• Ambiguous Start of Darkness: The drumming in their head that vexed Simm's incarnation. It supposedly drove the Master mad and it's known to have been in their head since they were eight, but wasn't mentioned until the Revival Series. It's unclear if this is an out-of-universe Retcon and the root cause of their villainy, one of several contributing factors (the Expanded Universe had a few other explanations for why the Master is evil, which are hardly mutually-exclusive), or an in-universe Cosmic Retcon caused by the Time War that merely made an already evil person go insane.
• Arch-Enemy: The most recurring individual adversary for the Doctor, with only Davros and the Valeyard challenging this claim ^note (the former being the de-facto creator of the Daleks in addition to being one of the most xenophobic sadists in the universe; the latter is just as powerful and intelligent as the Doctor themselves considering he literally is the Doctor). Missy is even insulted and angered when the Twelfth Doctor calls Davros his arch-enemy.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: A figurative and literal Time Lord. Their family owned estates back on Gallifrey.
• Attention Whore: One of the Master's defining traits across incarnations and media is that they love having an audience (often but not always the Doctor) for both their brilliant schemes and atrocities. For example, in the Big Finish audio ''Master of Callous'' there's the Jacobi Master patiently explaining to a corrupt governor how he managed to outmaneuver her and the importance of "patience and planning" before killing her anyway.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: A villianous example in the Master playing music, usually when things are going according to plan. Among such examples are King Crimson's "Devil's Triangle", Rogue Traders' "Voodoo Child", and Boney M's "Rasputin".
• Bad Boss: The Master frequently sacrifices or outright murders their own underlings or allies, often just for fun. Casualties of this approach include George McDermott, a squad of Cybermen, Chang Lee (he got better), the UK Cabinet, the entire Cult of Saxon, Dr. Chang, Seb, and Ashad.
• Big Bad: For Season 8 of the original series, where he appeared in every episode before being arrested at the end of "The Dæmons", and in Season 9, where UNIT still regards him as the biggest threat. Considering he was the most prominent and recurring foe of the Doctor from the Fourth Doctor's tenure onwards, he can be probably be considered the main antagonist of the classic series as a whole once the Daleks take a backseat. He also is the main villain of the movie. In the revival, they are the main antagonist for Series 3 with the "Mr. Saxon" arc and again in Series 8, Series 10 and Series 12.
• Big Bad Friend: Was once the Doctor's dearest friend, but is now one of their greatest enemies. Likewise, in his Big Finish debut, "Call Me Master", the Sacha Dhawan Master suggests the Doctor was his only friend.
• Blue Blood: Time Lords were generally the snobs of the galaxy, but the Master recalls having estates (plural) on Gallifrey. They and the Doctor used to run through fields of red grass together when they were kids.
• Breakout Villain: While the writers had toyed with the idea of an Evil Counterpart to the Doctor before, Delgado's Master was what finally made the concept work, and created an iconic character in the process. He even supplanted the Daleks as the most prominent villain of the Classic Era for a time.
• Camp: Each incarnation in individual ways, which is quite an achievement:
  • Delgado's Master wore all black, including a Nehru jacket and black gloves. He even had a rubbish beard. He also had the habit of using incredibly obvious aliases such as "Colonel Masters" or "Mr Magister".
  • Ainley's Master is a truly Large Ham. Becoming half-feline only made him more camp.
  • Roberts' Master always drezzzed for the occasion. He also un-ironically wore a leather jacket complete with sunglasses, during the evening. Also, he starts out as a snake made of goo.
  • Jacobi's Master had a flair for the dramatic ("The Master... reeee-boorrrn!") and being sadistically cruel.
  • Simm's Master offered people jelly babies, had outrageously blatant phone sex with the Doctor, and danced flamboyantly to the Scissor Sisters. He gives Ainley a run for his money as the hammiest of the Masters.
  • Gomez's Mistress dresses like a gothic Mary Poppins, likes having tea parties with intended victims, dances around while swinging a dainty little umbrella, and generally bounces up and down a lot while wearing a flowery fruit hat.
  • Sacha Dhawan's Master does so enjoy chewing the scenery when he reveals he's around. Clapping his hands in childlike glee about pulling a fast one on the Doctor for an entire episode does that to a Time Lord. And he does a pretty campy (and awesome) disco dance disguised as Rasputin... to the Boney M. song "Rasputin"... Complete with turing the Winter Palace's chandeliers into disco lights.
• Card-Carrying Villain: The Master holds much pride in the idea of being the aspiring Evil Overlord over the entire universe, and frequently enjoys indulging in doing evil and cruel deeds at random, simply for no other reason than the fact they can. In any incarnation, calling them twisted or evil is a guaranteed Insult Backfire.
• Character Development: The Master's personality and motivations have evolved with each new incarnation, resulting in the character's core personality changing drastically, arguably even more than the Doctor's:
  • The Delgado incarnation was a suave schemer who simply wanted to take over the universe, destroy and/or escape from Earth, spend time with (or kill) the Doctor and occasionally enjoy a good cigar.
  • When his body got burned, he became less affable and more desperate, not to mention a lot more mentally broken in the process. He became bitter and planned to destroy the Doctor and his own people to extend his life.
  • The Ainley Master was definitely more unhinged than he was in his previous Time Lord bodies, and knew that his Trakenite form had an expiration date. At the same time, he once again wanted to spend time with the Doctor, commenting that a cosmos without his friend "scarcely bears thinking about". Not that it stopped him from trying to kill them still.
  • The Roberts incarnation was stuck in a very rapidly decaying body and decided to steal the Doctor's regenerations to survive, showing no regard for his old friend.
  • The Jacobi Master was noticeably more cold and sinister than previous incarnations while still remaining dramatic.
  • The Simm Master, initially, was the first one in a long while to have no concerns over his longevity, and kept the Doctor as a pet while he merrily screwed with Earth — although he's decidedly far more insane and energetic than previous incarnations. After dying and coming back in a decaying body yet again, he sacrificed himself to stop Rassilon, telling the Doctor to "get out of the way" and flinging himself into the Time War. He later managed to escape with his body restored to full health and his behaviour more controlled, but was still every bit of a sadistic monster with a warped sense of humor as before.
  • The Gomez incarnation was even more broken than her predecessor and her obsession with the Doctor had become stronger than ever, but after several decades she gradually learned how to be a better person and genuinely wanted to restore her friendship with him. Whereas the Jacobi and Simm incarnations were blatant misogynists, the Gomez incarnation adores her new body and absolutely delighted in identifying as female. Though it should be noted that she did still take an, in her own words, "old-fashioned" view of things. She was also somewhat more kooky than Simm, not taking a lot of things seriously.
  • The Dhawan Master was even more broken and kooky still, in no small part because of his obsession with the Doctor, who he once again attempted to murder without remorse. He showed no signs of his attempts to better himself as Missy and instead acted like the monster he believed he was supposed to be, but no longer felt much satisfaction in it. He also lost his predecessors' desire to survive at any cost, hoping instead that he'd be killed, preferably by the Doctor. He was also ruled by jealousy and felt inferior to the Doctor, to the point of trying to steal her body solely to become the Doctor.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Never, ever expect the Master to honour their part in any deal they have entered into. The Master will even betray themselves across incarnations.
• Cloudcuckoolander: A villainous example, but each incarnation of the Master has a few touches of this.
  • Delgado's Master enjoys watching The Clangers, assuming they were an intelligent race attempting to communicate instead of a show for children.
  • Eric Roberts' Master, much like the Sixth Doctor, truly believes his Time Lord getup isn't a fashion accident.
  • Simm's Master likes partying at highly inappropriate times and dancing to Earth pop music. And, in a Shout-Out to Delgado, praises the Teletubbies as the height of evolution.
  • Gomez's Mistress enjoys playing incredibly odd pranks, throws tea parties for victims, sings a song while replacing the lyrics with her name and insists on receiving a compliment before murdering a subordinate. She also treats most things like a joke and is fond of innuendos.
  • The Dhawan Master behaves like an utter Psychopathic Manchild, clapping his hands like a toddler while celebrating pulling one over the Doctor, making weird jokes out of the situations he finds himself in and dancing to the Boney M. song Rasputin while disguised as the man himself in front of a group of Daleks and Cybermen.
• Complexity Addiction: The Master frequently overcomplicates their own evil schemes for the sake of amusement or having an audience. Delgado felt that just firing missiles at the Doctor from a distance lacked "that personal touch", while Missy considers her and the Doctor trying to kill each other to be "sort of our texting" at this point. This is lampshaded by the Rani.
  The Rani: He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Each incarnation contrasts each other in some way:
  • Roger Delgado's portrayal of the Master was a suave, Faux Affably Evil character who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, fighting the Doctor from time to time.
  • Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers' version was vengeful and maniacal, actively trying to kill the Doctor through any means necessary.
  • Anthony Ainley's portrayal permanently relegated the character to a Non-Action Big Bad who would run like Hell at the first sign of trouble, while also adding his own spin to the Master by making him a hammy Manipulative Bastard.
  • Eric Roberts' version was, like Crispy Master, more vengeful and bloodthirsty, but had the catch of being in a rapidly-decaying human body. He also displayed the ability to spit weaponized bile and turn into a goo-snake that possesses others through an Orifice Invasion, which is how he got into the human body in the first place. These abilities were huge invokedBig-Lipped Alligator Moments, seeing how they were never brought up in the show again.
  • Derek Jacobi's portrayal took a unique twist on Roberts' version by having the Master become human through a Chameleon Circuit, which also gave him a false set of memories as the benevolent Professor Yana. From the minute amounts of screentime that Jacobi's Master held as the Master, he seemed far colder than previous incarnations.
  • John Simm's Master was a Psychopathic Manchild who wished nothing more than to torment the Doctor and his companions. He was also a bigot, something that Jacobi's Master shared when he returned to being the Master. This portrayal was also far more emotional, being overtaken by rage or sadness in the heat of the moment at times.
  • "Missy", Michelle Gomez's version of the Master, dropped the woman-child aspect while retaining the psychopathy, leaving us with an incredibly batty Violent Glaswegian who enjoys making pop-culture shout-outs.
  • Whereas Missy was, even at her most villainous, focused on trying to regain the Doctor's friendship, Sacha Dhawan's Master is back to unrepentantly trying to kill the Doctor, has a Hair-Trigger Temper that puts other incarnations to shame, and admits to being addicted to murder.
• Depending on the Writer: Like with the Doctor, regeneration can be used to explain their changing personality between incarnations, but the whole of the Classic series uses a single incarnation of the Master (stealing various bodies after the deaths of his old ones) — the Pratt/Beevers, Ainley and Roberts incarnations are (at least, according to some sources) supposed to be the same incarnation as the initial Delgado character. Even so, their personality, goals, humour level and power sets vary wildly, significantly more than the Doctor's do between their incarnations. It borders on Same Character, But Different in many cases. Then there's the question of whether or not the War Chief is an incarnation of the Master...
• Determinator: This crossed with Why Won't You Die? is a major reason why the Master will always be a threat to the Doctor, if for no other reason than sheer tenacity and refusal to permanently die.
• Dirty Coward: This trait is essentially what more than anything marks the Master as truly different from the Doctor. Where the Doctor is unwavering in their courage and is always willing to put their life on the line when the chips are down, the Master fears death more than anything and when their life is threatened, they will drop everything, including manners, and do whatever it takes to stay alive.
  • Exemplified in the Time War, when the Cruciform fell around the war's 400th and final year. This event sent the Master running for his life and going to great lengths to disappear from the radar of other Time Lords at the very edge of the universe. Contrasted to the War Doctor, who refused to back out of the Time War despite any level of danger posed to him, this speaks volumes about how cowardly the Master really is.
  • Subverted with Simm's Master. While he still possesses a strong streak of cowardice, he was the first major departure from previous incarnations in that he repeatedly eschewed survival if it meant striking at his enemies, demonstrating this first when he refuses to regenerate after being shot by Lucy (he does have a backup plan to be resurrected, but it wasn't guaranteed to work); then when, rather than let Rassilon kill the Doctor and thereby escape being caught in the time lock, he instead attacks Rassilon in revenge for manipulating him even though that means his certain doom by being sent to Gallifrey moments before its apparent destruction; and finally when he apparently successfully permanently kills Missy, his future self, because she expressed her intent to help the Doctor.
• Dragon with an Agenda: To Rassilon, although he doesn't learn this himself for centuries and (understandably) shows no loyalty to Rassilon once he does.
• The Dreaded: Not at first, but eventually. Every time the Doctor realizes that the person in front of them has been The Master all along, which has occurred three times in the revival series so far, pure horror rushes through them.
  • By the time of their regeneration stated as the Tenth, the Doctor, even after the horror of the Time War, is outright terrified when he realises the Master's alive, and near his TARDIS. And again when he's resurrected. The Doctor rushes back to his TARDIS and tries to prevent it happening. Alas, San Dimas Time is in effect.
  • The reveal of Missy's identity shocked the Twelfth Doctor. Considering Twelve is normally stoic, he must be afraid of the Master.
  • The same occurs with Thirteen when the seemingly mild-mannered "O" reveals himself to be the Master. The Doctor's companions don't realise the significance of the Master's words in and of themselves, but they do see her reaction, which causes their own Oh, Crap! reactions in turn.
• Driven to Madness: Since he looked into the Untempered Schism, he started hearing the sound of drums, which made him crazy. It is the sound of a Time Lord's hearts, placed by the Time Lord High Council, on Rassilon's command, to escape the Time War.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Doctor being obliterated by Rassilon is not something he'll stand for. So much so that he shoots Rassilon with electric beams and then chokes him to death by shoving diamonds down his throat.
  • According to the audio dramas, the Master, who adores chaos, saw the Time War as just too much chaos and quickly did what the Doctor does best — run away from Gallifrey as fast as you can.
  • According to some novels, the Doctor and the Master were already using their titles at the Academy, meaning the Doctor told the Master his birth name and trusted him enough to keep that secret; even to this day the Master has never spoken it aloud. Whatever their... issues... with one another, the Doctor trusted him with that secret and that is sacrosanct. Likewise, The Second Doctor has confirmed that he knows what the Master's is, but has never said it aloud either^note For those wondering, it is, apparently, Koschei.
• Evil Counterpart: The classic Master filled in as the Blofeld to Three's Bond (or the Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes). Where the Doctor is fascinated with exploring the Universe, the Master is obsessed with the idea of ruling it. When they were soldiers in the Time War, the Doctor kept fighting to the bitter end of the war, while the conflict eventually became too much for the Master, who ran away in terror. He later masqueraded as a humble professor with his personality kept under lock and key in a watch (like the Tenth Doctor), before heading to Earth in his next incarnation (like the Ninth). The "Yana" persona took a few notes from the Doctor's playbook, manipulating his Malmooth lab assistant into a "provoked" attack. Where the Tenth Doctor likes to jury-rig harmless gadgets such as "ding" machines, the Master personally retrofitted the Doctor's TARDIS into a monstrous Paradox Machine. The TV movie and "The Sound of Drums" are where the Master started picking up hitchhikers of his own: gangster Chang Lee, and trophy wife Lucy Saxon. Except instead of showing Lucy the wonders of the universe, he revealed only entropy and darkness.
  • Flipped on at least one occasion, with the Master changing gender from Simm to Gomez, and the Doctor following suit with Twelve to Thirteen.
  • The "O" Master is bright and perky, like the Thirteenth Doctor, but the two of them ultimately conclude they are not the same. The Master discovers the Doctor is an immortal creature that the Time Lords exploited to create regeneration and thus, in the Master's eyes, more important and special than him. This is actually a plot point, as the Master's belief he is not equal to his old enemy leads him to destroy Gallifrey out of spite, creating the arc of Series 12. In the Doctor's eyes, meanwhile, they're not the same because she contains more, contains multitudes of past selves she never knew about, and has not been broken by their existence as the Master has.
• Evil Former Friend: Bordering on Psycho Ex at times — which the Master delights in lampshading.
• Evil Genius: As a Time Lord, every Master is capable of far more advanced scientific feats than the smartest human. A line in their debut states the Master achieved a higher educational degree than the Doctor.
• Evil Gloating: Frequently, the Master simply cannot help themselves but fall into this, clearly relishing whenever the opportunity to have a Just Between You and Me moment with the Doctor arises. Even the Simm Master, while making the effort to be a No-Nonsense Nemesis at first, eventually succumbs to the urge and proceeds to spend an entire year doing this while the Doctor is his (seemingly) powerless prisoner. In the end, there is nothing the Master craves more than validation and who but their oldest Worthy Opponent could ever fully appreciate the genius of their cunning and nefarious plans?
• Evil Is Hammy: They do this so much they could almost be the Trope Codifier. Notably, the Jacobi, Gomez, and Dhawan incarnations all come across as relatively mild-mannered and unassuming until they are revealed as incarnations of the Master... and then they immediately devour all the scenery in sight.
• Evil Overlord: Proves to be a tyrant every time they get the chance to rule something.
• Evil Plan: Always. From the simple to the complex, the Master has always got some plan just waiting to be either set up, completed, tweaked or even abandoned in favour of a new one.
• Evil Sorcerer: Okay, granted it's Sufficiently Advanced Technology, but a lot of the Master's schemes make them come across as this. On multiple occasions they've headed their own cults, whose aims range from quite literally summoning demons to bringing the Simm Master back to life. (Missy, of course, operates more under the gender-flipped version, Wicked Witch.) Given that the Doctor is often compared to a good wizard...
• Evil Wears Black: The Master subscribes to the Neil Gaiman school of fashion. Even his ceremonial Time Lord getup was black, although Missy starts shaking things up a bit by having one of her outfits be dark purple, and the Dhawan incarnation continues the trend with a purple suit.
• Expy: Ernst Stavro Blofeld has been an enduring influence on the Master; what with the Nehru jackets, the kitty-stroking in "Survival", the elaborate deaths for unwary henchmen, etc.
• Fantastic Racism: While they don't especially respect most other Time Lords, the Master emphatically considers non-Time Lord life to be without value and has a special contempt for humans. The Master seems to go back and forth between resenting the Doctor's fondness for humans and failing to grasp that the Doctor sees them as anything more than pets (even though companions have personally defeated the Master more than once). However, there does seem to be at least a little Villain Respect towards some like the Brigadier and Jo Grant, whom the Delgado Master seems genuinely fond of.
• Foil:
  • Their plans are unique in how they involve the Doctor, when compared to the Doctor's other villains. The other villains will develop a plan specifically to trap and get rid of the Doctor, via trapping them outside the universe or killing them outright. The Master, on the other hand, will have plans that will put them in a position to help the Doctor (albeit in their own twisted way), get admiration from the Doctor, and/or something else that killing the Doctor would be counterproductive with.
  • Crossing over with Evil Counterpart: The Doctor admires all life forms, and could easily work as a God of Good, but doesn't have the attention span or interest for it. The Master, meanwhile, detests all life, needing to be in charge. Unlike the Daleks, both the Doctor and the Master need other species around — the Doctor needs to be kept in check, while the Master needs to be in control.
• Forced Transformation: "The Giggle" states that some unspecified version of the Master challenged the Toymaker to a game and lost, resulting in his being transformed into the Toymaker's gold tooth.
• For the Evulz: Across all incarnations, the Master tends to impulsively and callously inflict death and suffering on anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path, sometimes without any warning at all, their reasoning for these random acts of wanton cruelty usually being no more complex than because they were bored, because they wanted to, or simply because they could.
• Freudian Excuse: He was Driven to Madness by an excruciating sound which he interprets as "the drumming, the call to war", and it's implied that he believes (or did believe, before The Reveal about the sound's origin) that conquering the universe could make it stop at last. Of course, with the show running on Timey-Wimey Ball rules, it is questionable whether this was always the case, since "the drumming" was the result of a Cosmic Retcon.
• Friendly Enemy: How friendly depends on which incarnation of both the Doctor and the Master, but at the very least, there's almost always quite a lot of Villain Respect.
• Galactic Conqueror: In the novelization of "Survival", it is mentioned that when the Master is not encountering the Doctor, he's busy. Only instead of saving planets and helping people, the Master conquers planets and enslaves people.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The Doctor theorises that the Master's descent into insanity stemmed from looking into the Time Vortex when he was a child.
• Grammar Nazi: They're fond of correcting other people.
  • As Eric Roberts:
    Grace: I suppose you knew Madame Curie too.
    The Doctor: Yes, intimately.
    Grace: Does she kiss as good as me?
    The Master: As well as you.
