Editing The Master (Doctor Who) (section)

=== Dalek trial and 'execution' ===
The Master was the primary antagonist of the 1996 [[Doctor Who (film)|''Doctor Who'' television film]]. He was played by American actor [[Eric Roberts]].

In the prologue, the Master (portrayed briefly by Gordon Tipple) is executed by the [[Dalek]]s as a punishment for his "evil crimes". But before his apparent death, the Master requests his remains to be brought back to Gallifrey by the Seventh Doctor.<ref name="tv movie">{{cite serial |title=[[Doctor Who (film)|Doctor Who]] |first=Matthew (writer) |last=Jacobs |author-link=Matthew Jacobs |first2=Geoffrey (director) |last2=Sax |author-link2=Geoffrey Sax |network=[[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] |date=14 May 1996 }}</ref> However, as posited in the novelisation of the film by [[Gary Russell]], the Master's self-alterations to extend his lifespan allow him to survive his execution by transferring his mind into a snake-like entity called a "morphant."<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Russell |date=May 1996 |title=Doctor Who: The Novel of the Film |publisher=[[BBC Books]] }}</ref> This interpretation is made explicit in the first of the [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novels, ''[[The Eight Doctors]]'' by [[Terrance Dicks]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Dicks |first=Terrance |author-link=Terrance Dicks |date=June 1997 |title=The Eight Doctors |title-link=The Eight Doctors |series=[[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] |publisher=[[BBC Books]] |isbn=0-563-40563-5 }}</ref> and also used in the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' comic strip story ''The Fallen'', which states that the ''morphant'' was a shape-shifting animal native to [[Skaro]].<ref name="the fallen">{{Cite comic | writer = [[Scott Gray (writer)|Gray, Scott]] | penciller = [[Martin Geraghty|Geraghty, Martin]] | inker = [[Robin Smith (comics)|Smith, Robin]] | story = The Fallen | title = [[Doctor Who Magazine]] | issue = #273–276 | date = 13 January – 7 April 1999 | panel = }}</ref>

Using his morphant body to break free from the container holding his remains, the Master sabotages the Doctor's [[TARDIS]] console to force it to crash land in San Francisco in December 1999. From there, the Master, as the morphant, enters the body of a paramedic named Bruce to take control of him. However, the Master finds his human host to be unsustainable as the body slowly begins to degenerate, although the Master has the added abilities to spit an [[acid]]-like bile, both as a weapon and to mentally control victims as an alternative to his usual hypnotic abilities. The Master attempts to access the Eye of Harmony to steal the remaining regenerations of the [[Eighth Doctor]] ([[Paul McGann]]), but instead is sucked into it and supposedly killed.<ref name="tv movie"/>