Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani [1984]

Given that the rivalry between the Doctor and the Master had lasted for years, it was inevitable that another renegade would be co-opted to join the squabble - various other rebels, from the Monk to Morbius and Omega to Borusa, had shown up, all rather samey. Here, the Master [Anthony Ainley] sidetracks the Doctor's TARDIS by remote control - though he's later impressed that a rival has 'discovered' a remote for her machine, as if the writers forgot Part One while writing Part Two - to drag him into the 1820s, where the Rani [Kate O'Mara], renegade Time Lord scientist and dictatress of some other world, is harvesting brain fluid from the locals, turning them into sleep-deprived Luddite rampagers, for use in maintaining her own domain. The Rani, at first disguised as a harridan who runs a bath-house for miners and then in leather trews as a Dynasty-type soap bitch, is impatient with the bickering Master and Doctor and has her own ruthless character, but the plot they're all stuck in is thin [tampering with Earth's history - again!] and a climax involving land-mines which turn people into trees is among the silliest in the show's history. Pip and Jane Baker also forget that dinosaurs were oviviparous reptiles, since the Rani's TARDIS [a nicely-designed set which makes the Doctor momentarily envious] is stocked with T-Rex embryos, one of which wakes up to threaten the two baddies as they are sent hurtling off to nowhere.

Colin Baker's Doctor is at his modest best - not too obviously clownish or stuffy, doing frowning pretend-arrogance and self-deprecation [asked what he and Peri do in the box, he says 'argue, mostly'] - and we at least see why he's different from the other renegades. Gawn Grainger is George Stephenson and Terence Alexander his patron - unfortunately, everyone else does the worst Geordie 'doon tha pit' accents possible at the BBC. The Rani, clearly set up as a new villain, recurred properly only once.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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