  • The Simm Master decides he wants to make a point about the meaning of the word decimate. So he decides to decimate one tenth of the population of the Earth.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Has played around with this a bit during the revival series. The last interaction between him and the Tenth Doctor had them pull a brief Enemy Mine against Rassilon ending with the two seemingly making peace with each other as he willfully returned to the soon to be destroyed Gallifrey. When she reappeared as Missy she was over this and as much a monster as ever, but then as the Twelfth Doctor Era went on she became a Friendly Enemy, then a Token Evil Teammate, then finally attempted an actual Heel–Face Turn before seemingly being Killed Off for Real. Then in the Thirteenth Doctor era they returned again in a new body and as big a monster as ever.
• Hypnotic Eyes: A favourite of the classic series Masters, often used in conjunction with their catchphrase:
  "I am the Master, and you will obey me."
• Iconic Sequel Character: The only rival to the Daleks in terms of number of appearances and being an archenemy to the Doctor... and they didn't show up at all until the eighth season.
• I Have Many Names: The Master has taken on numerous aliases and stolen identities over the years, some long-term and others for brief moments.
• Immortal Genius: On top of their natural lifespan and regenerations, the Master has also made use of the occasional Grand Theft Me to preserve their immortality. They're also just as brilliant as the Doctor: not only are they an expert in almost every field of science known in the universe, but they're also an inventor capable of creating psychic-amplifying satellites and improbably powerful computers with comparatively primitive materials.
• Insult Backfire: In just about any incarnation, the Master takes being called evil, insane, inhuman, brutal, corrupt, spiteful or sick as a compliment.
  The Doctor: The Master's consumed by hatred. It's his one great weakness.
  The Master: Weakness, Doctor? Hate is a strength!
• Irony: After centuries of doing everything possible to survive and enduring high amounts of suffering in the process, what kind of final death does the Master end up being okay with? The Simm incarnation shooting his future self in the back. They find it really funny.
• It's All About Me: Cares about conquering the universe and, on a good day, the Doctor. Anyone else is expendable.
• Joker Immunity: A master at averting being Killed Off for Real:
  • Delgado's Master was reduced to a degraded, decaying version of himself yet still didn't die, but eventually transferred himself to another body.
  • Ainley's version survived several No One Could Survive That! instances, and even lampshaded his unlikely survival at one point with the comment: "I'm indestructible! The whole universe knows that!"
  • Displays this blatantly from "Castrovalva" onwards, where he/she starts regularly surviving apparently fatal incidents with no explanation. Earlier stories tended to display overt Villain: Exit, Stage Left rather than having him apparently die.
  • The Roberts Master was rendered Only Mostly Dead by the TV Movie, and was then thrown into the Eye of Harmony, which one would think was the end of him. But no, (if you don't count the Expanded Universe chronicling his eventual escape and further misadventures) he was apparently rescued by the Time Lords, who granted him a new regeneration cycle, only to Chameleon Arch himself, then got sent to the end of the Universe as Professor Yana.
  • Simm's Master initiated a Thanatos Gambit to avoid permanently dying after "Last of the Time Lords" (despite the Doctor apparently burning his body), Came Back Wrong because Lucy Saxon sacrificed herself to interfere with his revival, and died in a Heroic Sacrifice in "The End of Time". Or so it seemed. He managed to live, while Rassilon probably regenerated from his injuries. The Time Lords realized they had a real monster on their hands and decided he was better off in a stable body instead of feeding on everybody, so he returned to normal.
  • Michelle Gomez's Mistress was vaporized, right on screen, this time by a Cyberman. It seems by now writers aren't even going to pretend the Master's death will ever stick — shortly afterwards Gomez announced she'd return in the next series. (And indeed, when she did, we actually found out exactly how she got away this time.) Later on, she is shot in the back by her previous incarnation with the laser screwdriver, set to a function meant to disable her ability to regenerate and thus kill her permanently — minutes before a massive explosion destroyed the spaceship deck she was on. As always, this wasn't the end of the character.
    Missy: Death is for other people.
  • While not "death", Sacha Dhawan's Master was forever imprisoned in a golden tooth by the Toymaker. We don't even reach the end of the episode where this is revealed before his plans to escape are in motion.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: According to the Tenth Doctor, the Master started out not unlike himself: occasionally taking a life here and there, all in the pursuit of a greater design. This inevitably led to him concluding that everybody else in the universe (except sometimes the Doctor) was disposable at best and worthy of annihilation at worst.
• Just Between You and Me: The Master holds great pride in the quality of their Evil Plans, and frequently simply can't help themselves as their own sense of vanity always tempts them to share the details of them, especially with the Doctor, who they view as the only person intelligent enough to appreciate their genius.
• Kick the Dog: Being a dastardly villain, they're BOUND to have done plenty of this over the years.
  • Classic Masters: Roger Delgado
    • In his first appearance, the Master casually throws a hapless scientist off a radio tower to his death. Why? Because he was in the Master's way.
    • In the same serial, the Master kills a man and hides his now tiny body inside the man's lunchbox.
    • The Master — at the very end of "The Mind of Evil" — ends up running over and killing Barnham, a very sweet, gentle and kind man who just saved his life! Ungrateful Bastard at its finest.
    • In "The Sea Devils", the Master outright admits that the only reason he's trying to destroy Earth is because he knows it's the Doctor's favourite planet.
  • Classic Masters: Anthony Ainley
    • He murders a random policeman and Tegan's Aunt Vanessa For the Evulz.
    • He sometimes treats Nyssa like a surrogate daughter. This is extremely cruel because the Master is walking around wearing her father's corpse.
    • Near the end of "Survival", the Master has got what he wants. He's escaped the cheetah planet and is alive. He still goes out of his way to turn some 1980s teenagers into his brainwashed slaves and kill a child’s cat. Why? Because the Master is a dick, that's why.
  • Classic Masters: Eric Roberts
    • Stealing Bruce's body and then murdering Bruce's wife. He could have left her alive, but he clearly didn't feel like it.
    • Snapping Grace and Chang Lee's necks after he no longer needed them. They get better, but still.
  • Revival Masters: Derek Jacobi: How about killing his assistant when awakened? There was literally no reason to do it, either, he just did it because he found her annoying!
  • Revival Masters: John Simm
    • Turning the TARDIS into a Paradox Machine.
    • Murdering his Cabinet with poisonous gas as he gleefully watches.
    • Having a reporter murdered and listening to her screams by opening and closing the door three times before stopping.
    • Killing a TENTH of the Earth's population for no reason other than to strike fear into everyone, and then ruling the world with an iron fist for an ENTIRE YEAR!
    • Torturing and murdering Jack Harkness over and over again with a smile on his face.
    • It's also implied he beat his wife, and he clearly has no true love for her.
    • Harassing and enslaving the Jones family just because he can.
    • At one point he encounters Martha Jones (a black woman) and Captain Jack Harkness (a pansexual man that due to certain circumstances became an immortal) and calls them "the girly and the freak". He then adds that he's not sure which is which.
    • After he Comes Back Wrong in "The End of Time", he turns 99.999% of the human race into the "Master race" and uses it to spite the Doctor.
    • Being Bill Potts' Only Friend while she was trapped on a Mondasian spaceship with the Doctor unable to save her due to Time Dilation, then telling her he'll help her get back to him only to trick her into Cyber-conversion. Amazingly, this was also a kick the dog moment to himself since he was sabotaging his next incarnation, who was trying to turn good and wanted to impress the Doctor.
    • When he first sees a fully Cyber-converted Bill, he mockingly does the accent he used while disguised as her friend so she knows who he is.
    • His final act is the ultimate one to himself — when his future self finally decides to stand with the Doctor he kills her for good, forgoing his regular obsession with survival and sealing his own fate out of pure spite.
  • Revival Mistress: Michelle Gomez
    • Harvesting the minds of dead/dying people and manipulating them into deleting their emotions.
    • Killing Dr. Chang because he had outlived his usefulness, and having the audacity to act like she was the one suffering from it.
    • Casually murdering Osgood because she's pretty. She even counts down to her death and after vaporizing her, grinds her glasses into the floor with her heel.
    • Killing Seb because he was annoying her.
    • Calling all of humanity the Doctor's "pets" and trying to turn them all into Cybermen for him to command.
    • Lying about Gallifrey's location to the Doctor. Blatantly a case of the Master being a dick for no real reason.
      Although we later discover she was only lying by omission. The spatial coordinates were correct. She just didn't specify temporal ones.
    • Purposely asking about Danny and if he was still "tremendously dead" to Clara to most likely try and get a reaction out of her. Thankfully, Clara didn't take the bait.
    • Vaporizing two UNIT soldiers, one of whom had a wife and children, just to prove she hasn't "turned good".
    • Trying to convince the Doctor to kill Clara while she's disguised as a Dalek — and if you look in the background, she's even making mocking faces at Clara! The implication here being that Missy is extremely jealous of the Doctor and Clara's close friendship.
  • Revival Masters: Sacha Dhawan
    • Letting two Australian guards assigned to protect him get into a terrifying situation and wind up killed in order to preserve his latest fake identity.
    • After holding an entire room at TCE-point and ordering them not to move, he threateningly asks a woman if she moved, before laughing, apologizing for making a mistake and seeming to let her go. Then he casually shoots her with the TCE anyway and continues to mock any victims he claims.
    • In order to demonstrate that the Time Lord-Cybermen he produced can regenerate, he orders one of them to shoot and kill another. Even the CyberMaster he issues the order to initially balks at this before the Master reiterates the order again.
• Lack of Empathy: The Master has absolutely no regard for all the "primitive" beings they inflicts horrible fates upon and can wipe out millions without the slightest reservation.
• Large Ham: Yes. And each successive Master manages to be hammier than the last.
• Laughably Evil: The Master is an absolutely terrible person who just happens to have all the charisma and whimsy of the Doctor.
• The Mad Hatter: Delgado, Simm and Gomez have all copped to being paranoid/insane/"bananas".
• Manipulative Bastard: Especially the Gomez incarnation.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Frequently well-dressed. Obviously doesn't apply to the Crispy Master, or Simm in his hobo hoodie get-up. The rule of thumb is: when the Master is not all that dapper, they're either disguised or especially desperate and in a bind. And are, therefore, even more volatile than usual. If they take time to pretend otherwise, times that by five.
• The Master: It's in the name. On more than one occasion, people have commented on what this says about their personality that they choose to call themselves that.
  "I mean, who calls himself 'The Master'?"
• Master of Disguise: The Delgado and Ainley incarnations used this often, at least, including one occasion where the Ainley Master disguised himself as an Asian magician for no apparent reason. The Simm incarnation adopts one in Series 10 as a tribute.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His moniker of "the Master" in that he wants to rule the universe. Also, as a compare/contrast to "the Doctor".
  • It's also the academic rank that is just short of a doctorate. A Master may be good, but a Doctor is Always Someone Better.
