The Master, or "Missy" (short for "Mistress") in their female incarnation, is a recurring character and one of the main antagonists of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works.

At the same time, Alex Macqueen, Gina McKee, Mark Gatiss, James Dreyfus, and Milo Parker portrayed incarnations unique to Big Finish.

[8] Having become a main character in the show's eighth season, the Master reappears in The Mind of Evil, where he regains his TARDIS's circuit from the Doctor after attempting to launch a nerve gas missile that would initiate World War III.

[9] The Master is seen again in another incursion on Earth in The Claws of Axos,[10] and then fails to hold the galaxy to ransom using a doomsday weapon on the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472 in Colony in Space.

The Master attempts to gain a new regeneration cycle by using the artefacts of Rassilon, the symbols of the President of the Council of Time Lords, to manipulate the Eye of Harmony at the cost of Gallifrey.

Though the plot fails, the Master manages to cheat death by transferring his essence into the body of a Traken scientist named Tremas (Anthony Ainley) and overwriting his host's mind.

[20] However, as posited in the novelisation of the movie by Gary Russell, the Master's self-alterations to extend his lifespan allow him to survive his execution by transferring his mind into a snake-like entity called a "morphant.

[23] Using his morphant body to break free from the container holding his remains, the Master sabotages the Doctor's TARDIS console to force it to crash land in San Francisco in December, 1999.

[20] In "Utopia", a scientist called Professor Yana (Derek Jacobi) is revealed to be the Master, disguised in biological human form to hide from the Time War.

[29] Missy returns in "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar" (2015), revealed to have faked her demise using a teleporter powered by the energy of the Cyberman laser weapon that shot her.

In the portrayals of the Master on his last regeneration (first by Peter Pratt in The Deadly Assassin, then by Geoffrey Beevers in The Keeper of Traken), he is shown to still retain his scientific intelligence and deviousness despite being in a extreme state of physical decay.

Ainley's Master was also much more outwardly villainous, at times murdering people (usually with his familiar TCE) not because they jeopardized his schemes, but simply because he enjoyed killing (often accompanying these deaths with his trademark sinister low and throaty chuckle).

Aspects of Simm's portrayal of the Master parallel David Tennant's Doctor, primarily in his ability to make light of tense situations and his rather quirky and hyperactive personality.

However, she also displayed a much more coquettish manner, with her new female identity allowing her to fully express aspects of the Master's ambiguous bond with the Doctor (as previously explored by Simm's incarnation in "The Sound of Drums").

[citation needed] While determined to torment and corrupt the Doctor with moral temptation while inflicting pain and death to humanity, she frequently referred to him as her "boyfriend" or "friend" and appeared to desire his acquiescence and company ultimately.

In "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven," Missy uses a small hand-held device, about the size of a large mobile phone, which allows her to control her technology and scan her surroundings remotely.

Although initially a somewhat anti-heroic version of the Doctor, willing to murder to save the day but generally still trying to do the right, Koschei turns to evil and becomes the Master after he discovers that his companion and lover Ailla is an undercover agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency sent to spy on him.

Koschei, not knowing that she is a Time Lord and will simply regenerate, completes a time-based weapon to benefit the anti-alien efforts of soldiers from Earth's Empire in an attempt to bring her back.

In this novel, he poses as a Serbian businessman called Gospodar (prompting the Sixth Doctor to wonder if he's "running out of languages") while attempting to subvert the power of the higher dimensions to turn himself into a god.

[54] First Frontier shows the Master (apparently the Ainley version) finally acquiring a new body,[55] who according to McIntee is based on the cinema persona of Basil Rathbone,[citation needed] using nanites provided by the alien race known as the Tzun in exchange for his help in setting up their 'invasion' of Earth.

Before the end of the Virgin Missing Adventures series, the Delgado version of the Master appears in the novel Who Killed Kennedy, depicting him setting up a complex plan to manipulate a journalist to bother UNIT by convincing him that they are part of a corrupt conspiracy.

Alastair Reynolds' novel Harvest of Time, published in 2013, features the Roger Delgado incarnation, set after his capture at the end of The Dæmons and before he escapes from prison in The Sea Devils.

[60] He can also be seen in the following comic strips set during the Pertwee era: In the IDW publication Prisoners of Time, a 12-issue series to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, the Master (drawn based on Ainley's portrayal) plays a major part.

[61] 2017 sees the return of Delgado's incarnation in Doorway to Hell, a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip printed in DWM #508–511, set after the events of Frontier in Space from the Master's perspective.

Geoffrey Beevers, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Gomez, Eric Roberts, John Simm and Sacha Dhawan have all reprised the role from the television series, while Mark Gatiss, Alex Macqueen, Gina McKee, James Dreyfus and Milo Parker[64] portray versions of the Master original to Big Finish.

The story reveals that at some point after Survival, the Master's Trakenite body is damaged when he attempts to take control of a psychic weapon trapped in the painting The Scream, which returns him to his walking corpse state once again.

Chris Finney plays a character named 'Keith Potter' in the story The End of the Line from the audio anthology The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure, later revealed to be an avatar under the control of the Master.

Motivated by her recent attempt at redemption, she used the field to remove all negative aspects of her personality from her reconstructed body and became a benevolent force in the universe, adopting the title Lumiat.

Gomez returned for a story in Big Finish's The Eighth of March range, which saw Missy stranded in Earth's past and threatening a young Amy Pond (Caitlin Blackwood) in a bid to get the Doctor's attention.

[91] Eric Saward included Anthony Ainley's incarnation of the Master in his short story, "Birth of a Renegade," in the Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special one-off magazine, published by Radio Times (and in the United States by Starlog Press) in 1983.