Note: This review is mostly commenting on behind the scenes trivia and production details, not plot details or synopses.
This story is one of four to feature a pre title sequence (in this story it is the Doctor's regeneration) the others being Peter Davison's debut story 'Castrovalva' in 1982, the 20th Anniversary story 'The Five Doctors' and the Season 25 opener 'Remembrance of the Daleks' broadcast a year after this. This story like 'The Mark of the Rani' has the benefit of some good location work at three quarries in Frome, Somerset and some exciting direction from former Blake's 7 director Andrew Morgan (his first story for the series, his last would be the following season's 'Remembrance of the Daleks'). The Lakertyan make-up is very effective, as is the design of the Rani's bat like slaves the Tetraps and some excellent special and video effects (achieved by Colin Mapson, Mike Tucker and Dave Chapman) make the episode rather stylish for Doctor Who standards, marking the first time the series used CGI (Computer Generated Imagery).
Kate O’Mara is on top form here, clearly relishing the opportunity to have a story to herself and be the Doctor's only enemy for this story. This story also marks the debut of a new title sequence and theme tune for the new Doctor, the latter being arranged by Keff McCulloch who also provides some sparky incidental music which helps what is otherwise a rather ridiculous regeneration sequence, the reasons for the Doctor's regeneration being somewhat confused, compounded by Colin Baker not being present for the changeover, forcing McCoy to wear his ill fitting costume and a curly blond wig! Less than 15 minutes in Sylvester McCoy plays the spoons, a talent the actor had that had been recognised by producer John Nathan-Turner who wanted it included in this story and also highlighting his initially comedic portrayal of the role which would get much darker as his tenure progressed.
Much of this story requires The Rani to pretend to be the Doctor's companion Mel (as played by Bonnie Langford) which is totally ridiculous but O’Mara’s engaging performance makes it bearable and actually very well observed and funny. The line “You don’t understand Regeneration Mel, it’s a lottery and I’ve drawn a short plank’ sums up the difficult regeneration the Doctor has in this story, hence his initial confusion to who Mel is and who the Rani is! McCoy picking his new costume in the TARDIS is not unlike Tom Baker’s opening story ‘Robot’ and he notably tries on both Tom Baker's final costume (designed by June Hudson for Season 18) and Peter Davison's Doctor costume. The cliffhanger to Part One is very effective with a real sense of peril, the Rani’s traps wonderfully realised on screen, much better than they had been in ‘The Mark of the Rani’. The gun carried by the Ikona complete with glitter effect is a bit silly however! Mel as a companion is better than everyone says but her screaming is a very annoying in this story, she seems to have digressed from her character development in 'The Trial of a Timelord' stories 'Terror of the Vervoids' and 'The Ultimate Foe' where she is gutsy in the face of the Doctor's adversaries. The lighting in this story is a mixture of overlit and soft but it works well in this rather flamboyant production. Aside from my misgivings about Langford's performance in this story, the background of Mel as a computer expert is nicely used in ‘Time and the Rani’ unlike any other story, she has worth and the Rani recognises it!
The Rani is deliciously evil, her costume in particular is better here than in the previous story in which she featured. Costume Designer Ken Trew (who died on January 11th this year) worked on this story, and he has the notable distinction of designing the Master's first costume in the series, for the 1971 story 'Terror of the Autons' the character then being played by Roger Delgado, and the final costume for 1989's 'Survival' the role then being helmed by Anthony Ainley. This blog post is also dedicated to him and the wonderful work he did for the series. A bit of trivia worth noting is that the title sequence is different in Part 4 when darker version of Sylvester McCoy’s winking face was used by mistake. This had originally been a test sequence of the titles that were dropped by producer John Nathan-Turner who feared that they were not distinctive enough, meaning that the image of McCoy's face was brightened for the final version. This mistake was corrected for the video release of this story in 1995, but the Restoration Team (thankfully) have restored this error for the DVD version remaining true to the original version.
