Time and the Rani
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| 148 - Time and the Rani | |
|---|---|
| Doctor | Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor) |
| Writer | Pip and Jane Baker |
| Director | Andrew Morgan |
| Script editor | Andrew Cartmel |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | 7D |
| Series | Season 24 |
| Length | 4 episodes, 25 mins each |
| Transmission date | September 7–September 28, 1987 |
| Preceded by | The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe |
| Followed by | Paradise Towers |
Time and the Rani is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 7 to September 28, 1987. This story was the first to feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The story is set on the planet Lakertya where the Rani is building a super-brain. To assist her in this enterprise, she has kidnapped a number of geniuses, including Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein. It begins with the Rani and her allies the Tetraps hijacking the TARDIS; the disruption and turbulence causes the Doctor to regenerate.
[edit] Plot
The TARDIS is attacked by a powerful force whilst in flight. The entire console room is distorting and the Sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush are both knocked unconscious. The ship then materialises on the planet Lakertya as a Lakertyan, Ikona, looks on. The TARDIS' doors open and the renegade Time Lady, the Rani (Kate O'Mara) enters. She tells her unseen companion to "leave the girl" and that the Doctor was "the man I want." As she leaves, a lumbering, hair-covered creature, Urak, enters and it moves towards the Doctor's side and turns his prone body over. The Doctor's face begins to blur and glow. His long curly blond hair begins to disappear and turns into short black hair. The blurring and the glowing stops and the Doctor's physical regeneration is complete.
At her Lakertya base, the Rani finishes supervising two Lakertyans, Beyus (Donald Pickering) and his daughter Sarn, as they store Albert Einstein, who had been kidnapped, in a sealed cabinet alongside a number of others. The Seventh Doctor regains consciousness in the Rani’s laboratory. The Doctor's mental state is caught in his former persona, and he recalls his last conversation immediately before he was forced to regenerate. When he overcomes his temporary disorientation, he recognises the Rani. Examining her equipment, he sees an asteroid which he identifies as being composed of strange matter. When the Doctor demands an explanation, the Rani refuses to discuss her "ethics" with him. The Doctor is taken back with her use of the word and tells her not to be a "hypocrite." The Rani becomes angry and she grabs her gun. The Doctor starts to run, but he trips. Sarn rushes to help the Doctor and the Rani promises to punish her for doing so. A scared Sarn runs out of the Rani's lab as the Doctor re-emerges on his feet. He grabs his umbrella and threatens to smash a vital piece of the Rani's equipment to pieces. The Rani summons Urak who enters her lab and shoots the Doctor.
Inside the TARDIS, Ikona rescues Mel. As he carries her away, Mel regains consciousness and escapes from Ikona. Sarn runs away and encounters Mel who is also running. Sarn panics and trips a wire which creates a transparent bubble, trapping her inside. The bubble bounces around before exploding, reducing Sarn to a smoking skeleton.
The Rani orders Urak to reset the trap while she injects the Doctor with something to give him amnesia. When the Doctor comes round, the Rani pretends to be Mel in order to persuade him to repair a faulty machine in her laboratory. Ikona recaptures Mel, and he believes her to be in league with the Rani. She saves him from another of the bubble traps and thus convinces him that she is friendly.
The Doctor is puzzled and confused and refuses to continue work. He and the Rani return to his TARDIS to fetch a radiation wave meter. There, the Doctor changes his clothes, trying on those of his fourth, third, fifth and second incarnations, amongst others, before settling on a new outfit for himself.
Mel sees Urak and stumbles into a bubble trap. She is caught inside the bubble, which bounces over a cliff and lands on a lake. Ikona rescues her and they retrieve some weapons before being attacked by another Tetrap. Escaping, they head for the Rani’s fortress where Ikona meets Sarn’s mother Faroon (Wanda Ventham). Faroon discovers her daughter’s skeleton and goes to speak with Beyus.
The Rani goes to fetch some vital material for the Doctor to use in the machine, but is captured by Urak who mistakes her for Mel. Mel meanwhile makes her way into the Rani’s control room where the Doctor believes her to be the Rani. The two travellers eventually convince each other that they are who they say they are by feeling each other’s pulses. Beyus helps them to escape by telling the Doctor the combination to unlock the control room door – it is 953, which is both the Doctor’s and the Rani’s age.
