a paradox that erased the Saxon Master's arrival on Kiameth, bringing the universe back to normal. (AUDIO: Masterful)

Psychological profile[]

Personality[]

The Bruce Master was generally calm and sinisterly villainous, but was also capable of terrifying rage. After he took possession of Bruce Gerhardt's body, and, after finding out that his new body was not stable, he became determined to steal the remaining lives of the Doctor himself. When his attempt to take the Eighth Doctor's remaining regenerations was thwarted, the Master reverted to a more basic, brutal approach, attempting to smash the Doctor's head in with a staff positioned around the Eye, proclaiming that "life [was] wasted on the living" and rejecting the Doctor's aid when he was being pulled into the Eye.

The Bruce Master was also very petty, snapping Chang Lee's neck when he refused to follow an order, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) sabotaging the Decayed Master's happiness out of spite, (AUDIO: Masterful) opening fire on creatures in the London Underground to vent frustration, (AUDIO: Prey) and torturing a Dalek Supreme for fun. He also enjoyed taking vengeance on those who had inconvienced him, relishing the opportunity to kill Daleks due to their execution of him. (AUDIO: Vengeance)

Unlike previous incarnations, the Bruce Master was extremely serious when there was work to be done, more focused on getting the task at hand completed than engaging in small talk and humour, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) though would enjoy the company of a like-minded individual if he was not in an immediate hurry. (AUDIO: The Lifeboat and the Deathboat) As head of Drake Interplanetary, he adopted a blunt approach during negotiations. (AUDIO: Prey)

As with his previous selves, he enjoyed being recognised as "evil", (AUDIO: Masterful) thanking Shelly Curtis for playfully calling him "sick", (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) and calling Jo Grant "too kind" when she called the Master the "absolute worst". (AUDIO: Masterful)

He was critical of people's trust towards the Doctor, (AUDIO: The Lifeboat and the Deathboat) but was quick to betray his own allies when it became convenient, such as Chang Lee, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) and Lila Kreeg. (AUDIO: Prey)

He found the idea of a peaceful and mundane existence to be "unbearable". (AUDIO: Masterful)

Habits and quirks[]

The Bruce Master felt a pedantic need to correct people on bad grammar, such as when he corrected Grace Holloway's "kiss as good as me" to "[kiss] as well as [me]". He was also quite literal, not understanding expressions such as killing someone to mean making them laugh. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).)

Skills[]

The Bruce Master was still capable of manipulating people into following his will, winning Lee's loyalty through deception, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) and tempting Lila into freeing from the Time Vortex. (AUDIO: Faustian)

Appearance[]

While within Bruce's body, the Master looked like a young American man, but his eyes appeared reptilian, forcing him to wear black sunglasses to remain inconspicuous. (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) He decided to have his new hair gelled (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) into a slick backcomb style, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) as opposed to Bruce's messy style. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) While searching for the Doctor, the Master wore denim jeans and a check shirt with Bruce's duster coat of black leather and light boots. When his plan neared completion, the Master changed into a black high collared tunic with crimson lining, similar to the one he wore during his Dalek extermination, with an extravagant Gallifreyan robes, citing that he "always dress[ed] for the occasion".

While Bruce's body had been breaking down after the possession, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Matthew Jacobs, Doctor Who Television Movie (Fox Broadcasting Company, 1996).) it was reinvigorated by the Eye of Harmony when the Master passed through it. (AUDIO: Day of the Master) However, Bruce's body did visibly age during his confinement in the Time Vortex. (WC: Listen to the voice of your Master!) After the Master was forced back into the Vortex again after successfully reaching 23rd century Earth, (AUDIO: Vengeance) Bruce's body finally did disintegrate in a patch of Dark Time, but was later reconstituted as an accidental side-effect of the vortex drive of the Kairos. (AUDIO: Nemesis Express) The Master's molecules, however, remained unstable so long as he was in the Vortex and Bruce's body was pulled apart again when the Kairos flew back through the Dark Time. (AUDIO: Passion)

Other references[]

Whilst trapped in the Matrix by the Spy Master, the Thirteenth Doctor remembered the Bruce Master, amongst many others, in order to break out of the computer system. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Behind the scenes[]

• Christopher Lloyd was the first choice for the role of the Master in the Doctor Who TV movie, but was deemed too expensive by Universal executives. In addition to Lloyd, offers were extended to Kyle MacLachlan, Malcolm McDowell, Tom Selleck and Sting. Other actors considered included F. Murray Abraham, Richard Dean Anderson, Armand Assante, Dan Aykroyd, Scott Bakula, James Belushi, Tom Berenger, David Bowie, Steve Buscemi, Dana Carvey, Chevy Chase, Phil Collins, Brian Cox, Tim Curry, Timothy Dalton, Robert Duvall, Robert Englund, Matt Frewer, Jeff Goldblum, Rutger Hauer, Gregory Hines, Dennis Hopper, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Chris Isaak, Mick Jagger, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, John Lithgow, Ray Liotta, Kyle MacLachlan, Ian McKellen, John Malkovich, Rick Moranis, Bill Murray, Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman, Jonathan Pryce (who later played the Master in The Curse of Fatal Death), Randy Quaid, Judge Reinhold, Tom Selleck, Martin Sheen, Kevin Spacey, Sting, Jon Voight, Tom Waits, Damon Wayans, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Peter Weller, Henry Winkler, Michael York and no fewer than four actors from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Michael Dorn (Worf), Jonathan Frakes (William Riker), Brent Spiner (Data) and Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard).^[1]
• The Bruce Master, "[dressed] for the occasion", is among the incarnations of the Master whom appear in Doctor Who: Legacy.
• "The Movie Master" was the internal name used to distinguish the incarnation of the Master portrayed by Eric Roberts in Masterful, as revealed in the behind-the-scenes track for its release.

External links[]

• The Master / Missy at the Doctor Who Legacy wiki

Footnotes[]