The Devil You Know

Gallifrey: Time War #1.3

Released: 22 February 2018

Listened: 5/16/21

This boxed set is taking shape as a series of self-contained stories, which isn’t what I expected. Romana made it clear in the teaser of the previous story that the Doctor has refused to help -- presumably this is one of the Eighth Doctor’s various refusals -- so she has no choice but to turn to the Master, who’s currently incarcerated on Gallifrey. For the Master, this happens in the middle of the first War Master boxed set, after “Beneath the Viscoid” and before “The Good Master,” which is confusing, because the first War Master boxed set is last in his personal timeline, but also because the war hasn’t been going very long at this point, so the Master’s activities are all pretty early in the war. Narvin is pretty clear that asking the Master for help is an insane idea, but Romana seems desperate, and she sends Leela along to keep an eye on him. Leela has plenty of previous experience with the Geoffrey Beevers version of the Master, but as she notes right away, that Master is pretty straightforward about his evil, whereas the War Master is much more sly and genial (and don’t we just love him for it?). The plot, such as it is, involves a non-Gallifreyan fighter who has one of those horrible temporal weapons, and in this case, it split him into two separate people with conflicting timestreams. One believes the Daleks were responsible for the destruction of his world; the other thinks it was the Time Lords. The joy of this story comes from Leela and the Master interrogating the two separate men and trying to work out who’s telling the truth. Of course, Leela and the Master have entirely separate motives for wanting this information, and honestly, Leela really isn’t up to the task of keeping this Master in check. In a way, it feels a lot like a War Master story that Leela just happens to be in. (It was written in consultation with Matt Fitton, and recorded with the War Master set, much before the rest of Gallifrey: Time War.) Spoiler: Much like the last story, Leela gets taken off the board at the end, setting her up for where she eventually appears in the War Doctor sets -- as if there wasn’t enough continuity mess going on here. It’s leading me to wonder just what the goal for this boxed set is, since it seems to be bringing back characters just to write them out. But with the acting going on in this one, it’s hard to complain.