Outside the control room, Mel finds the cabinets containing the kidnapped geniuses and sees that one is reserved for the Doctor. The Rani returns and, while Mel, Beyus and Faroon escape, the Doctor hides in a dark Tetrap eyrie. The Rani locks the gate behind him and he finds himself surrounded by the awaking Tetraps.
Beyus rescues the Doctor and tells him to go to the Lakertyan’s Centre of Leisure, where the reason for his obedience to the Rani will be revealed. The Doctor takes a micro-thermistor from the Rani’s machine and leaves.
Mel is captured by the Tetraps and paralysed by a sting from the tongue of one of them. The Rani tells Faroon to give the Doctor a message that she will exchange Mel for the micro-thermistor.
At the Centre of Leisure, the Doctor and Ikona find that the Lakertyan people are indolent and apathetic. There is a new globe-like device suspended from the Centre, but no one will tell the distressed Ikona its purpose. The Rani, using remote control, suddenly stops the globe from spinning, causing killer insects emerge from it. The Doctor, Beyus and the other Lakertyans run screaming from the Centre.
Faroon delivers her message to the Doctor, who agrees to the proposed exchange. The Rani tricks him, however, as the ‘Mel’ she releases is revealed to be only a holographic projection. The renegade Time Lord reinserts the micro-thermistor in her machine, making it operational, but finds that the combined brain power of the kidnapped geniuses is still not sufficient for her purposes. Urak suggests that she link her own brain in. She refuses and orders that the Doctor’s cabinet be prepared.
The Doctor notes that the Rani has a fixed trajectory rocket launcher and realises that she must be working to meet a specific deadline. Ikona distracts the Tetrap guarding the entrance to the Rani’s fortress and the Doctor enters. He is caught by Urak, paralysed and placed in his cabinet. The Rani then enters a sealed room, followed by Mel. Inside is a massive brain. With the Doctor’s input, the brain is able to start carrying out the calculations that the Rani desires.
Urak and the other Tetraps leave the fortress to punish selected Lakertyans by placing around their leg a bracelet-like control device that will reduce them to a skeleton if removed.
The Rani finds that the Doctor is confusing the brain and orders him disconnected. The Doctor jumps from his cabinet, and he and Mel then trap the Rani inside it. In the control room, the Doctor finds that the Rani’s rocket is intended to strike the asteroid of strange matter. He and Mel watch a recording of a supernova on a screen. Mel realises that the Rani is using the brain to come up with a lightweight substitute for strange matter in order to detonate the asteroid.
The Rani escapes from the cabinet and explains her plan to the Doctor and Mel. She needs helium-2. This will fuse with the upper Lakertyan atmosphere to form a shell of chronons – discrete particles of time – and then the brain will multiply, filling the gap between shell and planet, thereby creating a time manipulator, a cerebral mass capable of dominating and controlling time anywhere in the cosmos. Urak overhears the Rani boasting that all life on Lakertya will be destroyed. The Doctor gives the brain the correct formula and it devises loyhargil as the substance required. As the production of loyhargil starts in the Rani’s laboratory, the Doctor and Mel escape from the fortress.
The Doctor helps remove the control devices from the Lakertyans, then returns to the fortress and places them around the brain. Beyus stays to complete this task as the Doctor, Mel and Faroon escape. The Doctor confronts the Rani, who detonates the devices. The brain nevertheless completes its countdown and the rocket launches, but because of the Doctor’s interference, it misses the asteroid.
The Rani escapes to her TARDIS, but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps who take her prisoner. Urak has tied the Rani up and he tells her that when they return to their home world the Rani will be forced to help them overcome their "plasma needs" and then he laughs.
The Doctor takes all the captured geniuses on board the TARDIS so that he can return them home. He also gives the Lakertyans the antidote to the killer insects, but Ikona pours it away as he believes they should solve their own problems from now on. As the Doctor and Mel board the TARDIS, Mel mentions that it is going to take time for her to get use to the Doctor's seventh persona. The Doctor smiles at her and says, "I'll grow on you Mel, I'll grow on you."
