The War Master: The Master of Callous

The initial entry in this series was a set of four episodes linked by a common arc; here, although the episodes are individually titled, it's much more one single story in four parts. It concerns a failing mining colony and the attempts of its administrator to make a go of things despite the efforts of a corrupt official higher up in the Earth Empire. The Master is in every episode, but is only prominent in two of them, playing things from behind the scenes in the others.

There are, as is apparent from the cover, ties to the modern series. In particular, the Ood have a major role to play - and, when you think about it, they're a race tailor-made for a story featuring the Master. But the real stand-out is, of course, Jacobi making his version of the Master scary and menacing even while he appears to be friendly. And that's one of the key features of this Master, setting him apart from other incarnations - his ability to seem like a good person, avuncular and friendly yet always remaining the same man underneath. In fact, given how pantomime the other villain of the story is, you can certainly understand why the colonists assume him to be preferable.

I'm not giving this five stars because the beginning is rather slow. Yes, it's all necessary as set-up and there is a pay-off at the end, once we discover what the Master is trying to achieve. But at times it's... well, a story of a failing mining colony. Indeed, the third episode is entirely an aside, albeit a very good one where things become increasingly surreal and disjointed as it moves along.

This is, as we're basically told before the theme music even starts, not a story that's going to have a happy ending. Indeed, much of it is very dark, leaving the listener with the question of just how many of the other characters the Master is going to trample on the way to his mysterious objective and whether they'll survive the experience.