Time and the Rani (TV story)

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Time and the Rani was the first story in season twenty-four of Doctor Who. It marked the debut of Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor (McCoy also, briefly, portrayed the Sixth Doctor for the regeneration sequence). An all-computer animated opening titles sequence was introduced with this story. Kate O'Mara makes her second and final televised appearance to date, (not including the non-canonical Dimensions in Time) as the Rani.

Synopsis

The Rani kidnaps the recently regenerated and unstable Doctor along with various other scientific geniuses on the remote planet Lakertya, harnessing their intellects to control an approaching asteroid composed entirely of Strange Matter.

Plot

The Doctor regenerates into his seventh incarnation

On planet Lakertya, the Rani blasts the passing TARDIS with a tractor beam. The resulting turbulence knocks the Doctor and Mel unconscious, and induces the Doctor to regenerate.

The Rani, with her four-eyed servants the Tetraps, has forced the Lakertyans into helping kidnap an array of genius scientists, including Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, and Hypatia, and also requires the Doctor. Beforehand, however, she injects him with an amnesia-inducing drug, disguises herself as Mel, and convinces him to repair some broken machinery in 'his' lab. Beyond the lab is a closed-off chamber.

Mel, meanwhile, has been left behind in the TARDIS. She encounters, and eventually wins the trust of the young hot-headed Lakertyan Ikona, eager to dispatch the evil Rani and liberate his people.

Once the Doctor regains his memory and reunites with Mel, he discovers the Rani's plan. In the inner chamber they find an enormous brain that channels the kidnapped scientists' mental ability into a single gestalt mind. An asteroid composed entirely of strange matter, a very rare and superheavy material, is passing, and the Rani has constructed a fixed-trajectory rocket to collide with it at the approaching solstice. The only known substance that can destroy Strange Matter is Strange Matter itself, so she is using the brain to discover a lightweight substitute.

The Rani captures the Doctor and feeds his intellect into the brain, but to her extreme annoyance the brain starts spouting bad puns and nonsense. Once disconnected, the Doctor inadvertently provides the brain with the means to determine the needed substance: Loyhargil.

Upon impact, the Strange Matter would form a shell of chronons around Lakertya, causing the brain to expand to fill the entire surface of the planet, converting it into a time manipulator. With this, the Rani can change the course of history and control the randomness of evolution throughout the universe.

The Lakertyan leader Beyus sacrifices his life to destroy the brain and delay the launch long enough for the rocket to miss the asteroid. The Rani escapes in her TARDIS, but finds it overrun with Tetraps who 'invite' the Rani to accompany them to her homeworld.

On Lakertya the Doctor and Mel make their goodbyes with the people they had befriended and helped liberate from the Rani. Before going in to the TARDIS, Mel tells the Doctor that his new self is going to take some getting used to, to which he replies, "I'll grow on you, Mel, I'll grow on you."

