Masterful

 

Masterful by James Goss

Disclaimer: This Review Contains Spoilers for Masterful Parts One to Three. This Review does not discuss I am The Master, The Switching or Terror of The Master. Thank You. 

Immediately my mind goes to Zagreus. Masterful is obtuse, niche and incredibly unique in terms of what kind of story it is. Very quickly you can tell that an astronomical reset button is going to take place too. So yes, this is the Master's Zagreus. It's less overlong, and there are less cameos, and overall it's probably the better production. But make no mistake, Masterful is a tribute to this character in that vein. It is confusing at times, and many people have quite a problem indeed distinguishing between all of the suave old men, even I, who know these voices like the back of my hand, was tripped up by Culshaw's Ainley and John Simm on occasions. One would initially find Masterful to be overcrowded, but the cast is actually smaller than anticipated. The only real players are the Eight Masters, Jo, Kamelion and Kitty and a few bit parts. Over three hours of audio, that's a surprisingly small cast, and all of them are given integral roles to the proceedings. The character with the least arc, Milo Parker (ostensibly a Dreyfus standin, and good on them too) is still notable and entertaining - his morality plays the Masters against eachother in a wonderful way. Of course, I have to give credit to the real stars of the piece, Michelle Gomez, Mark Gatiss/Sam Kisgart, Geoffrey Beevers and Sir Derek Jacobi utterly kill it. The other Masters are great, but these four blow the others away. Gatiss in a way I wasn't expecting - I didn't think he was all that incredible in Bernice Summerfield but when paired with the rest of this cast, he stands out in an unexpected way- one feels that James Goss decided to give him some of the most ridiculous lines and Mark decided to play them as seriously and suavely as possible. "Let me slide into the Daleks DMs" is a particular highlight, as well as the riotous "Do I have the Right?" ripoff. Of course, Missy is as interesting and unique as usual, going into a story like this you probably know what you're getting from her. While Gatiss gets say, a half of the ridiculous lines in the audio, she takes the other half and plays them with her own magnificent charm. Her chemistry with Katy Manning (also on the top of her game and probably the fifth best player in the audio) is palpable, teaming up the two of them was a Masterclass. Sir Derek Jacobi initially has the weakest arc, his sidealong with John Simm isn't as developed as some of the other strands but he more than makes up for it in part three as one of the last Master's standing. But by far, the best player in the entire piece is the astonishingly good Geoffrey Beevers, who plays a pitch perfect knock-out of a story, his strand of the piece is by far the best. The rest of the cast is still wonderful, Alex Macqueen has an enjoyable sideplot involving Crackers of all things, Eric Roberts is his best yet, and John Simm plays his first Big Finish role admirably. The plot goes a little bonkers by the end of it as all of the Masters get wrapped up in a timey wimey ball of bullcrap and the final scenes are immensely confusing, but to be honest, in the end, while Masterful tries to dispute the usual confinings of a Multi-Doctor/Multi-Master story, it is as victim to them as any other. The point of Masterful is seeing all of these Masters interact, and throwing Jo Grant and Kamelion in there too. And while Masterful tries it's best to be something new, stunning and unique, in the end, it is essentially a piece just like any other, another incredibly enjoyable Multi-Time Lord Story, this one with the benefit of being confusing to boot. While in the end, I think Day of The Master and The Two Masters are both better listens, Masterful is just something wonderfully unique - I doubt we will ever see a story on this scale again. 9/10