  • His sorcerer costume, "Kalid", is named for the violent and petty god of Time. It also brings to mind the Kaleds, the original form of the Dalek race.
  • Also, the alias he chose during his academy days as revealed in the Expanded Universe: "Koschei". In Slavic folklore, Koschei was an antagonist who went through extreme lengths to avoid ever dying, is sometimes referred to as "Koschei the Deathless", and kidnaps the protagonist's compani-– ah, wife. Hell, the name even means "Skeleton".
  • "Missy" is short for Mistress, the latest in a long string of aliases derived from "Master".
  • The Dhawan incarnation chose to take the place of a character named "O" because it's the noise people make when surprised or scared, and he wanted to twist the knife when the Doctor figures out who he is.
• Meet the New Boss: In "The War Games", we are introduced to the War Chief, a Time Lord who has past history with the Doctor, is working with a group of aliens to take over the galaxy, and who plans to betray them the first chance he gets. And he's got an evil moustache too. Then, a couple of seasons later, the Master shows up: A Time Lord who has past history with the Doctor, who routinely teams up with aliens and then betrays them, is noted to have changed his name to the Master since the previous time the Doctor encountered him, and even has a similar taste in clothes and facial hair. invokedWord of God is quite insistent that they're different people, though a few sources say otherwise.
• Mirror Character: To the Doctor, right down to their origin (running away when faced with the Time Vortex).
• More than Mind Control: "I am the Master, and you will obey me." Nearly always works — Peri seems to be the exception, as she is able to outshout him. Jo also figures out a way to use Psychic Static to No-Sell his mind control.
• Mortality Phobia: With the exception of the Delgado Master, the classic series Masters are always on the lookout for ways to cheat death and prolong their life, and they are willing to do any- and everything if put into a situation where their life is directly threatened. The Simm Master keeps an eye out for methods of cheating death, but prioritises spiting his enemies over self-preservation. Missy's not particularly obsessed with finding ways to avoid death, but she still has a strong survival instinct; however, by the end of her character arc, she decides to make a last stand with the Doctor, though she's killed before she can follow through. The Dhawan Master is a Death Seeker, a sign of how broken he's become - even if the other revival Masters value certain things more than life, they don't seek self-annihilation.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Not only is his name "The Master", but most of his Significant Anagram aliases involve plays on the words "death" or "master".
• Narcissist: Calls themself the Master, for starters.
• No Name Given: In the Expanded Universe, it's revealed that the Master's nickname during his Academy days was Koschei. Like the Doctor, their true name remains unknown.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: While the Delgado, Ainley, and Gomez incarnations usually see their conflict with the Doctor as a playful game, the Crispy, Simm, and Dhawan incarnations are devoid of such sentiments and offer the Doctor no quarter in their encounters.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Especially in regard to the Doctor.
• The Nth Doctor: Being a Time Lord, and occasionally stealing other bodies.
• Obviously Evil: The Delgado and Ainley Masters resembled classic old-fashioned evil stage masterminds, dressing in black, having prominent goatees and acting refined yet hammy. It's less so with the Revival era Masters, who tend to be more subtle, though each emulates some of these traits to an extent.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The vast majority of the Master's life occurs offscreen or in Expanded Universe media. When they're not enjoying their little sparring matches against the Doctor, the Master is always out there conquering, enslaving or massacring entire civilisations. There are indications we haven’t even seen most of their incarnations.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The Master will occasionally stop other baddies from killing the Doctor, and invoke this trope. How much of it is true, and how much is them not actually wanting the Doctor to die at all, is up for debate.
• Our Liches Are Different: A Clarke's Third Law-tinged Evil Sorcerer at their core, for a time, the Master runs Out of Continues and turns into a walking, decayed-looking corpse. He then merges with (and, in effect, kills) the body of a living man and, in effect, returns to life. After that, he becomes a Puppeteer Parasite in the TV movie, the body of which decays as the film went on. Subsequently, after returning in his normal body and dying, he Comes Back Wrong. As Missy, she briefly gains dominion over the dead and learns how to use Cyberman technology for necromancy, which carries over into the "Spy" incarnation. The Expanded Universe books even gave Koschei as the Master's name before they chose their current alias.
• Parents as People: Definitely the case — look at all the tropes! Especially so as them being a parent to a daughter is only even mentioned in passing.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Unlike the Doctor, they've never stopped to give an age (not even a false one), but they've been around for a good long while. He and the Doctor were of an age on Gallifrey, and a common assumption (backed up by "Time and the Rani", where the Doctor and the Rani are the same age) is that this has held since. (At least up until "The Timeless Children", when the Master reveals the Doctor is much, much older than either of them had suspected. A reasonable guess might be that they match the Doctor's age counting from the First Doctor on.)
• Red Baron: Master of all matter.
• Resurrected for a Job: He was given a new set of regenerations by Gallifrey's High Council in order to fight in the Last Great Time War.
  The Doctor: What happened to you?
  The Master: The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a Time War. I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it... I ran.
• Returning Big Bad:
  • The character was put on hiatus following Roger Delgado's untimely demise, during which the Daleks and the Sontarans took the role of the Doctor's most prominent adversaries. The Master would return in "The Deadly Assassin" and become the most prominent enemy of the Doctor following the "Return of the Master" trilogy of serials.
  • Following the TV Movie, the Master didn't show up for the first two seasons of the revival, the Daleks and the Cybermen taking prominence instead, eventually making his official return in "Utopia".
• Rival Final Boss: While Fenric may have been the Big Bad of the Seventh Doctor's tenure, the final foe he goes up against is still the Master, his rival and Evil Counterpart.
• Rival Turned Evil: It's established that the Master and the Doctor were at school together, where they were colleagues and friendly rivals.
• Rule of Two: The Master lacks a consistent Dragon, but in almost every appearance they make they'll have at least one henchman or patsy they're using to carry out their plans.
• Sanity Slippage: The Master seems to get crazier with every incarnation. Whereas Delgado's Master was reserved and calculating, the decaying Master was ruthless and unrestrained, likely due to the withering state of his body. After stealing the body of Tremas, the Master became an unabashed and showy ham, which continued into Roberts' incarnation. Jacobi's incarnation lacked the over-the-top hamminess, but still seemed just as ruthless and maniacal from what we saw of him, and Simm's Master was flat-out psychotic thanks to the Time Lords rewriting his past. This trend then reversed for a time with Missy, who despite claiming to be "bananas" was actually one of the more restrained Masters in terms of personality and even came close to turning good, only to go back to being crazy with Dhawan's Master.
• Signature Device: The Tissue Compression Eliminator served as the Master's signature weapon in the Classic Series, tying in with his nature as ruthless, yet plagued by a cartoonish Complexity Addiction, thanks to its gimmick of fatally shrinking people down to the size of action figures so that he can leave them as calling cards. The TCE is so thoroughly associated with the Master, in fact, that both the Peter Pratt and Anthony Ainley incarnations first made themselves known by leaving shrunken corpses lying around for the sake of a Wham Shot. (It carried over into the Expanded Universe of the time as well - the first sign in the Eighth Doctor DWM strips that the Master was back was the Wham Shot of a shrunken corpse.)
• Significant Anagram: Both in-universe and out of it. In the 1980s, in order to not give away the Plot Twist that the villain of a story was the Master, a false name would appear in the credits. These were usually anagrams involving either "Master" or Anthony Ainley's name, such as "James Stoker/Master's Joke" ("The King's Demons"). In-universe, the Master seems to like inventing anagrams to use as names.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Varies by Master incarnation, but the Doctor is the only person they have any genuine regard or affection for. Harold Saxon actually had a wife, but his cruelty to her led to his death.
• The Sociopath: The Master has traits of this across all of their incarnations, with their general sense of megalomania, enjoyment of challenging the Doctor to the occasional battle of wits, and an utter disregard for the plight they inflict upon their victims.
• Stalker with a Crush: More and more overtly as the show goes on. Obsessed with the Doctor, frequently attacks humanity just to goad them, and alternates between murder attempts and proposals to rule the universe together.
• The Starscream: Wants to become Lord President of the Time Lords.
• Start of Darkness: During a dangerous initiation ritual which all Time Lords must pass, he was one of the very few who went mad.
• Staying Alive: Good Lord, yes. "I'm indestructible, the whole Universe knows that." Indeed. Missy even casually lampshades this in a conversation with Clara.
  Missy: Death is for other people, dear.
• Take Over the World: Did you really think that ruling over that Insignificant Little Blue Planet could ever come even remotely close to satisfying their ego? No, the Master aspires and schemes to become the ultimate ruler over no less than the entire universe.
• Terminal Transformation: In the classic series, the Master has weaponized this trope through his specialized weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator. It essentially shrinks the victim down to the size of a doll and kills them due to the Square-Cube Law, conveniently making it very easy for the Master to hide the body.
• Terrible Ticking: The Simm Master complained of an incessant drumbeat in his head, which turned out to be part of Rassilon's plan to escape the Time War. Gomez's Mistress makes no mention of it, likely because Gallifrey in her time is now "lost" rather than in danger.
• Themed Aliases: The Master frequently uses aliases that either mean 'Master' in different languages (e.g. Col. Masters, Prof. Thascalos, Rev. Magister), are anagrams of 'Master' (e.g. Tremas, Sir Gilles Estram, Mr. Seta), or relate to death in some way (e.g. Emil Keller (from the Latin for 'rival' and the Old English for 'executioner'), Dr. Harcourt De'ath, Mr. Razor).
• This Is My Name on Foreign: The Master tends to use aliases which mean "master" in another language.
• Too Clever by Half: When their schemes flop, a lot of the time, it can be ascribed to a runaway mouth and/or ego leading to overreach as much as to outside interference and just plain bad timing.
• Tragic Villain: His villainy is caused by the drumming signal, put into him by Time Lords, desperate to save themselves.
  • It is shown that without his memory, the Master would be a compassionate genius who would think nothing of sacrificing his life to save others. However...
    The Lumiat: We were never truly bad, not even mad. Only sad.
• Unexplained Recovery: Almost guaranteed, no matter what happens. The Master laughs at death. Evilly.
• Villain Ball: The Master tends to prioritize messing with the Doctor and having fun over efficiency, and frequently adds unnecessary flourishes to their plans.
  Third Doctor: Vicious, complicated and inefficient. Typical of your way of thinking.
  
