The Doctor has been enlisted to stop his greatest foe, The Master, from destroying the universe. However, the person to gain his help is none other than... The Master too!
Tropes
- A God I Am Not: The Doctor, when faced with a machine that can warp reality, decides to hit the big Reset Button on it to reverse the Masters' damage over making his own major changes to the universe, citing this quote.
- Apocalypse How: Class X, thanks to the Masters. Fortunately, the Doctor reboots everything.
- Apple of Discord: At the climax, the Doctor tries turning the Masters against one another by asking just who's going to rule the universe if they can't share. Despite knowing what he's doing, they still fall for it.
- Call-Forward: When the Doctor prepares to reset the universe, he delivers the following;"The Heretic thought that the universe was sick. Maybe he was right. [..] But that just means it needs a Doctor."
- Captain Obvious: As Crispy Master points out, it's kind of a giveaway as to how The Heretic got his title.
- Continuity Nod: The Masters undo the mind-swap via "contact!", complete with the original sound effect.
- Creepy Monotone: The Father of the Cult of the Heretic remains eerily calm in nearly every situation.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Bald Master keeps trying to crack puns as he kills people. Crispy, being significantly more tetchy and Ax-Crazy, just kills them.
- Evil vs. Evil: Most of the story is Master Vs Master.
- Explosive Decompression: The Master kills most of the Rocketmen via TCE, before dealing with the last ten by blowing a hole in their base.
- Grand Theft Me: Through the intervention of the Cult of the Heretic, the Burnt Master is revealed to have been transferred into the body of his future self; stuck back in the burnt body, the Bald Master initially proposes that they 'correct' matters by putting him back in his own body and transferring the Burnt Master into the Seventh Doctor's body, leaving the Seventh to die in the burnt body.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Once again, the Master is done in thanks to the Master. Specifically, the force field belt that Bald-in-Burnt Master had previously shown off to the Doctor, and the sonic pulse he'd used earlier, are retrieved by the Doctor and used against both of the Masters.
- Hypocritical Humor: The Master accuses the Doctor of being egotistical.
- I'm The Doctor, Not a Postman: The Doctor says this and tells Crispy-in-Bald Master to deliver his own messages to his other self.
- It's All About Me: The Bald Master invokes this when he discusses the idea of being ordered to kill his own past self to join the Cult, dismissing his past selves as failures (although he later claims that he never explicitly intended to kill his past self but just leave him in a state he remembered being in anyway).
- Kick the Dog: Jemima is kicked repeatedly. The Rocketmen murdered her family and press-ganged her, while giving her an irritating nickname just to annoy her, while the Master uses her as a hostage, insults her, and then murders her.
- Large Ham: Geoffrey Beevers is obviously having a blast now playing Bald-as-Crispy Master.
- Lazy Alias: The Master's alias as he "helps" an alien race with their civil war? Malgrove. Guess what it means in their language. The Doctor even questions whether he has any originality in him at all.
- Literally Shattered Lives: An entire race of silicon-based aliens and a sonic pulse do not a good mix make.
- No Man Should Have This Power: The Doctor destroys the Heretic's device for this reason, though not before making one tiny alteration to things; reviving Jemima and her family.
- Nothing Personal: Bald Master, just before he reduces his past self to his familiar state.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Heretic believed the universe was sick, and the best way to fix it was to destroy all reality, and start from scratch.
- While the Masters didn't instigate this plan, the Bald Master had no problem joining the Cult in the name of his own survival and both Masters take over after reality has been extinguished.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Doctor notices that both Masters are acting like each other.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Par for the course, both Masters can't stand each other and only tolerate working together over working with The Doctor.
- Personal Hate Before Common Goals: The Doctor tries suggesting the Masters spare him because he's capable of flying the TARDIS without breaking it. Crispy Master refuses because he just hates the Doctor that much.
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: The paradox of the two Masters being trapped in each others' bodies nearly unmakes the universe, to the extent that the Seventh Doctor can't remember his fifth and sixth incarnation's meetings with the two Masters while they were in each other's bodies as those areas of existence have already been 'destroyed'.
- Spot the Thread: The Doctor notices that Crispy Master has suddenly developed a sardonic sense of humour- the complete opposite to his usual persona.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: The Doctor gets concerned when both Masters want to kill each other, since either way the older Master would still die. However, the older Master has a plan to kill his younger self and still live (although he is finally forced to accept the Doctor's observation that this plan won't work).
- Villains Never Lie: The Doctor and Jemima figure this about the Burnt Master, but while he isn't lying, he is leaving out several select details.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Bald Master's reaction when, just after having said there's no chance of the Doctor showing up to thwart them, the Doctor shows up in their TARDIS to thwart them.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Crispy Master kills The Doctor's potential companion once he can't use her any more as leverage over the Doctor.