Cast

Crew

References

Human scientists

Humanoid species

Time Lords

Story notes

  • Loyhargil is an anagram of 'holy grail'.
  • The working title for this story was Strange Matter.
  • This is the first story to feature computer generated images (CGI) for the titles and many of the effects (including the TARDIS's flight through space in the pre-title sequence).
  • The story's 'problems' can be partly explained as Pip and Jane Baker (the writers) in that they had no idea who would be playing the new Doctor or how he would be characterised - and, at least when they started work on the project, the series had no script editor for them to discuss things with.
  • Colin Baker refused to participate in the filming of the regeneration sequence. As a result, Sylvester McCoy donned a wig and the Sixth Doctor's costume and briefly appeared as the Sixth Doctor, making him the only Doctor actor to play two different incarnations. McCoy also spends much of the early part of the story clad in the Sixth Doctor's outfit.
  • io9.com ranked the Sixth Doctor's death as the second weakest death in science fiction history.[1]
  • Sylvester McCoy protested about wearing the question mark jumper.
  • During the regeneration, the exercise bike the Sixth Doctor rides in Terror of the Vervoids is visible in the TARDIS control room. In Issue 409 of Doctor Who Magazine, in an article on regeneration, the writer suggests that the Sixth Doctor's "mortal" injury may have been caused by him falling off the bike.
  • While trying on clothes, the Seventh Doctor briefly wears the outfits of his fourth, third, and fifth incarnations, and also the fur coat of his second incarnation.
  • The Doctor refers to his new regeneration as his 'seventh persona'. This would seem to settle the question of the Doctor having other regenerations before the First Doctor. In The Brain of Morbius there had been strong suggestions that there were previous Doctors.
  • This story gives no on-screen explanation for how The Rani survived being attacked by the dinosaur at the end of Mark of the Rani. However, in the novelisation, she stated that it had broken its neck on the ceiling of her TARDIS.
  • This is the first time the Doctor is seen regenerating at the beginning of a serial, as opposed to its end (barring recap footage, of course).
  • This would be the last time a TARDIS other than the Doctor's was shown on-screen until The Doctor's Wife.

Ratings

  • Part 1 - 5.1 million viewers
  • Part 2 - 4.2 million viewers
  • Part 3 - 4.3 million viewers
  • Part 4 - 4.9 million viewers

Myths

  • Colin Baker refused to film a regeneration sequence. That's sort of half true, in an extra found on the Trial of a Time Lord DVD box set, Colin Baker said that when he was asked to film a regeneraton sequence, he agreed as long as he was allowed to do a full third season playing The Doctor. They refused, so Colin refused

Filming locations

  • Cloford Quarry, Cloford, Frome, Somerset (Exterior of Rani's base)
  • Westdown Quarry, Chantry, Frome, Somerset (Location where the TARDIS lands)
  • Whatley Quarry, Whatley, Frome, Somerset
  • BBC Television Centre (TC1 & TC8), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • Sylvester McCoy pronounces "Princeton University" as "Prince Town" without narrative cause. Since "Princeton" has more or less standard pronunciation across all English dialects — even Scottish ones — this is simply a fluff on McCoy's part.
  • The overhead microphone is visible in part one after the Rani introduces herself as Mel. The boom operator seems to have trouble following the Doctor's erratic movements.

Continuity

File:953.png
The Doctor inputs his age as an entry code.

Timeline

Home video and audio releases

DVD releases

  • This story was first released on DVD in Region 2 on 13th September 2010. Region 4 release came out 4th November 2010 and Region 1 on 14th June 2011. The one disc set includes a restored version of the story, as well as the following special features:
  • Commentary by Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), and Pip & Jane Baker (Writers).
  • The Last Chance Saloon - includes McCoy's audition footage for the Doctor, with an appearance by Janet Fielding
  • 7D FX
  • Helter-Skelter
  • Lakertya
  • Hot Gossip
  • Blue Peter
  • Breakfast Time
  • Coming Soon Trailer
  • Radio Times Billings
  • File:Baker to McCoy2.jpg
    The CGI version of the Regeneration, with Colin Baker added in. Avaliable on the Time and The Rani DVD as an Easter Egg.
    Production Subtitles
  • Photo Gallery
  • Easter Egg: CGI Regeneration sequence, with Colin Baker added.
  • Easter Egg: Eye-Sore
  • Easter Egg: The Name'sh McCoy, Shylveshter McCoy

VHS releases

Released on VHS as per follows:

Region 2: July 1995
Region 1: September 1995
Region 4: October 1995

Novelisation and its audiobook

Time and the Rani novel.jpg
Main article: Time and the Rani (novelisation)

See also

to be added

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ io9 12 Weakest Deaths In Science Fiction History

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For the purposes of this list, a "regeneration story" is one in which a regeneration is actually and initially depicted. For this reason The War Games is not included below, even though it is commonly thought of as a "regeneration story". It doesn't actually include a clear scene of regeneration, and the preponderance of stories in other media confirms that the Second Doctor did not regenerate at the end of it.
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