  Fourth Doctor: You'd delay an execution to pull the wings off a fly.
• Villain Episode: While the TV series hasn't given them one, the Expanded Universe has more than made up for it, including Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "Character Assassin", Titan Comics miniseries "Missy", Past Doctor Adventures novel "The Face of the Enemy", BBC Books anthologies "The Missy Chronicles" and "I Am The Master", and a slew of Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories (including their own series).
• Villain on Leave: Sat out the entirety of the Ninth and Eleventh Doctors' tenures. Naturally, the Master returns as the Big Bad of the first season of the Twelfth Doctor's tenure and turns out to have been operating behind the scenes during the Eleventh's.
• Villains Blend in Better: While they are both fundamentally characterized as eccentric geniuses, aside from their differing stances of morality, one of the main differences between the Master and the Doctor is that the former is the "charming sociopath" to contrast the Doctor's "well-intentioned but abrasive Bunny-Ears Lawyer". While the Master, especially the suave and refined Delgado incarnation, has little problem manipulating people into helping with evil plans, the Doctor basically needs the companions to convince people they actually know what they're doing. It's also a literal matter with their TARDISes, which typically have working chameleon circuits so they can appear anywhere looking perfectly in place provided they are not observed fading in or out in use.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • Can be caught watching children's television when not actively being evil. Delgado's Master enjoyed The Clangers, while Simm's was impressed by the Teletubbies. "Television... in their stomachs. Now that is evolution."
  • In "Frontier in Space", the Master is seen reading The War of the Worlds during a space flight. Even evil has to commute.
  • Missy in the Promised Land seems to enjoy a nice spot of tea.
  • In a Big Finish story, the Jacobi Master is working on a plan that just requires him to push over the initial domino in a slow-moving disaster and then kick back and watch all the rest fall over time. Finding himself with a lot of free time on his hands as a result, he decides to try his hand at running a vineyard and make his own wine.
• Villain Team-Up: Oftentimes the Master will be working alongside another villain, including other members of the Doctor Who Rogues Gallery.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: The ability to coordinate outfits that suit a temporal or cultural theme in such a way that the eyes of onlookers are spared from bleeding? Not your standard Time Lord trait, however campy the Master plays it. Because s/he is not normal by Time Lord standards, however antagonistic.
• Weapon Specialization:
  • In the seventies and eighties stories, his trademark weapon was the Tissue Compression Eliminator (TCE), a Shrink Ray which killed people. According to novelisations, the victim suffers a rapid but agonising death due to Square-Cube Law effects. Overall, a fitting weapon for a man who wants to be both socially and physically above every other being in the universe. The Ainley Master's version was somewhat phallic in appearance, leading to many crude jokes from slash fans. Dhawan's Master went back to using the TCE, although this time it looks like a small box with a spout in the corner.
  • The Simm Master used the slightly less phallic laser screwdriver, an Evil Counterpart to the Sonic which fires a Death Ray and can age beings if he has their biological code. It disappeared after "Last of the Time Lords", but if The Adventure Games are anything to go by, it was retrieved by the Tenth Doctor after the Master's death and is currently occupying part of the TARDIS console. As of "World Enough and Time", he seems to have created another.
  • Missy uses what the fandom has taken to calling a DiePhone, which appears to be a smartphone that is capable of vaporizing people. She also seems to have a sonic umbrella.
• We Used to Be Friends: Central to their dynamic with the Doctor. As with much of the Doctor's early life, we still don't know what caused the actual falling out.
  Twelfth Doctor: I had a friend once. We ran together, when I was little. And I thought we were the same, but when we grew up, we weren't.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Unlike the Doctor, whose regenerations have been mostly cut and dry,^note except around Eight to Nine, resulting in the introduction of the War Doctor, and the aborted one Ten had, ultimately creating a meta-crisis clone, not all of the Master's faces have been seen, nor what caused him to regenerate into others. Big Finish, a few novels and the comics have all tried to reconcile some of the instances listed below, but most of them have never been explicitly cleared up onscreen or in audios.
  • The alleged 11 incarnations that could exist between Hughes' portrayal of the child Master and Delgado's thirteenth incarnation, granted that the Master didn't have any accidents to rob him of his regenerations beforehand.
  • The event that made Delgado's Master turn into Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers' decayed incarnation. (Was it thanks to Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, attacking him when he tried capturing her, or an attack on the Doctor that backfired? Perhaps he regenerated normally, only to be attacked by his future self?
  • The ultimate fate of Ainley's Master (did he revert back to the Decayed Master permanently, restore his stolen body and regenerate or did he learn how to transform into a snake-thing and steal a new body?)
  • The birth of Gordon Tipple's Master (pre-Eric Roberts' Master), and for that matter, that incarnation, period — and this is assuming he isn't simply invokedThe Other Darrin for the Ainley Master.
  • How the Master became a deathworm Morphant snake and survived his execution.
  • The transition from Roberts' Master to Jacobi's Master.^note In Big Finish Doctor Who he was stuck in the Time Vortex, then spent some time on a Body Surf reverting back to his Beevers version because... plot... and then received new regenerations through the Time Lords, bestowed upon him... by themselves.
  • The transition from Gomez's Mistress to Dhawan's Master. Big Finish implies there was at least one incarnation between them.
• Wicked Cultured:
  • Delgado's Master dressed in nice suits, smoked cigars^note once, regarded the Doctor as his intellectual equal and playing with him like a chess opponent, read The War of the Worlds, went fencing with the Doctor rather than fighting in a less sophisticated way, and even used his suave and charm to woo the affections of an ambitious woman from Atlantis. He also enjoyed watching The Clangers.
  • Ainley's Master is quite suave and articulate, although it doesn't come across as naturally as Delgado's version.
  • Even Roberts' Master showed signs of sophistication when he drezzzed for the occasion.
  • In his Big Finish stories, Jacobi's Master is quite fond of a good glass of wine.
  • Simm's Master has his definitely-excessive demonstration of the exact meaning of "decimate" and, in a example of being pop cultured, his love for the Scissor Sisters. And Teletubbies.
• Worthy Opponent: Sees the Doctor as one. He even acknowledges the amount of good his timeless foe has done for the universe.
  The Master: A universe without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.

The First Master (First Doctor)

The first incarnation of the Master, before going by that name, was the Doctor's friend and Academy schoolmate on Gallifrey. He was driven mad at the age of eight by looking into the Time Vortex (an ancient Gallifreyan ritual). Allusions to his life on Gallifrey and his time spent with the Doctor are typically vague, although the Expanded Universe often goes into more detail.

• Go Mad from the Revelation: He was unable to cope with the Time Vortex, and his mind broke as a result.
• Lonely Rich Kid: He had the Doctor for a friend, and was at least an acquaintance of the Rani, but that seems to have been just about it. However, Expanded Universe media indicates they were all part of a group known as the Deca in the Academy.

The "UNIT" Master (Third Doctor)

• Aborted Arc: Before filming what was slated to be the final Master adventure (in which the Master died to save the Doctor, apparently), Delgado died in a car accident in Turkey whilst shooting the French historical miniseries The Bell of Tibet, and thus the story had to be scrapped and was replaced with "Planet of the Spiders".
• AM/FM Characterization: In "The Mind of Evil", while travelling in a Rolls-Royce, he listens to "The Devil's Triangle" by King Crimson on a transistor radio.
• Arch-Enemy: For the Third Doctor, being his most personal and recurring foe.
• Arc Villain: Serves as this in Season 8, where he appears in every story as the main bad guy.
• At Least I Admit It: His reaction to being called paranoid is to claim everyone is, he's just more honest.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Either a black suit or a Nehru suit during the UNIT years.
• Bad Habits: In "The Dæmons", the Master assumes the identity of Mr. Magister, The Vicar of Devil's End. The previous vicar, Canon Smallwood, disappeared in mysterious circumstances one night, with Garvin the verger claiming that Smallwood had been taken ill and had to retire.
• Beard of Evil: He has a goatee for that Dastardly Whiplash look.
• Big Bad: The biggest and most recurring villain during the Third Doctor's run, notably appearing in every serial of Season 8 as the main villain of all but one of them, and reappearing as the main antagonist for Seasons 9 and 10^note he serves as a major villain in "Terror of the Autons", "The Mind of Evil", "Colony in Space", "The Dæmons", "The Sea Devils", "The Time Monster", and "Frontier in Space".
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He both had this, and was constantly falling prey to it. Usually by the end of each episode he'd either been betrayed by whatever Arc Villain he'd allied with, or opted to betray them first, almost always forming an Enemy Mine with the Doctor in turn.
• Compelling Voice: His most overtly superhuman talent is mind-control, which requires both eye contact and voice to induce.
• Complexity Addiction: While this is a trait of every version of the Master, it could be considered this incarnation's Fatal Flaw. His need to add extraneous, and often completely unnecessary, additions to his plot all but guarantees his exposure and downfall. Many have noted that his plan to hijack the Thunderbolt Missile and hold the peace conference hostage in "The Mind of Evil" would have worked perfectly had he not decided to involve an alien mind parasite that served absolutely no purpose.
• Composite Character: The best way to describe him is as a cross between a James Bond-esque Diabolical Mastermind and a Dastardly Whiplash.
• Cool Old Guy: Even in his fifties, Delgado was damned cool. He unfailingly steals scenes from everybody, and is usually the oldest player in the story.^note Delgado was one year older than Jon Pertwee
• Cultured Badass: The Delgado incarnation is one of the less cowardly incarnations of the Master, willing to engage in a fight with the Doctor. A fight in a classically-trained sword fighting style.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Lampshaded by Jo after a particularly humiliating defeat leaves the Master speechless.
  Jo: How about "Curses, foiled again?"
• Deadpan Snarker: Got in several shots at the Doctor and his human allies.
• Demoted to Extra: In his first season of Doctor Who, the character turned up in every single serial, from "Terror of the Autons" to "The Dæmons". Then Delgado, while enjoying the show, became concerned that while officially a guest star, many casting directors considered him a de facto regular cast member of Doctor Who and therefore unavailable for other work. So the next season dramatically scaled back his appearances (it is likely that this would have happened anyway, as producer Barry Letts felt that in retrospect having the character appear in every serial was a mistake), with an eye to making a splashy departure the following season. Due to his untimely death in Turkey, the character was quietly retired for a time.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Unlike later incarnations, this version of the Master tapped into the Cold War anxieties of the time as effectively the outer space equivalent of a criminal mastermind. He shares much in common with Blofeld (fitting for Jon Pertwee's Bond pastiche) as well as the Red Chinese characters played by Khigh Dhiegh (Hawaii Five-O, The Manchurian Candidate), though the script was careful not to ally the Master with any superpower.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The Delgado Master is rather more composed and collected than his subsequent incarnations, who are varying combinations of vicious and unhinged; something appears to break in them with their Crispy incarnation, and they never quite seem to regain it, though they can simulate it if need be. He also lacks the Mortality Phobia that would come to mark most of his successors.
• Enemy Mine: If worst came to worst, the Master would happily team up with the Doctor in the UNIT years, although he was far from trustworthy.
• Even Evil Has Standards: This incarnation of the Master genuinely seems to like Jo Grant - notably, he never attacks her directly and frequently refers to her as "My Dear Miss Grant" which he only ever does with the Doctor, whom he refers to as "My Dear Doctor"; he only ever sets his evil plans on Jo because he's aiming for the Doctor and she, unfortunately for her, happens to be with the Doctor and thus in the path of the evil plan he's aiming in the direction of the Doctor.
• Evil Counterpart: In a way not seen again until 2007. The UNIT Years Master was everything the Third Doctor was, except he was evil.
• Fatal Flaw: Complexity Addiction. This Master can never leave a good plan alone and feels compelled to keep adding extra details until it becomes too complicated to actually work.
• Faux Affably Evil: In the UNIT Years, he is usually scrupulously polite to everyone and can occasionally appear genuinely reluctant to harm the Doctor or his companions. Doesn't stop him merrily slaughtering people, though.
• For the Evulz: At least in "The Sea Devils", where his goal is simply to get rid of the Doctor's favourite species. "Believe me, that'll be a reward in itself."
• Friendly Enemy: He treats the Doctor as an old friend rather than a bitter foe. Helped by the fact that Delgado and Pertwee were good friends in real life. He also seems to genuinely like Jo Grant.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He smoked a cigar during "The Mind of Evil". Director Timothy Coombes wanted to invoke this trope by having The Master smoke, but Delgado seriously hated tobacco (he was a non-smoker in Real Life) and after that one instance requested that the Master never smoke onscreen again.
• The Heavy: Particularly in Season 8 where he was responsible for setting off the plot of every serial, although he continues to hold the role of most prominent villain into Seasons 9 and 10.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: He just wants to rule the universe together with the Doctor. invokedWord of God^note word of the Master's creator Terrance Dicks, to be precise has it that some of the Master's schemes were intentionally half-arsed because he just really wanted to spend time with the Doctor, but couldn't let his evil reputation get tarnished.
• Latex Perfection: In his early stories, he regularly used rubber masks which somehow looked exactly like real faces and could form expressions. Probably justified, given that in his first story he was working with the Nestene, who have near-magical powers with plastics.
• Manipulative Bastard: A master manipulator, he knew how to use others' greed and sense of duty as bargaining tools in his schemes and how to use his authority as an adjudicator to manipulate and influence the human factions and their competing aspirations on Uxarieus.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: During the UNIT Years, he was always well dressed, and liked to present himself as rich, cultured businessmen and academics.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: After his first couple of stories in the UNIT Years, he would regularly turn up using a false name without making a single effort to change his facial appearance or persona. This may actually be justified by the invokedWord of God above — he doesn't really care about fooling the Doctor, it's just everyone else he needs to fool.
• Psycho for Hire: "Frontier in Space" has him turn out to be working for the Daleks, who are employing him to start in an interstellar war.
• Put on a Bus: Stops appearing after "Frontier in Space", without any in-story explanation. This was due to Roger Delgado's real-life death.
• Retcon: He was created before the regeneration limit was introduced in "The Deadly Assassin", which established he was very close to the end of his lives (last or second-to-last).
• Sadist: He had a sadistic side, taking particular pleasure in goading the Brigadier into attacking Axos when they both knew that it would put the Doctor and Jo Grant in danger. He also took considerable delight in blackmailing the Doctor and Jo on Uxarieus.
• Silver Fox: His UNIT Years version has many, many fangirls despite his grizzled hair.
• The Starscream: To the Daleks in "Frontier in Space".
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Prior to the Master's first appearance, Season 6's "The War Games" featured the War Chief. He's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord who dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, sports Facial Hair of Evil and knows the Doctor from their days on Gallifrey. He's extremely camp, has no concept of personal space and offers the Doctor a half-share in the universe. Fast forward to Season 8's "Terror of the Autons", where we are introduced to the Master; a new regular villain who's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord, dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, wears a Beard of Evil and — oh, you get the point. invokedFanon, and some (though not all) of the Expanded Universe, have often identified the War Chief as a pre-Delgado incarnation of the Master.
• The Vicar: As "Mr. Magister".
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Tended to pull off taunting escapes when he realised that his plans had been conclusively defeated.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: His hairstyle was quite impressively dramatic and sinister.
• Villain Respect: Had a certain amount for Jo, and was slightly more impressed by the Brigadier than most humans.
• Villain Team-Up: Nearly every serial he's in has him working alongside another villain. "Frontier in Space" even has him working with the Daleks, although they remain in the background as more of a Greater-Scope Villain while the Master is the one actually doing the legwork.
• Voice Changeling: "The Time Monster" reveals that he is capable of perfectly imitating another person's voice.
• We Can Rule Together: He genuinely seemed to want to rule with the Doctor in "Colony in Space". Too bad the Doctor finds the idea of ruling anything dull as dishwater.
• Worthy Opponent: It's outright stated in his first serial that the Doctor and the Master enjoy their battle of wits.
• You're Insane!: The Doctor calls him mad and paranoid in "The Time Monster". His response: "Who isn't?"

The "Decayed" Master (Fourth Doctor)

The Beevers Master was the first original series Master to appear in Big Finish Doctor Who.

