Episode 5 - The Doctor Regenerations Past: "The Three Masters"

Ft. Jessi Milestone (Mindless Entertainment)!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CTTYJRF
Did you find the New Year left you lacking something special?
Was Christmas missing something which the Doctor could not cure? Do you feel a void of Time and Space in your life? Then perhaps The Doctor Reads the Doctor By The Doctor series is for you!

This series was in part inspired by a friend of mine who is dyslexic, and who finds reading something of a chore as a consequence. He is also a fan of the same type of science fiction material. And so I decided to read some of my old published stories (which my former editor assured me had returned to me copyright-wise, as it is now long out of print ;) ).

This story is the first in the series never before to have seen the light of day in any prior published form - The Three Masters.

Having looked back at when the document was first created it seems that John Binns and I started working on it in 2003, at exactly the time I was writing all the previous stories for Big Finish's Short Trips book series in some of the volumes John edited. Work on The Three Masters seems to have progressed beyond the end of that period for a couple of years however, while we got close to finishing it, somehow events overtook us and it was never quite completed.

In 2016 its unfinished status began to bug me again and so I asked John for permission to finally finish it off. I added a mere 900 word to complete this task, as well as cutting and trimming the existing material - I should shout out to my PhD supervisor, Karim Malik, for instilling a slightly stronger appreciation of brevity and the need to cut waffle.

So it was that the story was completed in 2016, but the market for work concerning the Doctor had become far more restricted, with many of the old outlets for such work now being "blocked". Then I began the "Doctor Reads..." series and this became a natural home for The Three Masters.

The Masters are exaggerations of their characters from the original Doctor Who series in which they appeared. The first Master is the Delgado depiction, and as a character we saw him as the most composed, self-assured and focused of the three. The second Master is the blackened, failed regeneration Master, and we felt he expressed the Master at his most unhinged and deranged. We often referred to him while writing as the “Compo” (from Last of the Summer Wine) Master as he was the font of nonsensical ideas. Finally the third Master was the Ainley Master, who is superficially similar to the first Master, inasmuch as he appears to want to take over the world/universe. However, in reality all his plans are just thinly veiled attempts to trap and kill the Doctor, and as such lack much of the coherence or polish of the first Master's efforts.

In case you were wondering, the story is a comedy.

Before signing off I must give huge thanks to Jessi Milestone (Mindless Entertainment) for lending her acting talents to this project and giving "The Barman" her own unique spin. All of her efforts are very much appreciated.

And as ever I should say it was a simpler age; in those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

Take care.

Doctor Alex

With thanks to the Anti-trekker for his support and encouragement:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20_...
And thanks also to Doomcock for his ongoing encouragement and support:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeCJ...
And thanks to Mindless Entertainment for her support and encouragement:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQX...
And finally, but not leastly to MechaRandom42 for her encouragement and support:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Ke...

This video was recorded using a Shure Model 5655D mic plugged directly into a Lenovo X201 running Linux Mint 18.2.
Recording and processing of audio performed using Audacity v2.1.2.
Video editing performed using Openshot v1.4.3.
Intro and outro performed on a Marlin Sidewinder Guitar plugged into a Marlin Reverb 50C guitar amplifier.

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