John Simm wears an unidentified watch

In the 2007 finale of Doctor Who, the Master has won. He became Prime Minister as Harold Saxon, a candidate boosted by a hypnotic signal hidden in the phone network, and now he runs the planet from the Valiant, a flying aircraft carrier built as his base. John Simm plays him as the Doctor's opposite number, all manic charm, a Time Lord who has the Toclafane kill a tenth of humanity and then dances to the Scissor Sisters. On his wrist is a watch named after the ship.

The Valiant watch is a production prop, not a timepiece anyone can buy. It has a resin case marked with the Valiant name and logo, two small clock faces set in different layouts, a wide leather strap, and paint worn thin in places. There is no brand, because no brand made it; the BBC built it for one villain in one story. Propstore, the prop auction house, sold the screen-used piece in London in November 2023 with a certificate of authenticity, against an estimate of 2,500 to 5,000 pounds. By Propstore's account, Simm's Master wore it aboard the Valiant through The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords.

The strange part is which watch this isn't. The one that drives the plot is a pocket watch, the chameleon arch that hid the Master's mind inside a human professor until it was opened and he remembered what he was. That fob watch gets the close-ups. The wristwatch, the one with real clockwork inside and the name of his flying fortress on the case, went unrecorded for years, known now mostly because a catalog finally described it.