Written by Lizzie Hopley Katharine Armitage Ian Winterton Adam Christopher

Starring Derek Jacobi and many others

Originally released : October 2025

Listened to: October 2025

Episodes

12.1 The Grievance Bureau by Lizzie Hopley
12.2 Last Girl Standing by Katharine Armitage
12.3 The Worst of All Evils by Ian Winterton
12.4 The Blue Shift Ritual by Adam Christopher

Context: I am a MASSIVE War Master fan so always looking forward to the War Master sets, Derek Jacobi is supurb. Amazing. The Master of the Masters! Wonderful that we get these adventures with my fav version of the Master. AMAZING we get these, long may they continue!

THE REVIEW

What I thought: the starting episode, The Grievance Bureau, is a very strong start, with the War Master in full-on maniac mode, on board a Dalek warship with Time Lords and Daleks both putting the Master on trial. It is an interesting idea, and played well, and it gets a lot more intricate quickly, with it becoming clear that the Master is playing a very interesting game, a plot that has been in the making for quite some time. The episode gets more and more exciting as the ploy plays itself out, with the Master involved in a long game ploy with a cloning genius and her clone. All very double and triple bluffs by the time we get to the end, which is awesome. No spoilers but the Master very much comes out on top in this one (and alone)!

Following on is Last Girl Standing, which is bloody fantastic as well! What a set this is developing into, and this story doesn’t disappoint. Jacobi is at his manipulative best, with the set up being the War Master as the headmaster, playing a load of private school kids against each other, pretty much just for sadistic fun. There is a hidden timelord in this one as well, a war veteran hiding from the war, who clashes very nicely with the Master. Another very strong episode and shows what the Master is capable of, lots of interesting Timelord/Time War lore in here as well.

The Worst of all Evils starts very strongly, with the Master trying to escape both Daleks and Time Lords, but it all goes a bit pear-shaped pretty quickly, leading to an injured Master, a wee bit of regeneration energy and a prison underground (with a flatulent, drain-smelling balloon alien man)!

The Blue Shift Ritual is an amazing final episode of this boxset, with a brilliant story that invents some very interesting Gallfrey based history, with the Daleks and future Timelords coming along to try and capture/kill the Master and the past Timelords trying to stop the Blue Shift and the end of the universe, and in the mix of all this the Master has a scheme underneath all these other schemes, which he completes! The Master gets exactly what he wants at the end of this one, freedom from the war, and timelords/Daleks both. The War Master is let loose at the end of this one, and it is completely wonderful!

Rating: 4.8 out of 5 evil schemes: good lord, this is a brilliant, on form War Master boxset, which, in my view, is up there with the best War Master boxsets. Jacobi is brilliant in all four episodes, all of which are strong, the first and final stories for me being the strongest, some of the best War Master stories thus far, and that is high praise considering how good some of the prevous boxsets are. Can’t recommend this one highly enough!

What I felt: thrilled, amazed, surprised and very very happy! Bloody brilliant!

What am I left thinking/feeling/wanting?

• How on earth are BF going to top this boxset!
• The set-up for the Master to go out and cause chaos and anarchy unhindered by the time war is a tantalising prospect.

Memorable bits

• A series of Masterful, evil and amazing schemes by the War Master in this one!
• The Master killing off school girls in a private future school!
• The cliffhanger at the end of the final episode is bloody amazing!