Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: ace, bbc, doctor who, jodie whittaker, master, power of teh doctor, tegan

Was Rasputin the Master? & More From Upcoming Doctor Who Special

Published Fri, 16 Sep 2022 11:07:13 -0500

The new Doctor Who Magazine came out with its #582nd edition this week, with much to reveal about the upcoming Doctor Who ninety-minute special, The Power Of The Doctor. Here are ten things I learned.

Doctor Who: The Power Of The Doctor, written by Chris Chibnall, is being referred to by everyone as the Centenary Special, scheduled as it is for the 100th year of the BBC. Just not Doctor Who. Directed by regular Chibnall director James Magnus Stone, it will also have music by Segan Akinkona, who will be leaving the series, along with Jodie Whitaker and Chibnall.
The Power of the Doctor will presumably include Whitaker's regeneration into Ncuti Gatwa's Fourteenth Doctor.
As well as Doctor Who regulars Mandip Gill as Yasmin Khan, John Bishop as Dan Lewis, Sacha Dhawan as the Master, Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, Jacob Anderson as Vinder, and Patrick O'Kane as Ashad, the Lone Cyberman, The Power Of The Doctor has Sophie Aldred reprising her role as Ace, and Janet Fielding doing the same as Tegan, companions for the Fifth and Seventh Doctors respectively.
Oh yes, and Daleks, Cybermen – and those Cyberized Time Lord corpses, the Cyber Masters.
Expect a Master who, at least at one point, looks like Rasputin – with a scraggly long beard and long hair. Maybe the Master actually was Rasputin in Russian history? That would explain a lot. Once upon a time, former Doctor Who Tom Baker played Rasputin, and more recently, a Doctor Who TV episode was pitched by Peter Harness with Matt Berry as The Mad Monk, which would have seen him regenerate into Rasputin. Calling it intergalactic cosplay, Dhawan states, "I didn't want people to think, 'I've seen that incarnation of the Master now,' I wanted to reinvent him slightly because there's still so much to explore there. So you'll see different aspects of him" and "one pivotal, jaw-dropping moment in the episode"
The Master's first scene is with Tegan and Ace together, and his tissue compressor will also be at work again. Worth remembering that's how he killed Tegan's closest relative.
The Master also killed Ashad too, so there is more unfinished business there. O'Kane says, "He's a man who was offered immortality and then was thwarted and frustrated in that ambition. He knows he should be purely robotic by this stage, but that's kind of been interrupted. He's been denied something that he feels should have been his by right. For that reason, he never really has a sense of control over who he is or what he is. And that's where his great fury comes from."
Expect Ace as an action hero, with Tegan forced to keep up, with Aldred doing her own stunts. And far more than just a cameo.
The Doctor Who cast got scenes "quite late", with pages that came "fast and furious," which suggests last-minute writing or rewriting.
No confirmed date for Doctor Who: The Power Of The Doctor – but DWM promises a second part of the Preview on sale on the 13th of October, sooner might presume it will be after that – or it will no longer be a preview.