In one of the many 'Doctor Who' pages which I follow on Facebook, there was a thread wondering about a possible role for Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Doctor Who'. I suggested he should play the Meddling Monk after so many others thought he should play the Master. But one of the other commenters typed up that the Meddling Monk is the Master. And he based this on the fact that this claim is made in... some computer game.
As most of you know, I am heavily immersed in the Toobworld Dynamic. It's all about the Toob with me, with some movies and some online content added in. But I would not accept online gaming to be incorporated into the TwD.
And it seems like such a foolish idea. You've got two great characters, two great foes of the Doctor, why consolidate them into one character? They would work better as individuals, and possibly as a team up against the Doctor someday on the TV show.
I was heartened to read so many other responses which refuted that claim.
BCnU!
The idea the Monk & the Master are the same comes from _Doctor Who: The Role Playing Game_, published in the mid-1980s by FASA. (It was published right when Colin Baker was becoming the sixth incarnation, as the info on him was scarce, including a lack of costume information.) In their fact file for the Master, they suggested the Monk was an earlier incarnation, pointing to the tangential similarities between the Monk's methods in "The Time Meddler" and the Master's in "King's Demons" (trying to affect human, particularly British, history). However, that ignored the fact the Monk states in his first appearance that he is some years younger than the Doctor and went to the academy years after, and it does, as you point out, consolidate the characters into a single figure instead of two interesting ones. I like to think that the Monk, Master, and Rani (and maybe Drax) were all clever enough to survive the Time War in some way.
ReplyDelete