Vengeance

"Their position is taken."

Writer: Matt Fitton

Format: Audio

Released: March 2021

Series: Master! 1.03

Featuring: Master, Vienna

Synopsis

The Daleks are returning. Their plan, long in the making, is complete. Earth will be theirs once more.

But someone stands against them. Someone with his own reasons for revenge – and Vienna and Lila are caught in the crossfire. Because Earth's greatest hope against the Daleks lies with the Master.

Verdict

Vengeance was a great episode to conclude the first series of Master! This was a really strong finale and rounded out the series arc pretty nicely. I think it’s no surprise that the Daleks were the ones arriving on Earth as the cliffhanger finish for Prey, and with this being a world still relatively fresh from the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Lucie Miller/To the Death their arrival is met with severe fear and caution. Even the very brash and confident Lila is audibly frightened at the prospect of the Daleks returning. They make no haste in claiming their mastery over Earth once again which is good fun, but there’s already someone here claiming that title. The Master is such a great adversary for the Daleks and with these arguably being the two greatest foes for the Doctor, you’d think they’d get along! However, that hasn’t always been the case and the references to Frontier in Space and the Master’s past betrayal of the Daleks was brought up in fine style. I thought the exploration of Dalek hierarchy was really interesting here with the Dalek Supreme even being challenged with a good reference to the Black Dalek also. It really did feel like the Daleks present here were from all across Dalek chronology! The artwork indicates Time War and beyond era Daleks whereas the references and voices in the story point to a more Classic era. I was a big fan of the Dalek Litigator and the history he had with the Master was fascinating! I adored the continuity in establishing that it was the Litigator who carried out the Master’s execution during The Movie and it understanding him escaping death by the worm morphant. The Master boasting how he always found a way to survive was excellent and I loved how triumphant he was in proclaiming how he wanted to have mastery over everything and everyone in the universe. Was that too much to ask? I think this was a stellar performance from Eric Roberts and I’m loving spending more time with his incarnation. He’s excellent and I’m so glad there are more series in this range for me to get to. Vienna’s role in the story was great and I’m loving that her arc continues because she’s a sublime character. Her reaction to finding out that the Master had survived was fun and Magnus Drake via the Daleks being the one to contract her was terrific. I think Drake’s return to confront the Master who had taken his identity was great and I thought it was tremendous for there to be multiple Dalek duplicate robots of him. That fitted in very nicely with the Dalek timeline in my opinion. The way everything came together and linked back to Faustian with Project Yellowbrick was really impressive. I think Lila turned against the Master perhaps a little too quickly or easily, but I did enjoy that he’s was eavesdropping on Vienna and wanted in on her financial benefits. The Master had accused her of being the one to hire the assassin which was good, and from there she was taking her chances. She saw he was off the rails and it was always going to end this way. I liked the pace of the finish and the use of the wormhole in bending space time was a great throwback to the series opener. I must admit I didn’t see it coming but it put a smile on my face. I think it’s really interesting to have the Master full of negative artron chronons and it’s almost a gag at this point for this incarnation to end up back in the Vortex. However, the ending is a complete rip off of Doomsday even down to the Dalek Litigator using an emergency temporal shift to escape being trapped! It would be wrong to say I disliked it, but it’s not even hiding the fact that it was copied from elsewhere. Lila being in position as the head of Drake Interplanetary feels right and I liked the struggle of Vienna pulling her free. Lila pushing the Master further into the Vortex was a shock and it’s a shame that he doesn’t get to be triumphant in his own series, but he’ll be back. He always is. Overall, a great finale despite the unoriginal ending! 

Rating: 8/10