• Ambiguous Situation: Is he a deformed version of Delgado's Master, or of the regeneration after Delgado? Opinions (and EU material) are split. There's even some following for the idea that the Masters played by Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers may not be the same incarnation at all.
  • The final shot of the Master in "The Deadly Assassin" shows him considerably less decayed. It was apparently the intention that this was the beginning of a regeneration, and he received enough energy from the Eye of Harmony to kick one off. The fact that he is still in his decayed body in "The Keeper of Traken" apparently arose because at the time the Target novelisations were used as the production office's references for previous stories, and Terrance Dicks omitted the scene from the novelisation.
• Big Bad: Of "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken" during the Fourth Doctor's run.
• Calling Card: The Doctor immediately knows the Master is involved when he discovers his greeting card of a shrunken guard.
• The Corrupter: Manipulates Nyssa's step-mother's obsession with the Melkur so she'll help him become the new Keeper of Traken, and naturally gets rid of her once she's stopped being useful.
• Disney Villain Death: At the end of "The Deadly Assassin", he plunges into a crevasse caused by his messing with the Eye of Harmony. The Time Lords are convinced this has killed him, but the Doctor knows better, reasoning that between the amount of energy blasting around and the fact he still had the Sash of Rassilon on, there's a good chance he could've absorbed enough energy to survive and keep going, a prediction proven right a few minutes later.
• Evil Is Hammy: Crispy Master is hammy with just his voice.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: The Master we see in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken" is in his thirteenth body and looks like death warmed over; Geoffrey Beevers remarked that this is what the Master is like without his smooth looks and charm: as he put it, "the essence of the creature". This seems to be a running theme with this Master. The first Crispy Master is the ugliest and cruellest of all, while the second Crispy seems to have "healed" a little and is a step back towards Delgado behaviour (how much of the "healed" appearance is intentional and how much of it is due to the limitations of Beevers' makeup compared to Pratt's mask is unknown).
• Evil Sounds Deep: This incarnation of the Master has easily the deepest voice of his many incarnations over the years. Pratt gave him a raspy lisp, Beevers gave him a smoother baritone, another implication that he's gotten a little better after the end of "The Deadly Assassin".
• Eyes Are Unbreakable: Whatever it is that happened to him, his eyes are completely intact, and evidently not troubled by the absence of eyelids.
• Facial Horror: His face rots to the bone. Yes, it's creepy.
• Grand Theft Me: Since this Master could no longer regenerate, he switched incarnations by possessing a hapless victim — who happened to be Nyssa's father. The Doctor mentions in "Logopolis" that this was helped by managing to steal some of the power that came from being Keeper of Traken.
• Hidden Villain: For most of "The Keeper of Traken" he hides in his TARDIS, working through proxies. The fact it is explicitly the Master isn't given until the third episode.
• In the Hood: The hooded black robe is unique to this incarnation. The black hoodie worn by the Simm incarnation in "The End of Time" could possibly be a Shout-Out.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis/Not-So-Harmless Villain: Although he was never exactly harmless, being on the very brink of death caused the Master to cross out the "Friendly" bit in "Friendly Enemy" and get right down to saving his own skin, becoming much less the Doctor's Worthy Opponent and moreso a very focused Omnicidal Maniac.
• The Nth Doctor: Provides a non-regeneration example, as Pratt and Beevers portray the same decaying incarnation of the Master.
• Out of Continues: Having run out of regenerations, he is stuck in his decaying last body, and doesn't look the better for it.
• The Power of Hate: It was his anger and hatred that allowed the Crispy Master to cling to life despite the state of advanced decay his body was in.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: The Beevers version talks in an eerily calm and soft manner.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Peter Pratt's incarnation is by far the nastiest, most humourless version of the Master seen to date; justified in the sense that he's literally rotten, likely experiencing constant pain as a result of his body being in a constant state of decay. Reversed a little by the Geoffrey Beevers version, who is a little more Affably Evil than Pratt (likely a lingering influence of Moral Guardians' backlash towards the violent content in "The Deadly Assassin"), though still colder and more malevolent than most of the versions who would follow.

The "Tremas" Master (Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors)

Anthony Ainley reprised his role one last time for the video game Destiny of the Doctors.

• Accidental Murder: In "Logopolis", he manages to accidentally wipe out a quarter of the universe's population. This is effectively forgotten shortly afterwards, as actually dealing with it would derail the entire show.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: In "Survival", the Master is infected with the Cheetah virus, giving him feline characteristics such as fangs, Animal Eyes, and a lust for blood. Though he already had that last trait.
• Arch-Enemy: The most recurring villain of the Fifth Doctor's era, appearing in no less than four serials.
• Arc Villain: Of the "Return of the Master" trilogy, consisting of "The Keeper of Traken", "Logopolis", and "Castrovalva".
• Badass in Distress: Villainous example, at the end of Destiny of the Doctors, which possibly leads into the movie.
• Beard of Evil: Follows the Delgado version in having a stereotypically satanic beard to match his villainy.
• Big Bad: After his return in the "Return of the Master" trilogy, he serves as this for almost every Master story for the remainder of the classic series^note "Time-Flight", "The King's Demons", "Planet of Fire", a Big Bad Duumvirate with the titular character in "The Mark of the Rani", and "Survival" and the most prominent enemy of the Doctor after the Daleks are Demoted to Extra.
• Black Cloak: Has a truly glorious one in "The Five Doctors", with a High Collar of Doom that would make Dracula proud.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: No, Doctor, it's not "blackmail" to suggest that he'll disintegrate the entire universe unless they pledge their undying loyalty to the Master. He's merely announcing "the current state of affairs".
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: Has grandiose plans that often seem to be motivated by nothing more than "causing chaos for fun", and rarely succeeds at anything (although he often has a pretty large body count).
• Cassandra Truth: In "The Five Doctors", he is for once legitimately trying to help the Doctors, but the Third Doctor refuses to believe him.
• Cerebus Syndrome: "Survival" took this Master's innocuous streak and shredded it to ribbons. Suddenly, instead of waxing camp, he oozed dark, sinister villainy, and posed an extreme threat.
• Costumer: In the Destiny of the Doctors game, the Master takes over Siralos, a planet of "pure psychic energy". He uses his Q-like powers to taunt you between levels, such as wearing a conductor's uniform on an "M"-emblazoned freight train ("We'll Never Get You There!™") and threatening to tie the player to railroad tracks, or running over the player with his car. These cutscenes were included as a DVD Easter Egg in tribute to Ainley, since this was his final time performing the role of the Master before his death.
• Demoted to Extra: While he was the effective Big Bad of the Fifth Doctor's tenure, in which he appeared as the villain in four serials, for the Sixth Doctor's tenure the Master only appeared in two stories and in both of them had the spotlight taken by another villain (The Rani in "The Mark of the Rani" and the Valeyard in "Trial of a Time Lord"), and in the Seventh Doctor's tenure the Master only appeared in one story, albeit as the villain of the Seventh Doctor's final serial.
• Depending on the Writer: Ainley wanted to play the character as cold and calculating but, with the exception of his final appearance in "Survival", in which he was allowed to do that, the production staff insisted that he lay it on thick with the same mustache twirling and psychotic laughing that Roger Delgado brought to the table a decade prior.
• Didn't See That Coming: Wait, what do you mean a quarter of the universe?
• Emperor Scientist: In the few times he's managed to control a planet, such as in "Survival".
• Enemy Mine:
  • In "Logopolis", once it's made clear he's really messed up, he and the Doctor agree to work together to fix everything. The Doctor spends most of that time trying to stop him killing people, and he quickly turns on the Doctor once he sees an opportunity.
  • He happily joined forces with the Doctor in order to defeat the Valeyard without any prompting or reward beyond being able to live in a universe without the Valeyard.
• Even Evil Has Standards: There's a scene in "The Mark of the Rani" where the Master actually apologizes to Peri for getting her mixed up in what was supposed to be a tussle between just him and the Doctor. Additionally, some of the Rani's actions in that story genuinely horrify him, like turning people into trees.
• Evil Is Hammy: Ainley once said, "I'm not a ham. A ham can be cured." Toned down in his final appearance... and then exaggerated in his final appearance in the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors.
• Expy: Compared to the overtly predatory and hate-fuelled "Crispy Master" interpretation by Peter Pratt and Geoffery Beevers, Ainley's rendition of the Master is much more in-line with the campy Saturday-morning cartoon vibe of the original portrayal of the character by Roger Delgado, right down to the goatee and predominantly black wardrobe, to the point where one could call him a modernization of the Delgado Master. This is at least the case prior to "Survival", which features Ainley portraying the Master in a far more understated and clinical manner in-line with his personal desires for the character.
• Fangs Are Evil: He gets a set of fangs in "Survival" due to the Cheetah Planet, and he's as evil as he's ever been.
• Fang Thpeak: The Master sports cat fangs in "Survival" as a result of the Cheetah Planet's transformative effects, with his speech gaining a noticeable lisp as a result.
• Faux Affably Evil: If "Survival" was anything to go by, this Master, at his very core, was a malicious, repugnant, and sociopathic murderer.
• Final Boss: The villain of the final serial of the classic series.
• For the Evulz: Completely willing to murder a harmless techie who didn't even know he was there rather than have to waste time talking to them.
• Fountain of Youth: Tremas promptly de-ages about forty years once the Master takes him over. After that, moving on from this temporary situation to a Gallifreyan-like body with a new set of regenerations is a priority aim of this Master. However, by the time of Destiny of the Doctors, he's started reverting back to gray hair (in part due to both the actor and the character's age by that point).
• Giggling Villain: His "heh heh heh heh" is a notorious tic. Often the things he giggles at aren't even funny, even if you're evil.
• A God Am I: Proclaims himself to be "The Master of All Matter".
• Grand Theft Me: Manages to steal the body of an aged scientist named Tremas (an anagram of "Master").
• Hellish Pupils: After he gets infected by the Cheetah Taint in "Survival".
• Hero Killer: Similar to the Spy Master he is one of the few incarnations of the Master to be directly responsible for killing the Doctor; namely, he caused the Fourth Doctor to fall from a radio telescope and regenerate.
• I Reject Your Reality: Initially refuses to believe what the Logopolitans and the Doctor are telling him, believing they're obviously lying to hide the true power of Logopolis from him (after all, that's what he would do).
• Jerk Justifications: Often spouts the "nice guys finish last" and "I am what I am" ones.
• Limited Wardrobe: Villainy must not pay well, because the Master seemingly owns only one outfit. He added a cowl to the ensemble in "The Five Doctors". In "Planet of Fire" and "Survival", he resumed wearing his Delgado suits.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Completely inverted in "Logopolis", in which the Master actually didn't mean to destroy a quarter of the universe, but decides to roll with it and pretends that he did it on purpose.
• Manipulative Bastard: Not as common or as good at it as some versions, but notably tries to blacken King John's name in "The King's Demons" and tries to groom Midge as a pseudo-companion in "Survival".
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: In "Logopolis", he accidentally destroyed one quarter of the universe because he didn't understand the true power of the culture he was messing with. And had he continued to abuse this power, ALL of the universe would have been screwed.
• Never My Fault: He grumbles about the Sixth Doctor getting involved in his plan in "Mark of the Rani", but the Rani points out he's got no-one to blame but himself, as he deliberately brought the Doctor in on a plan he'd have otherwise known nothing about.
• Not Me This Time: In both "The Five Doctors" and "The Ultimate Foe".
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: "Survival" seemed to acknowledge the Master's foibles and turn them to his benefit. The Doctor cannot "defeat" him in the normal way without destroying the Cheetah Planet, making him properly dangerous again. Also, this is the first story where we see the Master darkly mimicking the Doctor's modus operandi: he starts gathering Earthling "companions" of his own and corrupts their values to fit his personal agenda.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Casually waves away the fact that he accidentally obliterated a quarter of the universe, and then tries to hold the rest of the universe to ransom.
• Right-Hand Cat: A whole race of them in "Survival", even feeding a purring cheetah-man by hand. He's also spotted cradling a small black cat briefly.
  The Master: They're essentially a fun-loving race.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He had a tendency to sound as if he'd swallowed a thesaurus. Of course, this does take place during John Nathan-Turner's run as producer, and two of his appearances were written by Pip and Jane Baker (no relation to any of the other Bakers in Who). They're rather well-known for using huge words and neat scientific concepts that make sense for the time the shows were made... and both the Sixth Doctor and the Master wind up sounding insanely smart.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: A lovely velvety voice masking a genuinely venomous mind.
• Terms of Endangerment: Likes to say "my dear Doctor".
• Unexplained Recovery: While it doesn't always need to be stated, it should be said that this trope especially applies to Anthony Ainley's incarnation. While most of the other incarnations were all Time Lords, this body of the Master's came from Traken. And it still survived things like being crushed, thrown around in time, burned alive and so forth!
  "You jest, of course. I'm indestructible, the whole universe knows that!"
  • In "Planet of Fire", he legitimately dies on screen — we actually see him get incinerated. He was brought back with a Hand Wave.
  • It should be noted that a number of EU works have attempted to explain the Master's reappearances.
• Vanity Number Plate: In Destiny of the Doctors, one of the Master's vignettes has him driving a cherry-red microcar(!) as an overt jab at "Bessie". The number plate reads "Mas 1".
• Villain Decay: Suffers this badly in his two Sixth Doctor stories, "The Mark of the Rani" and "The Ultimate Foe" (he isn't the title character in either one), in which he achieves very little and ends up acting as comic relief to the Doctor's confrontations with the Rani and the Valeyard. His final TV appearance, "Survival", manages to reverse this and make him even more menacing than previous appearances of this incarnation — some might argue he outpaces the Pratt/Beevers Master in this regard.
• Waistcoat of Style: A silver one in Destiny of the Doctors.
• Worthy Opponent: In the prologue to the Destiny of the Doctors game, the Master lists off the qualities of each of the Doctor's incarnations that he liked — but can only muster up a Backhanded Compliment each time.
  The Master: [about the Third Doctor] Now, there was a worthy foe. Such courage, such ingenuity! All wasted through that stubborn streak of goodness.
  