Whilst it is true that the production fails in some respects (notably director Andrew Morgan was very unhappy with it) overall 'Time of the Rani' is an unfairly maligned story that overcomes many of its initial challenges from a time when the Beeb well and truly wanted Doctor Who dead (it is important to note that this series was thrown together in about half the time as would of been the norm). 'Time and the Rani' is great fun and a nice break from the overbearing, overlong elements of the previous story ‘The Trial of a Timelord’ and its main highlight is Kate O'Mara's superb performance as the Rani, only second to the Master as a classic foe of the Doctor's. Again the 2010 DVD release is superb, the picture clarity is excellent and there are a hoard of special features and a commentary from Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford and writers Pip & Jane Baker with Kate O'Mara featuring in three of the special features 'The Last Chance Saloon' a documentary focussing on the shows troubled times during the making of the story, a small feature called 'Hot Gossip' in which O'Mara discusses her long term friendship with co-stars Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering who feature in 'Time and the Rani' and the onset shenanigans that occurred on set and a 1987 Somerset news feature looking at the filming of the story on location.
Sadly, although O'Mara was keen to reprise the role of the Rani in an episode of the grossly overrated new series she never had the chance before her untimely death. Her personal life was sadly full of tragedy and the death of her son less than two years ago cannot of helped her own fragile health (she had been poorly since 2012) and it is perhaps unfortunate that this supremely talented film, television and theatre actress is most remembered for her short lived starring role in 'Dynasty' and the BBC's lamentable 'Triangle' series. She was much loved by her colleagues for being a warm, gregarious and funny person who was devoted first and fore-mostly to the theatre and of course to her legions of fans. The hundreds of tributes to O'Mara from people in the industry is a testament to that. Her output was so prolific that I look forward to coming across more performances from O'Mara as I look through my vintage film and television collection and add to it! A wonderful character actress, performer and by all accounts person, O'Mara will be sorely missed and I regret the fact that of the many actors I have met O'Mara was not one of them. This blog post is dedicated to her.
NOTE: All production stills and photographs used in this review are copyrighted to the BBC and 2Entertain. The next review will be on the much loved ATV series 'Timeslip'.
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| Colin Baker as the Doctor with Anthony Ainley as the Master and Kate O'Mara as the Rani |
THE MARK OF THE RANI
This story has two 45 minute episodes, as was the format for this experimental season breaking away from the shows original 25 minute episode format that had been the norm since the show first aired on 23rd November 1963. This story follows 'Vengeance on Varos' a classic of the Colin Baker era and is part of his first full season as the Doctor. His companion Peri (played by Nicola Bryant) had been with the series since 'Planet of Fire' the penultimate Peter Davison story aired the year before. The story has a wonderful
start, developing the Victorian setting (filmed primarily at Blists Hill Victorian Park in Madeley, Shropshire) with some excellent accompanying music from Jonathan Gibbs.
John Lewis (friend of ex Radiophonic Workshop musician and the originator of the TARDIS sound Brian Hodgson) was originally hired to score this story but he sadly died of AIDS after completing a score for Part One. His work was ultimately dropped in favour of the continuity of having Jonathan Gibbs write a score for both episodes. The location work orchestrated by director Sarah Hellings is overall very impressive. A newcomer who would later direct episodes of 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes' (previously reviewed on this blog) amongst other celebrated series for Granada she had previously filmed at the location for an outside broadcast feature on 'Blue Peter' as confirmed in the DVD extras. She directs the story with considerable flair which sets it apart from some of the more banal direction of this season of Who (the 22nd season). The Doctor
and Peri’s cantankerous relationship is beginning to soften at this point of the series which is a relief, but there a still a few
unnecessary moments of argument between them!
The Mark of the Rani demonstrates a consistent certainty with many BBC productions, namely give the Beeb a period
drama and they will nail it! Aside from the fact that the
Master’s tissue compression eliminator looks like a black dildo and that this was
probably Anthony Ainley’s least favourite Master story, his rapport with Kate
O’Mara as the Rani and the balance of contempt but also respect they have for
each other is both entertaining and effective. The Master fears the scheming
nature of the Rani and this caution and frailty is interesting when we consider
the Master’s previous portrayals. As Pip & Jane Baker explain in the excellent accompanying documentary 'Lords and Luddites' the Master and the Rani are distinctly different, as the former is immoral and the latter amoral. At this stage of the series Anthony Ainley had been starring as the Master for four years and would return to the series in the following season and then again for the final broadcast classic Doctor Who story 'Survival' in 1989. This is the Rani's debut story and Kate O'Mara's first appearance both in the series and as this character. She had originally been asked to appear as Miss Dawson in the early Jon Pertwee story 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' but she was unavailable and the role ultimately went to Thomasine Heiner. Her role as the Rani is fondly remembered in what would become Doctor Who's most troubled period. During the transmission of the following story 'The Two Doctors' featuring the return of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor it was announced that the series was to be 'rested' for 18 months. The official reason for this was that the BBC needed more money for new programming, such as a soap opera called 'Eastenders'. I wonder happened to that? Of course, as is well known by the Doctor Who fan base the new BBC One Controller Michael Grade and new Head of Serials Jonathan Powell had no liking for the programme, despite its success. They had originally planned to axe the programme, but due to public outcry this was changed to a mere hiatus.
