The Rejuvenator brings in the other character who was meant to join the two Doctors and Chrístõ. But because too many characters at once are a problem in a written adventure, I had to find some way of reducing the numbers on the field trips. Julia and Natalie, first, were struck down by an unfortunate consequence of the Arabic make up on their eyes, both suffering a bad allergic reaction. That meant that somebody had to stay aboard the TARDIS and look after them. Eight draws the short straw. Chrístõ and the Ninth Doctor go outside when the TARDIS lands on the private medical research space station Tora Be-Delta. They aren’t out long, though, before they are running back along with the young Jack Harkness who remembers Chrístõ from their previous encounter.

 

The banter between Chrístõ, Jack and the Ninth Doctor, of course, is inevitable. They both know him, one way or another, for an incorrigible flirt. And the lightness is needed, because the result of The Master’s handiwork aboard Tora Be-Delta is horrific. Killing people by simply reversing their lifespan until they not longer exist may be painless, but it is horrible. And it means that The Master has a new and terrible weapon, one even worse than his Tissue Compression Eliminator.

 

Again, Nine, accompanied by Jack and Chrístõ at the cosmetic rejuvenation clinic was comic relief before a more serious scene at the conference.

 

Dess Frere’s fantastic conference hall is something I really should go back to some time. It is too good a design to use only once. Chrístõ’s adventure there. Meanwhile it did well enough for the showdown between Nine and The Master, with Jack and Chrístõ trapped between them, risking either being aged or youthed to death. This is long before Captain Jack becomes immortal, of course, otherwise there would be no problem.

 

Chrístõ gets the past two days erased and knows nothing of his adventure. Jack loses two years of his memory and thinks the Time Agency did it to him. The Master loses all of his memory and gets sent to an old people’s home. This story was written before the idea of bringing back The Master troubled the minds of the producers of Doctor Who, and I had my own ideas about how to deal with him. This was one of them. Of course it left the possibility of him escaping. But to kill him would never do. He has to be able to come back, sooner or later.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_(Doctor_Who)