  The Master: And there's the First. Such wisdom, such intellect... [aside glance] But oh, what a bore the fellow was.
• Writing Around Trademarks: For their adaptation of the unused TV script "The Hollows of Time", Big Finish couldn't get permission to use the Master. The character of "Professor Stream" is left ambiguous — though there are enough hints to gather that it's him, and eventually Big Finish stopped playing coy and flat-out included the story in their full collection of Master stories, confirming that it was him after all.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Of all the Masters, this one seems to work best when improvising.
  • After acting like a total klutz and accidentally wiping out a quarter of the universe's population (by accident), he ingeniously plays it off as if he'd intended to do it, and then promptly holds the remainder to ransom.
  • Similarly, after being marooned on the Cheetah planet and then being infected with a virus, the Master listens in on the Doctor's theory as to how to get off the planet. He then kidnaps another infectee and tests the theory, transporting himself back to Earth, where he then unleashes the infectee on the local populace, and then tries to steal the Doctor's TARDIS.

The "Old" Master (Seventh Doctor)

An incarnation whose relationship with Ainley's Master is left ambiguous, the "Old Master" (as he is credited) appears for a scant few seconds at the beginning of the TV movie where he is executed by the Daleks on Skaro, to be reborn as a particularly campy Eric Roberts (about which more later).

Aside from the child version of the First Master, he is the shortest-lived televised incarnation of the Master, and does not even get any lines in the finished version of the TV movie, though he did have a few recorded, only to be left on the cutting room floor. Also the only incarnation of the Master played by a Canadian.

• Ambiguous Situation: Is seen so briefly that it was long assumed by most viewers that he was simply a brief invokedrecasting of Anthony Ainley's Master (especially as he still sports the Glowing Eyes of Doom that Master was last seen with), though this was disproved when close-up production photos, and an interview with Tipple himself, surfaced. Even then, precisely how the Master got that new body is extremely unclear (the unhealthy appearance of the Old Master would suggest that he is still body-surfing, rather than having regained a Time Lord body, but really, who knows).
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: To go with his green snake-like eyes and add to his unhealthy appearance.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Sounds downright ill in his (cut) opening monologue to the TV movie. According to Tipple, he decided to use such a voice on his own, having been given no clear directions as to how he should play the Master beyond generally looking evil.
• Face Death with Dignity: Listens silently as the Daleks list off his crimes and prepare to exterminate him, and (in the deleted scene) dictates his last will and testament in a creepily emotionless tone.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His distinguishing feature, shared by his immediate successor. A close-up of them briefly flashes during the opening credits of the TV Movie, watching menacingly over the TARDIS's flight through Time.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His costume resembles Delgado's, but with red lines running on either side of his chest for emphasis.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Appears for less than a minute, encased in a frankly ridiculous "Dalek execution cage". But, of course, his scheme, carried out by his next incarnation, constitutes the whole plot of the TV movie.
• Thanatos Gambit: Lets himself be executed by the Daleks after arranging for his mind to survive the process, ready to possess another body, and to be aboard the Doctor's TARDIS when he does so.

The "Bruce" Master (Eighth Doctor)

^{Click here to see him in Time Lord robes}

• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: He kisses Chang Lee's forehead.
• Animalistic Abomination: The "Deathworm Morphant" he takes the form of in order to survive his execution.
• Badass Longcoat: For a while, before he moves on to full-on Time Lord gear.
• Big Bad: Of The TV Movie.
• Big Damn Kiss: Gets a Kiss of Death with Grace.
• Body Horror: His body is decaying. He casually pulls off a fingernail. invokedWord of God says that this was supposed to be even worse, with Eric Roberts donning various makeup prosthetics to show the body rotting away and implicate the Master's need for a new one, but the actor's skin became unbearably irritated from their application, leading to their removal from the narrative.
• Camp: All incarnations of the Master are supremely camp, but Eric Roberts seemed determined to out-camp them all. Rather hilariously, later interviews revealed that he actually made an effort not to come across as effeminate and that he considered Paul McGann the camp one.
• Disney Villain Death: He suffers something similar when he falls into the Eye of Harmony. The Doctor's partly responsible, since he shines a light in the Master's face as he leaps at him and causes him to overshoot, but does offer him a hand. Of course, this only slows him down until he manages to make his escape, as told in the Big Finish Doctor Who story "Mastermind", and he occasionally shows up to wreck havoc and misery again in Big Finish stories as well as the other parts of the Expanded Universe.
• Evil Is Hammy: Even without the acidic saliva, Eric Roberts literally devours the scenery.
  The Master: I always dress for the occasion!
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: He has constantly glowing green, cat-like eyes which he concealed behind sunglasses and used to instantly hypnotise Chang. The eyes are presumably a continuity nod to "Survival", in which the Master was infected and under the influence of the Cheetah Planet that gave the Ainley incarnation Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• Grand Theft Me: He takes over the body of ambulance driver Bruce and then stages a plan to attempt to steal the Doctor's body.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a leather coat.
• Hellish Pupils: Green ones.
• High Collar of Doom: His elaborate Time Lord outfit.
• Impersonating an Officer: Thanks to body-snatching a paramedic.
• Inhuman Eye Concealers: Wears wraparound shades to cover up his slit pupils — apparently a remnant of the Cheetah virus that he caught during "Survival".
• Like a Son to Me: He calls Chang Lee "the son I've always yearned for" — shortly before snapping his neck.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Aside from the Grand Theft Me, his condition also gives acidic saliva. And that's just the start of what it can do...
• Multiple-Choice Past: The Expanded Universe gives two different origins for his "Deathworm Morphant" snake form. The Eight Doctors novel said they were created by a race called the Morgs while The Fallen comic says they're native to the Dalek home planet, Skaro.
• One-Winged Angel: He turns into a snake made of goo. It doesn't help.
• Orifice Invasion: How he possesses his human body.
• Out of Continues: His lives have already run out, so he possesses the body of an unlucky paramedic in order to steal the Doctor's body and his remaining regenerations.
• Possession Burnout: Bruce's body starts decaying almost immediately after the Master takes possession of it, starting with the fingernails beginning to fall off.
• Red Right Hand: His decaying fingers.
• Serpent of Immortality: His initial form. Quite what it is is rather up to interpretation — the movie just lets you assume it's his Time Lord essence refusing to die, but The Eight Doctors states that it's a bit of alien Applied Phlebotinum.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: The above quote came after the Doctor's Kirk Summation: "You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill!"
• Sinister Shades: To hide his glowy green eyes.
• Terminator Impersonator: Gives off this vibe with his leather jacket and sunglasses.