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| Colin Baker as the Doctor with Peri as played by Nicola Bryant |
Getting back to the story, one of my problems with it is the cliffhanger to Part One and reprise in Part Two. This is the only example in the shows history of what I will term a 'cheat cliffhanger' in that what we see at the end of Part One differs from what happens in the reprise. However I can forgive this in part due to the excellent visuals achieved from a
mixture of tracking shots, close ups and and minicam work from Hellings. The dialogue and the story by Pip
& Jane Baker is not bad at all and of the three stories they wrote ('Terror of the Vervoids', 'Time and the Rani' and also 'The Ultimate Foe Part 2') it's probably the
strongest. One criticism of their writing though would be the limited part they write for Peri, the Doctor seemingly spends a lot of
time telling Peri to go away and keep out of danger. From a design point of view the Rani’s Tardis (although overlit, like most of the studio sets) is
really quite good. The Tyrannosaurus Rex embryo’s aren't too bad in long shot
but the full ‘growing’ version looks rubbery and lifeless and lets down the
production a tad towards the end as do the slightly wobbly fake
trees, the by-product of one of the Rani's traps at Redfern Dell.
In regards to the 2006 DVD release the special features represent a time when the Restoration Team and 2 Entertain were
at their peak (unlike the last few releases which were transparently affected by a considerable budget cut), a full 45 minute documentary called Lords and Luddites, a Now
and Then location film, deleted scenes, a look into the music produced for the
story, a chance to hear John Lewis’s score for the first episode and Saturday
Superstore and the Blue Peter feature Sarah Hellings directed in the late 1970's which influenced her location choices for this story. As with all of the Who DVD releases a commentary (featuring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Kate O'Mara) is included.
TIME AND THE RANI
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| At the 2006 commentary track recording for the story. From left to right Nicola Bryant, Colin Baker and Kate O'Mara |
TIME AND THE RANI
This story is the first to feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and the last featuring Kate O'Mara as the Rani. Colin Baker had been dismissed by Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell from the role of the Doctor following the 14 part story 'The Trial of a Timelord' broadcast from September - December 1986. The programme's schedule was also changed as it was put up against Coronation Street on Tuesday evenings (in another blatant attempt to kill the show). It would continue however for another two years with McCoy at the helm.
This story is one of four to feature a pre title sequence (in this story it is the Doctor's regeneration) the others being Peter Davison's debut story 'Castrovalva' in 1982, the 20th Anniversary story 'The Five Doctors' and the Season 25 opener 'Remembrance of the Daleks' broadcast a year after this. This story like 'The Mark of the Rani' has the benefit of some good location work at three quarries in Frome, Somerset and some exciting direction from former Blake's 7 director Andrew Morgan (his first story for the series, his last would be the following season's 'Remembrance of the Daleks'). The Lakertyan make-up is very effective, as is the design of the Rani's bat like slaves the Tetraps and some excellent special and video effects (achieved by Colin Mapson, Mike Tucker and Dave Chapman) make the episode rather stylish for Doctor Who standards, marking the first time the series used CGI (Computer Generated Imagery).
 |
| The Rani (Kate O'Mara) with a Tetrap |
Kate O’Mara is on top form here, clearly relishing the opportunity to have a story to herself and be the Doctor's only enemy for this story. This story also marks the debut of a new title sequence and theme tune for the new Doctor, the latter being arranged by Keff McCulloch who also provides some sparky incidental music which helps what is otherwise a rather ridiculous regeneration sequence, the reasons for the Doctor's regeneration being somewhat confused, compounded by Colin Baker not being present for the changeover, forcing McCoy to wear his ill fitting costume and a curly blond wig! Less than 15 minutes in Sylvester McCoy plays the spoons, a talent the actor had that had been recognised by producer John Nathan-Turner who wanted it included in this story and also highlighting his initially comedic portrayal of the role which would get much darker as his tenure progressed.
 |
| Kate O'Mara doing her Mel impression with Bonnie Langford as Mel and Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor |
Much of this story requires The Rani to pretend to be the Doctor's companion Mel (as played by Bonnie Langford) which is totally ridiculous but O’Mara’s engaging performance makes it bearable and actually very well observed and funny. The line “You don’t understand Regeneration Mel, it’s a lottery and I’ve drawn a short plank’ sums up the difficult regeneration the Doctor has in this story, hence his initial confusion to who Mel is and who the Rani is! McCoy picking his new costume in the TARDIS is not unlike Tom Baker’s opening story ‘Robot’ and he notably tries on both Tom Baker's final costume (designed by June Hudson for Season 18) and Peter Davison's Doctor costume. The cliffhanger to Part One is very effective with a real sense of peril, the Rani’s traps wonderfully realised on screen, much better than they had been in ‘The Mark of the Rani’. The gun carried by the Ikona complete with glitter effect is a bit silly however! Mel as a companion is better than everyone says but her screaming is a very annoying in this story, she seems to have digressed from her character development in 'The Trial of a Timelord' stories 'Terror of the Vervoids' and 'The Ultimate Foe' where she is gutsy in the face of the Doctor's adversaries. The lighting in this story is a mixture of overlit and soft but it works well in this rather flamboyant production. Aside from my misgivings about Langford's performance in this story, the background of Mel as a computer expert is nicely used in ‘Time and the Rani’ unlike any other story, she has worth and the Rani recognises it!
The Rani is deliciously evil, her costume in particular is better here than in the previous story in which she featured. Costume Designer Ken Trew (who died on January 11th this year) worked on this story, and he has the notable distinction of designing the Master's first costume in the series, for the 1971 story 'Terror of the Autons' the character then being played by Roger Delgado, and the final costume for 1989's 'Survival' the role then being helmed by Anthony Ainley. This blog post is also dedicated to him and the wonderful work he did for the series. A bit of trivia worth noting is that the title sequence is different in Part 4 when darker version of Sylvester McCoy’s winking face was used by mistake. This had originally been a test sequence of the titles that were dropped by producer John Nathan-Turner who feared that they were not distinctive enough, meaning that the image of McCoy's face was brightened for the final version. This mistake was corrected for the video release of this story in 1995, but the Restoration Team (thankfully) have restored this error for the DVD version remaining true to the original version.
Whilst it is true that the production fails in some respects (notably director Andrew Morgan was very unhappy with it) overall 'Time of the Rani' is an unfairly maligned story that overcomes many of its initial challenges from a time when the Beeb well and truly wanted Doctor Who dead (it is important to note that this series was thrown together in about half the time as would of been the norm). 'Time and the Rani' is great fun and a nice break from the overbearing, overlong elements of the previous story ‘The Trial of a Timelord’ and its main highlight is Kate O'Mara's superb performance as the Rani, only second to the Master as a classic foe of the Doctor's. Again the 2010 DVD release is superb, the picture clarity is excellent and there are a hoard of special features and a commentary from Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford and writers Pip & Jane Baker with Kate O'Mara featuring in three of the special features 'The Last Chance Saloon' a documentary focussing on the shows troubled times during the making of the story, a small feature called 'Hot Gossip' in which O'Mara discusses her long term friendship with co-stars Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering who feature in 'Time and the Rani' and the onset shenanigans that occurred on set and a 1987 Somerset news feature looking at the filming of the story on location.
Sadly, although O'Mara was keen to reprise the role of the Rani in an episode of the grossly overrated new series she never had the chance before her untimely death. Her personal life was sadly full of tragedy and the death of her son less than two years ago cannot of helped her own fragile health (she had been poorly since 2012) and it is perhaps unfortunate that this supremely talented film, television and theatre actress is most remembered for her short lived starring role in 'Dynasty' and the BBC's lamentable 'Triangle' series. She was much loved by her colleagues for being a warm, gregarious and funny person who was devoted first and fore-mostly to the theatre and of course to her legions of fans. The hundreds of tributes to O'Mara from people in the industry is a testament to that. Her output was so prolific that I look forward to coming across more performances from O'Mara as I look through my vintage film and television collection and add to it! A wonderful character actress, performer and by all accounts person, O'Mara will be sorely missed and I regret the fact that of the many actors I have met O'Mara was not one of them. This blog post is dedicated to her.
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| Kate O'Mara in 2013 |
NOTE: All production stills and photographs used in this review are copyrighted to the BBC and 2Entertain. The next review will be on the much loved ATV series 'Timeslip'.
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