The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords

This is a set of three stories linked by a common plot arc that sees the Master up to one of his usual schemes. Taken as a whole, it's a more traditional story than the first two releases in the series and isn't quite as edgy - although it does have an impressively high body count.

The Survivor - The first story is the strongest in the set, not least because it isn't at all obvious at the outset what the Master is trying to achieve, with things turning first one way and then the other until all is revealed. The story is told primarily from the perspective of a volunteer in the Women's Land Army, the WWII organisation set up to counter the shortage of available men on the farms. Although there's clearly something alien going on even without the Master stirring things up, the War is a major theme, partly as a metaphor for the larger Time War raging somewhere in the background. There is a strong cast of characters, most of them women, and a likeable protagonist who finds herself deeper in trouble as the Master manipulates events towards his own ends. 5 stars.

The Coney Island Chameleon - Now that we know what the Master is doing, but not his reason for doing it, we get a second story on a similar theme that nonetheless manages to throw some new twists into things. As the title indicates, it's set in the US; the date isn't specified, but it seems to be around the 1890s. The Master is in this one less than the previous, acting as a more distant menace although, when he does show up he's not really hiding his true nature - something that's normally a key feature of this particular incarnation. Nonetheless, it's a good story playing up on his menace as he closes in on his goal. 4.5 stars.

The Missing Link/Darkness and Light - The final two episodes form a single story separated by a cliffhanger. It's here that the Eighth Doctor turns up, as indicated on the cover, and that we finally discover the Master's motives for his actions in the previous two stories. Which, unfortunately, turns out not to be terribly interesting. Now that it's all out in the open, we get even less of the ambiguity of the character that Jacobi does so well, leaving us with a routine story that could as well have been a regular Eighth Doctor one. Yes, Foley and Llewelyn are trying to make some sort of point about the Doctor and the Master being opposite sides of the same coin, but that's nowhere we haven't been before. And the Master getting the better of the match in the first half is offset by a predictable ending in the second. A disappointing conclusion to a promising start. 3 stars.