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — Sylvester McCoy
- Melanie — Bonnie Langford
- The Rani — Kate O'Mara
- Ikona — Mark Greenstreet
- Beyus — Donald Pickering
- Faroon — Wanda Ventham
- Sarn — Karen Clegg
- Urak — Richard Gauntlett
- Lanisha — John Segal
- Special Voices — Peter Tuddenham, Jacki Webb
[edit] In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Pip and Jane Baker, was published by Target Books in December 1987.
[edit] Continuity
- Although this was the first story to feature the Seventh Doctor, it was written in anticipation of Colin Baker returning as the Sixth Doctor. When he declined to even film the regeneration sequence, Sylvester McCoy instead wore his predecessor's costume and a blond curly wig and film the sequence himself, making him one of only two actors to appear onscreen as two different Doctors (the other was Richard E. Grant who played a parody of the Doctor in the licensed production Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and later an alternative version of the Ninth Doctor in the BBC webcast, Scream of the Shalka).
- A number of spin-off media have provided additional explanation for the Doctor's regeneration including the Virgin New Adventures novels Timewyrm: Revelation, Love and War by Paul Cornell, Head Games by Steve Lyons and the Past Doctor Adventures novel Spiral Scratch by Gary Russell.
- The Seventh Doctor tries on several earlier Doctors' costumes: the Second Doctor's fur coat, the Third Doctor's smoking jacket, the Fourth Doctor's coat and scarf and the Fifth Doctor's cricket outfit, as well as other costumes. He also wears the Sixth Doctor's patchwork coat for much of the first episode.
- This was the second and final appearance in the series of Kate O'Mara as the Rani. O'Mara reprised her role in the charity sketch Dimensions in Time (1993) and in the BBV audio adventure "The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind."
- It is never explained how the Rani escaped the predicament in which she had last been seen in The Mark of the Rani (trapped with the Master in her TARDIS and a rapidly-growing Tyrannosaurus rex embryo). The novelisation of Time and the Rani by Pip and Jane Baker claims that the rapidly-growing dinosaur snapped its neck on the ceiling of the Rani's TARDIS and died instantly (although the canonicity of this claim is unclear).
[edit] Production
- This story's working title was Strange Matter [1].
- The story features a pre-credits sequence where the TARDIS crash-lands on Lakertya. This is only the third time in the series history that there was a pre-credit sequence. Castrovalva (1982) and The Five Doctors (1983) were the first two stories to have a "cold opening". Only one more story of the original series, Remembrance of the Daleks would feature a pre-credits teaser, although this practice became commonplace when the series returned in 2005.
- The main location used for the planet Lakertya including the exterior of the Rani’s laboratory was Cloford Quarry, in Somerset.
- Keff McCulloch arranged the new opening theme. It was used until the end of the regular run of the series. A new logo for the series was also introduced with this story along with a new opening credits sequence that moved away from the "starfield" motif introduced in 1980. The new theme arrangement marked the first time since the First Doctor's era that the theme's "middle eight" section was regularly heard during the opening credits (the previous two arrangements used the middle eight during the closing credits only).
- This story was the first time the Doctor Who title sequence was created with a computer. Many of the effects, like the bubble Mel is trapped in, were done in the same manner.
- The Loyhargil, the massive brain entity, is an anagram of "holy grail".
[edit] Outside references
Amongst the famous Earthlings the Doctor mentions towards the end as he explains to Mel the severity of the Rani's plans are Elvis and Mrs Malaprop (a fictional character).
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Time and the Rani episode guide on the BBC website
- Time and the Rani at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Time and the Rani at Outpost Gallifrey
[edit] Reviews
- Time and the Rani reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Time and the Rani reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
[edit] Target novelisation
| Television stories dealing with Regeneration | |
|---|---|
| First Doctor: | The Tenth Planet |
| Second Doctor: | The Power of the Daleks • The War Games |
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Planet of the Spiders |
| Fourth Doctor: | Robot • Logopolis |
| Fifth Doctor: | Castrovalva • The Caves of Androzani |
| Sixth Doctor: | The Twin Dilemma |
| Seventh Doctor: | Time and the Rani |
| Eighth Doctor: | Doctor Who (1996) |
| Ninth Doctor: | The Parting of the Ways |
| Tenth Doctor: | Children in Need special • The Christmas Invasion |
| See also: | Destiny of the Daleks • The Ultimate Foe • The Curse of Fatal Death |
