John Simm’s Master to Return to ‘Doctor Who’ Sooner Than Expected
The great return of John Simm’s rival time lord to the Doctor, called the Master, was teased in a trailer at the very beginning of Doctor Who Season 10. With the clock literally ticking away before the 12th Doctor makes his final bow, the return of the Master might just be sooner than expected.
The tabloid Radio Times confirmed with the BBC that Simm will appear in the penultimate episode of Season 10, “World Enough and Time.” The episode title riffs on the opening lines to a 16th-century poem called “To His Coy Mistress” and will no doubt prominently feature Michelle Gomez’s Missy.
The official synopsis for “World Enough and Time” is as follows:
Friendship drives the Doctor into the rashest decision of his life. Trapped on a giant spaceship, caught in the event horizon of a black hole, he witnesses the death of someone he is pledged to protect. Is there any way he can redeem his mistake? Are events already out of control? For once, time is the Time Lord’s enemy…
Missy as she appears in Episode 8: "The Lie of the Land"
The person the Doctor is pledged to protect could very well be Simm’s Master, which could finally show us how he wound up regenerating into Missy. On the flip side, Gomez has also previously revealed that she’s due for a regeneration this season as well. And we’ve already seen the elderly Professor Yana regenerate into John Simm’s Master back in Season 3.
The real question is: How many Time Lords will due by the end of Season 10? And which one(s) will die in Episode 11?
Showrunner Stephen Moffat has previously teased that the Master will interact with his future incarnation, Missy, saying “It’s been a huge pleasure to have fan favorites John Simm and Michelle Gomez face to face in the same role!” Though many previously assumed that these characters would converge for that grand finale that would include the death of the 12th Doctor, it would appear that they’ll both be around an episode earlier.
“World Enough and Time” will come exactly a week before the Season finale, “The Doctor Falls,” in which spoiler the Doctor will … fall, and be regenerated into an entirely new body.
Doctor Who airs Saturdays on BBC and BBC America at 9 p.m. Eastern.
