Over the years, Doctor Who fans have been treated to a number of multiple-Doctor storylines where more than one incarnation of the old Time Lord teamed up to defeat some enormous threat. Outside of some books, comics, and audio dramas, though, there has never really been a Doctor Who story where multiple versions of his Time Lord nemesis The Master have teamed up. That’s apparently going to change soon, as the BBC itself has confirmed that John Simm will be reprising his role as The Master this season alongside current Master Michelle Gomez.
Simm last appeared as The Master in “The End Of Time,” the final story for David Tennant’s Doctor, and he was vanquished pretty definitively in that adventure. By the next time The Master popped up, he had regenerated into Michelle Gomez’s Missy, and she was facing off against Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. Any other show might have a tough time explaining how the two of them can appear together, but this is Doctor Who, a show that has spent decades throwing time travel spaghetti at the wall, so there are dozens of ways it can justify why Simm’s Master and Gomez’s Missy are both on the show.
Naturally, the BBC isn’t going to give any clues beforehand, but executive producer Steven Moffat said that Simm and Gomez will appear “face to face in the same role.” That seems to imply that it will at least be more involved than a simple flashback showing The Master regenerating into Missy. However they explain it, let’s take some time to reminisce about just how zany Simm’s Master was the first time around: