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{{subpage tabs}}
{{retitle|"The Rani"}}
{{ImageLink}}
{{Infobox Individual
{{Infobox Individual
|image = Rani.jpg
|image             = <gallery>
|name = The Rani
Rani KO.jpg|[[First Rani|1]]
|alias = Ushas, [[Melanie Bush]], Lania, Professor Baxton
Rani Redmond.jpg|[[Second Rani|2]]
|species = Time Lord
</gallery>
|origin = [[Gallifrey]]
|alias             = Cleopatra Selene, [[Melanie Bush]], Lania, Professor Baxton, Principal C.B. Wainwright
|first = The Mark of the Rani (TV story)
|species           = Time Lord{{!}}Time Lord
|appearances = [[The Rani - list of appearances|'''''see list''''']]
|job              = Prison governor
|main actor = Kate O'Mara
|origin           = [[Gallifrey]]
|voice actor = Siobhan Redmond
|first             = The Mark of the Rani (TV story)
|other voice actor =  
|appearances       = [[The Rani - list of appearances|'''''see list''''']]
|clip2 = The Doctor wakes up in Rani's lab - Doctor Who Classic - Time & The Rani - BBC
|main actor       = Kate O'Mara
|clip = The Rani's plan - Doctor Who - Mark of the Rani - BBC
|voice actor       = Siobhan Redmond
}}'''The Rani''', previously known as '''Ushas''', was a [[renegade Time Lord]] . She knew [[the Doctor]] and [[the Master]] when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.
|clip              = The Rani's plan - Doctor Who - Mark of the Rani - BBC
|clip2             = The Doctor wakes up in Rani's lab - Doctor Who Classic - Time & The Rani - BBC
}}
{{Ranis}}
'''Ushas''', better known as '''the Rani''' and known more formally as '''Ushas of Miasimia Goria''', or, in other accounts, as simply '''Rani''', was a [[renegade Time Lord|renegade Time Lady]] and member of [[the Deca]]. A brilliant but cold [[neurochemist]], she knew [[the Doctor]] and [[the Master]] when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.


== Biography ==
==Biography==
=== Youth and exile ===
{{Section stub|Information from ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (novelisation)|The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]''}}
Ushas belonged to [[the Deca]], the same [[Time Lord Academy|Academy]] clique as the [[First Doctor]], ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties]]'') being their most intelligent member. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite]]'')


Ushas was the same age as the Doctor. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'') The Doctor was once invited to Ushas' 94th birthday party. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Death of Art (novel)|The Death of Art]]'')
===The Rani's incarnations===
The Rani was, regardless of incarnation, a brilliant scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was highly intelligent but extremely arrogant, narcissistic, ruthless, powerful and intensely cruel.


At the Doctor's graduation, there was an incident involving Ushas and a [[giant rat]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Party Animals (comic story)|Party Animals]]'')
The [[First Rani]] was a cruel woman whose evil deeds and notoriety had made her the second most wanted criminal in the galaxy, after [[the Master]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Requiem for the Rocket Men (audio story)|Requiem for the Rocket Men]]'') Much like the Doctor, she had a considerable presence. This presence, however, rested not in a fondness for the planet but as a focal point for her research projects. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'', ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')


Ushas was [[exile]]d from Gallifrey after some of her lab [[mouse|mice]], as a result of an experiment, grew to enormous size and ate the [[Lord President]]'s pet [[Gallifreyan cat|cat]]. They also bit the President himself, triggering a [[regeneration]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'') However, she hijacked the [[TARDIS]] delivering her to her planet of exile and became a renegade known as the Rani. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties]]'')
Just as amoral as her previous incarnation, the [[Second Rani]] always believed that the end always justified the means. Not above making jokes at the expense of others, she held a great disdain and disinterest in the Doctor's antics. Unlike her previous incarnation, she had a certain level of anxiety in breaking the [[Laws of Time]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite]]'')


=== Life as renegade ===
Following [[Fall of Gallifrey|the end]] of the [[Last Great Time War]], the [[Ninth Doctor]] believed all the [[Time Lord]]s bar himself to be dead, ([[TV]]: ''[[Dalek (TV story)|Dalek]]'') and so did not expect to see the Rani again, ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Flatpack (audio story)|Flatpack]]'') though the [[Tenth Doctor]] would encounter the First Rani. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)|Untitled]]'') Nevertheless, the [[Eleventh Doctor]] believed that the Rani was "dead", at least according to [[River Song]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Bekdel Test (audio story)|The Bekdel Test]]'')
==== Presence in Earth history ====
While the Rani certainly did not share the Doctor's fondness for [[Earth]] (she referred to it as a "miserable planet"), it was the focus of several of her research projects.


At some point, she had visited Earth in the [[Distant past|distant past]] and acquired several [[tyrannosaur]] embryos.
The [[Time Lord]]s' [[TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual]], which was aware of [[Missy]] and the [[Thirteenth Doctor]], refered to the Rani in the present tense. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual (reference book)}})


When the test subjects on [[Miasimia Goria]], a planet she had enslaved, became violently restless and uncontrollable as a side effect of her experiments on them, the Rani visited Earth at various points in its history to extract chemicals from the brains of select [[human]] specimens. Because the chemicals in question enabled the human brain to sleep, and because the absence of these chemicals made her victims as violent and uncontrollable as those from her previous experiments, the Rani deliberately chose periods of social unrest to visit, using the violence to conceal her presence and its consequences. She visited the [[Trojan War]], the [[Dark Ages]], the [[American War of Independence|American Revolutionary War]], and finally the [[Luddite]] riots in the village of [[Killingworth]] during the early [[19th century]] where she used the local bath house as her base, posing as the old woman in charge of the premises. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'') Around this time, the Rani travelled to [[Shildon]], where she encountered [[Panda]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[From Wildthyme with Love (novel)|From Wildthyme with Love]]'')
Following the [[Razing of Gallifrey|Time Lord genocide]], the [[Fifteenth Doctor]] used the Rani as an example when explaining [[Time Lord Name]]s to [[Ruby Sunday]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Space Babies (TV story)}})


{{Ainley|c}} and, shortly after, the [[Sixth Doctor]], interrupted her work. The Doctor sabotaged the navigational system of [[the Rani's TARDIS]], trapping the Master and the Rani inside as [[time spillage]] caused the tyrannosaur embryos to grow at a dangerous rate. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'')
=== Undated events ===
In the [[War in Heaven]], [[The War King|the Lord President]] reintegrated several barely-reformed [[renegade Time Lord|renegades]] into [[Gallifrey]]an society. One former renegade Time Lady, who was known for her engineered creatures, became a tutor to newly-[[loom]]ed soldiers. [[Holsred]] remembered a lecture in which she connected an [[artron energy]] generator to a white [[rat]]'s [[brain]] and then let the rat use the energy to kill a hungry [[Gallifreyan cat]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]'')


==== On Terra Nova ====
[[Father Kreiner]] had the heads of the Rani and [[the Master]] as trophies; however, at least one of them was a [[clone]] created in the [[High Council]]'s [[hatchling project]]s. ([[PROSE]]:'' [[Interference - Book One (novel)|Interference]]'')
The dinosaur grew to such a size that it broke its neck on the ceiling, but the Rani had been left adrift in her TARDIS when the Master escaped from her by detaching the console room from the rest of her TARDIS. Shortly afterwards, from the Doctor's subjective point of view, the Rani was also trapped along with the [[Sixth Doctor]] on [[Terra Nova]], which the entity known as [[Iam]] had created. She had in the meantime tried and failed to manipulate the political situation existing between the three children of that reality's version of [[Cleopatra]]. However, she did manage to escape Terra Nova, by using the entity to create a new TARDIS console room to replace the one the Master escaped in.  ([[PROSE]]: ''[[State of Change (novel)|State of Change]]'')


==== On Koturia ====
According to the [[Seventh Doctor]], the Rani was "up to her old tricks" during his last adventure with [[Ace]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Curse of Fenric (TotT TV story)|The Curse of Fenric]]'')
On the planet of [[Koturia]], the Rani went by the name of Lania. She was genetically modifying [[Pterodactyl|pterodactyls]] in order to take blood and tissue samples of Koturians for the purpose of learning about [[Phasing]]. She believed that she could learn of a way to control the outcome of a [[regeneration]] by learning how Koturians control their appearance when they Phase. She immersed herself in Koturian culture and became engaged to [[Jonos]], an upper class Koturian. However, their marriage ceremony was crashed by the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown, the former of whom was invited as an old friend of Jonos's father, [[Evris Makshi]]. Although they were too late to stop the physical ceremony, it failed to result in Jonos completing his Phase because both bride and groom have to be in love with one another for for the [[Imori stone]] to work and the Rani was only pretending to be in love with Jonos. Although the Rani claimed to be immune to emotion, the Doctor believed she felt some kind of emotional attachment to her work, as she did beg him to not destroy her research by saying "please." ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Something Borrowed (short story)|Something Borrowed]]'')


==== On Tetrapyriarbus and Lakertya ====
==Behind the scenes==
On the planet [[Tetrapyriarbus]], the Rani made the acquaintance of, and decided to employ, the [[Tetrap]]s, led by [[Urak]]. With them, she invaded the peaceful planet [[Lakertya]] and put into motion a complex plan. The Rani abducted eleven scientific geniuses from across time and space, including [[Albert Einstein]] of Earth. Finally she decided to "collect" the Doctor and attacked [[The Doctor's TARDIS|his TARDIS]], causing the ship to go through turbulence. The Doctor was wounded as a result, triggering the [[regeneration]] into his [[Seventh Doctor|seventh incarnation]].
===Return to television===
Following her last live-action appearance in the controversial TV special, ''[[Dimensions in Time (TV story)|Dimensions in Time]]'', the possibility of the return of the Rani in the post-[[2005 (releases)|2005]] revival of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has become a subject of widespread fan speculation, as the preeminent [[renegade Time Lord]] antagonist in the "classic" series aside from [[the Master]], who made his return in [[Series 3 (Doctor Who 2005)|Series 3]]. The matter was discussed or joked about on several occasions by the showrunner.  


The Rani channelled the intellects of the geniuses into a giant artificial brain which she believed could find the secret to manipulating [[strange matter]], the key to making the planet of Lakertya into a [[Time Manipulator]] in order to correct what she considered to be errors in the universal [[timeline]]. Her first target was to be Earth, where she would prevent the [[extinction]] of the [[dinosaur]]s, creatures whose full potential she felt had never been truly realised. She considered the death of the native [[Lakertyan]]s a small price to pay.  
[[Russell T Davies|Russell T. Davies]] once stated that if he had brought back the Rani, he would have cast actress {{w|Ruthie Henshall}} in the role.<ref>http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/10/28/russell-t-davies-talks-wizards-vs-aliens/2/</ref> In the commentary for ''[[Last of the Time Lords (TV story)|Last of the Time Lords]],'' Davies jokingly termed the hand seen removing [[the Master's ring]] from the ashes of his funeral pyre "the hand of the Rani". He would later write it being the hand of a human [[Disciples of Saxon|Disciple of Saxon]] in ''[[The End of Time (TV story)|The End of Time]]''. In a email reprinted to [[Benjamin Cook]] reprinted in ''[[Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter]]'', Davies choosing to deliberately leave the identity of [[The Woman (The End of Time)|the Woman]] (in the same story, ''The End of Time'') ambiguous, anticipated that [[fan]]s might believe her to be, amongst other possibilities, "even the Rani", "but of course it's meant to be [[the Doctor's mother]]".


She used the artificial brain to find the answer as to how to create a lightweight substitute for strange matter. When it was devised she sent a missile containing the substance aimed at a strange matter asteroid. However, the Doctor destroyed the brain and redirected the missile. Urak betrayed her, leading the Tertraps against her, and they placed her under house arrest in her TARDIS on Tetrapyriarbus. The Rani was 953 years old when these events took place. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')
In August 2012, Davies' successor [[Steven Moffat]] stated that "he had no reason to bring back the Rani",<ref>http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a401680/doctor-who-steven-moffat-rules-out-return-for-villain-the-rani.html</ref> thus putting an end to the rumours of her return to the television series.<ref>http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/19959/dr-who-gillian-anderson-is-the-rani</ref>


After these events occurred, the Tetraps faced a food shortage crisis, while Urak managed to have the Rani put on trial, with the death sentence. She would have to solve the food shortage, otherwise her sentence would commence. Two human and two alien prisoners were to be test subjects for the Rani's experiments in an attempt at solving the crisis. The Rani, however, teamed up with the four "guinea pigs" and managed to escape the planet. Each then went their separate ways, with the Rani swearing to teach Urak a lesson and retrieve her TARDIS from him. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (audio story)|The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]'')
===Other matters===
''[[Me & My Ghost (audio story)|Me & My Ghost]]'', a [[2021 (releases)|2021]] ''[[Dionus's War (audio series)|Dionus's War]]'' audio play written and produced by [[Bill Baggs]], featured a character called "[[Nari]]", who was an alternative personality crafted for herself by an infamous [[Renegade Time Lord|renegade]] of the [[Great House]]s to evade the authorities of her people. She was noted as a talented chemist, and it was suggested that the name "Nari" was somehow a play on her usual appellation. The clear implication was thus that Nari's true self was "the Rani". However, this was not made explicit due to [[BBV Productions]] no longer having the rights to the character of the Rani by that point, aside from further exploitation of their original licensed ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (audio story)|The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]'' spin-off story.


=== A new incarnation ===
In an episode of the [[The Big Finish Podcast|Big Finish Podcast]] on [[19 December]] [[2021 (releases)|2021]], a listener asked [[Nicholas Briggs]] and [[Benji Clifford|Benji]] when would the Rani return in a [[Last Great Time War|Time War]] [[Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories|series]]. Nicholas Briggs responded that it would be difficult since both [[Pip and Jane Baker]] had passed away, and a possible complication with getting in touch with the estate.
[[File:Rani Redmond.jpg|thumb|right|A new Rani. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite]]'')]]
The Rani later regenerated.  In her new incarnation she once again encountered the [[Sixth Doctor]] and [[Peri Brown]], although she had expected his seventh incarnation. She masqueraded as Professor Baxton at the [[College of Advanced Galactic Education]] a foremost authority of Moral Philosophy. The Doctor questioned her about her theories in one of her lectures. She tested the students and used the tests to find suitability for her experiments, some of the students she experimented on were [[Lizzo]] and [[Reev]] and tried to experiment on [[Miklev]]. The students were experts in their fields. She was making a biodigital interface controller. She was using a Sidelian Brain Scanner in her techniques, which was moving memories from one brain to another. The Rani then used Peri in her experiments, due to Miklev was concussed. She also killed her accomplice, the [[Vice Chancellor]]. The real Professor Baxton was used as the overseer of the network of the students' brains. She was using the students' minds in order to calculate the minor events she would need, in order to create the massive events she wanted, in effect reverse engineering chaos theory. She hated the Doctor calling her Ushas and reminiscing about [[The Deca]]. When the Doctor tricked her she fell down through the floor on the way to her TARDIS, she gloated in her part in the Doctor's next regeneration. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite]]'')


This Rani wore her hair in shoulder-length red curls, and spoke with a [[Scotland|Scottish]] accent. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite]]'')
==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}
<references />
{{Rani stories}}
{{The Master's assistants}}
{{TitleSort}}


=== Possible fate ===
[[ro:The Rani]]
[[Father Kreiner]] killed the Rani and the clone of [[the Master]] and kept their heads as trophies during the events of the [[Second War in Heaven]]. ([[PROSE]]:'' [[Interference - Book One (novel)|Interference - Book One]]'') However, many aspects of the War took place in another timeline due to the [[Eighth Doctor|Eighth Doctor's]] intervention, therefore leaving the ultimate fate of the Rani unknown. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Ancestor Cell (novel)|The Ancestor Cell]]'')
[[ru:Рани]]
 
[[Category:Aliases]]
== Alternative timeline ==
In a [[alternative timeline]], the Rani cooperated alongside [[the Master]], [[the Monk]] and [[Drax]] to try to destroy the world using a DNA recombinator, turning the human race into a gestalt consciousness that could be used as a weapon to conquer the universe. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Quantum Archangel (novel)|The Quantum Archangel]]'')
 
== Personality ==
The Rani was an evil (or, arguably, simply amoral) scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was known to enslave entire worlds in order to have a ready supply of experimental subjects and a place to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. Her major interest was in altering the biochemistry of other species.
 
While she did appear evil, she found the Master to be truly evil and therefore stupid. She also said that his plans were so overcomplicated that if he walked in a straight line he would get dizzy. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'') She simply did evil things because she felt it was necessary to her work. When the [[Sixth Doctor]] tried to convince her not to experiment on [[human]]s, she called them carnivores and asked if they ever thought of the lesser species when they sunk their teeth into pork chops. This shows that the Rani may have had a conscience of some kind, also shown when she was willing to destroy her test subjects because they would have killed the Doctor. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'')
 
== Behind the scenes ==
* [[Kate O'Mara]] portrayed the Rani in all of her television appearances.
* In August 2012, [[Steven Moffat]] stated that "he had no reason to bring back the Rani",<ref>http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a401680/doctor-who-steven-moffat-rules-out-return-for-villain-the-rani.html</ref> thus putting an end to the rumors of her return to the television, to the disappointment of fans world wide. series.<ref>http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/19959/dr-who-gillian-anderson-is-the-rani</ref>
*[[Russell T Davies]] has said that if he had brought back the Rani, he would have cast actress {{w|Ruthie Henshall}} in the role.<ref>http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/10/28/russell-t-davies-talks-wizards-vs-aliens/2/</ref>
* Plans were underway to bring back Kate O'Mara as the Rani for new [[Big Finish Productions]] audios, but O'Mara passed away a few weeks before recording.  Upon being assured by O'Mara's agent that she'd wished them to continue the project without her, Big Finish cast [[Siobhan Redmond]] as a new incarnation of the Rani.<ref>http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/the-new-rani</ref>
* Redmond had never seen ''Doctor Who'' prior to being cast as the Rani, though she familiarised herself with O'Mara's work in the role.  Before her in-character photoshoot as the new Rani, she curled her hair as a small homage to O'Mara.<ref name="vortex70">[[Vortex (magazine)|''Vortex'' issue 70]]</ref>
* Redmond's portrayal of the Rani with her own Scottish accent, closely following as it did the premieres of the first Scottish-accented {{Gomez|n=Master}} and the [[Twelfth Doctor]] on televised ''[[Doctor Who]],'' led [[Vortex (magazine)|''Vortex'']] to comment "Scottish Time Lords are like buses.  You wait ages for one to appear, and then suddenly you get three at once!" <ref name="vortex70" />
 
== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist}}
 
{{Time Lords}}
{{TitleSort}}
[[Category:Articles that were originally Wikipedia forks]]
[[Category:Articles that were originally Wikipedia forks]]
[[Category:College of Advanced Galactic Education]]
[[Category:The Deca]]
[[Category:Homeworlders in the War in Heaven]]
[[Category:Imposters]]
[[Category:Murderers]]
[[Category:Patrexes]]
[[Category:Prydonians]]
[[Category:Renegade Time Lords]]
[[Category:Residents of Gallifrey]]
[[Category:Residents of Gallifrey]]
[[Category:Individual Time Lords]]
[[Category:Students at the Time Lord Academy]]
[[Category:Renegade Time Lords]]
[[Category:Time Lord scientists]]
[[Category:Prydonians]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have been inside the Doctor's TARDIS]]
[[Category:Scientists]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have witnessed regeneration]]
[[Category:Murderers]]
[[Category:Tremas Master's assistants]]
[[Category:Tyrants]]
[[Category:Imposters]]
[[Category:Individual time travellers]]
[[Category:Aliases]]
[[Category:The Deca]]

Latest revision as of 23:22, 2 August 2024

The Rani
Gallery
Appearances


Ushas, better known as the Rani and known more formally as Ushas of Miasimia Goria, or, in other accounts, as simply Rani, was a renegade Time Lady and member of the Deca. A brilliant but cold neurochemist, she knew the Doctor and the Master when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Information from The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind

The Rani's incarnations[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani was, regardless of incarnation, a brilliant scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was highly intelligent but extremely arrogant, narcissistic, ruthless, powerful and intensely cruel.

The First Rani was a cruel woman whose evil deeds and notoriety had made her the second most wanted criminal in the galaxy, after the Master. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men) Much like the Doctor, she had a considerable presence. This presence, however, rested not in a fondness for the planet but as a focal point for her research projects. (TV: The Mark of the Rani, Time and the Rani)

Just as amoral as her previous incarnation, the Second Rani always believed that the end always justified the means. Not above making jokes at the expense of others, she held a great disdain and disinterest in the Doctor's antics. Unlike her previous incarnation, she had a certain level of anxiety in breaking the Laws of Time. (AUDIO: The Rani Elite)

Following the end of the Last Great Time War, the Ninth Doctor believed all the Time Lords bar himself to be dead, (TV: Dalek) and so did not expect to see the Rani again, (AUDIO: Flatpack) though the Tenth Doctor would encounter the First Rani. (COMIC: Untitled) Nevertheless, the Eleventh Doctor believed that the Rani was "dead", at least according to River Song. (AUDIO: The Bekdel Test)

The Time Lords' TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual, which was aware of Missy and the Thirteenth Doctor, refered to the Rani in the present tense. (PROSE: TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual [+]Loading...["TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual (reference book)"])

Following the Time Lord genocide, the Fifteenth Doctor used the Rani as an example when explaining Time Lord Names to Ruby Sunday. (TV: Space Babies [+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"])

Undated events[[edit] | [edit source]]

In the War in Heaven, the Lord President reintegrated several barely-reformed renegades into Gallifreyan society. One former renegade Time Lady, who was known for her engineered creatures, became a tutor to newly-loomed soldiers. Holsred remembered a lecture in which she connected an artron energy generator to a white rat's brain and then let the rat use the energy to kill a hungry Gallifreyan cat. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Father Kreiner had the heads of the Rani and the Master as trophies; however, at least one of them was a clone created in the High Council's hatchling projects. (PROSE: Interference)

According to the Seventh Doctor, the Rani was "up to her old tricks" during his last adventure with Ace. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Return to television[[edit] | [edit source]]

Following her last live-action appearance in the controversial TV special, Dimensions in Time, the possibility of the return of the Rani in the post-2005 revival of Doctor Who has become a subject of widespread fan speculation, as the preeminent renegade Time Lord antagonist in the "classic" series aside from the Master, who made his return in Series 3. The matter was discussed or joked about on several occasions by the showrunner.

Russell T. Davies once stated that if he had brought back the Rani, he would have cast actress Ruthie Henshall in the role.[1] In the commentary for Last of the Time Lords, Davies jokingly termed the hand seen removing the Master's ring from the ashes of his funeral pyre "the hand of the Rani". He would later write it being the hand of a human Disciple of Saxon in The End of Time. In a email reprinted to Benjamin Cook reprinted in Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter, Davies choosing to deliberately leave the identity of the Woman (in the same story, The End of Time) ambiguous, anticipated that fans might believe her to be, amongst other possibilities, "even the Rani", "but of course it's meant to be the Doctor's mother".

In August 2012, Davies' successor Steven Moffat stated that "he had no reason to bring back the Rani",[2] thus putting an end to the rumours of her return to the television series.[3]

Other matters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Me & My Ghost, a 2021 Dionus's War audio play written and produced by Bill Baggs, featured a character called "Nari", who was an alternative personality crafted for herself by an infamous renegade of the Great Houses to evade the authorities of her people. She was noted as a talented chemist, and it was suggested that the name "Nari" was somehow a play on her usual appellation. The clear implication was thus that Nari's true self was "the Rani". However, this was not made explicit due to BBV Productions no longer having the rights to the character of the Rani by that point, aside from further exploitation of their original licensed The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind spin-off story.

In an episode of the Big Finish Podcast on 19 December 2021, a listener asked Nicholas Briggs and Benji when would the Rani return in a Time War series. Nicholas Briggs responded that it would be difficult since both Pip and Jane Baker had passed away, and a possible complication with getting in touch with the estate.

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/10/28/russell-t-davies-talks-wizards-vs-aliens/2/
  2. ↑ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a401680/doctor-who-steven-moffat-rules-out-return-for-villain-the-rani.html
  3. ↑ http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/19959/dr-who-gillian-anderson-is-the-rani
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