The TV Movie master enjoys another rematch with the Eighth Doctor, but will he drezzz for the occasion?  

Updated 09/07/25: Dark Gallifrey: Master! Part 1 is out now.

Today the epic Dark Gallifrey saga begins its fourth trilogy, and the villainous Time Lord leading the action is the Master from the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie.

Since he returned to the role on audio, Big Finish have done plenty expand the one-night-only Master, brought menacingly to life by Eric Roberts. He’s enjoyed rematches with the Eighth Doctor, an encounter with River Song and his own spin-off series, Master!

He also joined the other incarnations of the Doctor’s best enemy for a 50th anniversary celebration of the character in 2021’s Masterful.

Now, he takes the lead in his own Dark Gallifrey trilogy, which tells the story of a fateful field trip for a group of Time Lord students, where he poses as their tutor. The chilling story, written by Lizzie Hopley, is split across two time periods. Years later, Gamara (Claire Huckle), a survivor of the disastrous excursion, must finally uncover the truth about what happened to her and her fellow students.

Eric Roberts said:

“I love it because I love the Master. He is such a master! He’s so in charge and he’s so not nice. It’s always fun playing bad guys because you always get the best dialogue.”

Producer Noga Flaishon added:

“The Master is one of my favourite elements in the Doctor Who canon. I’m a big fan of characters who are the foils, the nemeses. With the Master, we have a Time Lord who is just as knowledgeable, just as clever, but where the Doctor will always seek to heal, the Master seeks to corrupt.

“And in this story from Lizzie Hopley, we definitely see the Master as a corruptor. We have reveals and twists and turns, but at the core, it’s about six people who are being manipulated and coerced by a charismatic monster. When I first saw the story, my thought was, are we allowed to go this dark? Thankfully, I had the amazing John Dorney and Rob Valentine to assure me that yes, this is Dark Gallifrey. This is very much what we came here to do.”

The Worlds of Doctor Who – Dark Gallifrey: Master! Part One is out now. Parts Two and Three follow in August and September.

Updated 29/05/25: Cover reveal for Master! Part One.

Ahead of the July start for the three-part Master! portion of Dark Gallifrey, Big Finish have revealed a colourful cover for Part One.

Rather than the stolen body of Bruce from the TV Movie, the image from Soundsmyth Creative embraces the look of actor Eric Roberts as he is now, albeit with an exploding TARDIS console in the background!

Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor joins Roberts’ Master for Part One. Also in the cast are Francesca Gilbert, Nathan Griffiths, Millie Hikasa, Claire Huckle, Nadia Violet Johnson, Chris Odulele and the story’s writer Lizzie Hopley.

The Worlds of Doctor Who – Dark Gallifrey: Master! Parts One to Three are available for pre-order now.

Original article (of 10/05/25) continues…

Dark Gallifrey: Master! – 2025’s second trilogy stars Eric Roberts

Big Finish’s four-year epic Dark Gallifrey, the series which puts the spotlight on Time Lord villains, continues apace.

Last year brought us Morbius and The War Master. The first instalment of this year’s story, starring Michelle Gomez’s Missy, dropped in April and continues in May and June.

Now, the audio producers have released details of the second tale: Dark Gallifrey: Master! drops across three parts, in July, August and September.

The whole tale is set over two time periods – many years ago, when the Master took a group of Time Lord Academy students on a field trip and engaged them in a brutal experiment, and the present, when the survivors of that trip deal with the horrifying consequences.

But there’s someone who isn’t happy with the Master’s latest manipulations…

Part One

Several years ago, the Master, disguised as a tutor, took a group of Time Lord Academy students with promising futures on a field trip that went disastrously wrong.  Now in the present, they all turn up dead.

Gamara is the last survivor – but to save herself, she will need to reveal the truth about the monstrous experiment the Master made them conduct all those years ago.

Part Two

Stranded on a barren planet, the students confront the devastating reality of their situation, including the Master’s dangerous plans and the mysterious entities in the psychic forest.

In the present, Gamara and the Mind Shield try to understand the entity which had been hunting them all – the mythical Mother Quiver

Part Three

The last survivors of the Master’s experiment struggle to navigate a fractured landscape, the Master’s experiment and the threat of the Doctor.

In the present, Gamara must confront the consequences of her buried truths, as the monstrous Mother Quiver returns to claim her final victim.

Writer Lizzie Hopley says:

“Master! is currently fighting amid my top fave Big Finish commissions. Eric Roberts is so deliciously cruel, I shocked myself with some of the things he says. To pitch him again against McGann’s Eighth Doctor, who I’ve written for many times, was a gift and their scenes are as electric as you’d desire.”

“We recorded with an outstanding young cast, I’m so proud of them and the relationships they quickly formed. They weren’t afraid of playing the high stakes which this story insists on. Mother Quiver first appeared in my Doctor Who Audio Novel The Box of Terrors and I’ve been waiting to use (and play!) her for ages. This is a dark and twisted tale; one of the darkest moments was inspired by a Richard Matheson short story – I wonder who can spot it?”

The Worlds of Doctor Who – Dark Gallifrey: Master! Parts One to Three are available for pre-order now. It’s released as single-disc collector’s edition CD + download to own, or as download only, from Big Finish.

Price saving bundles for all of this year’s releases, as well as the whole saga, are also available.