Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of the holiday, I’m taking a look at that cosmic Casanova, the Lothario of space-time, the Don Juan of the vortex. For someone so often portrayed as either apart from, confused by, or simply uninterested in human romance, the Doctor sure does get a lot of play. Let’s celebrate love with the Time Lord by going backwards through the many, many, many loves of Doctor Who…
Missy kissy.
The Master
Let’s start with what is possibly the most significant relationship in the Doctor’s life – his love/hate affair with his eternal nemesis. The Master may have waited for a gender-swap regeneration to finally plant one hell of a smacker on her arch-enemy, but come on. This was building between them for a long, long time. Just take a look at that death scene in Last of the Time Lords – the Master cradled in the Doctor’s arms, the Doctor weeping, begging him to stay, promising they’ll spend eternity together, just the two of them…now that’s a love scene. (Should it worry me that I find a scene that ends with suicide-by-spite romantic?) Producer Steven Moffat clearly considers the Master to be the Doctor’s One True Pairing – way back in 1999’s charity comedy spoof Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death he had Jonathan Pryce’s Master walk off into the sunset with Joanna Lumley’s Doctor. (But more on that story later…) It’s a fine line between love and hate, they say, and the Doctor and the Master have been straddling that line for a long, long time.
