The Mark of the Rani

The Doctor won't look kindly on you interfering with his favorite planet.

The Mark of the Rani introduced Pip and Jane Baker as writers on Doctor Who. They have been looked down on by collective fan wisdom as the years have gone by and I don't think that's fully justified. I liked Terror of the Vervoids and I'm willing to give them a pass on The Ultimate Foe as they were taking over from Robert Holmes blind. I've not yet seen Tme and the Rani but even if it is as terrible as I am anticipating it to be, it was a slapdash rush job and I'm guessing blame will need to be spread everywhere, not just the writers. As for The Mark of the Rani, I rather enjoyed it.

Plot Summary

Three miners leave their shift in a small town in the early 19th century. They enter a bathhouse to clean up but are gassed upon entering. When they wake, they begin attacking any evidence of machinery, heading out of town as they do so.

The Doctor and Peri land outside the town with the Doctor detecting a time distortion from a time machine, suggesting either Time Lords or Daleks are in the area. He and Peri observe the three men attacking a cart with some machinery on it. The Doctor and Peri help drive the attackers off, noting a curious mark on one of the men. The cart driver gives them a lift in to town where he is delivering equipment to the engineer George Stephenson.

The Doctor and Peri are followed by the Master, who had been posing as a scarecrow out in the fields. The Doctor and Peri enter Stephenson's compound to wait for him, growing more concerned when they learn a meeting of the Industrial Revolution greats is going to take place in two days. The Master kills a dog and guard to allow access to the place. He then sends in the three miners who had been gassed earlier to attack the Doctor and Peri, who have left the office and are looking around for Mr. Stephenson.

The Doctor is rescued from being cast down the coal mine chute by Lord Ravensworth, owner of the mine. He takes the Doctor back to his office to determine who is he is. The Doctor convinces him that he is an interested scientist and here to help in the face of the violent Luddite attacks. The Doctor further inquires about the attacks and the men who have disappeared from the mine. Two of the women of the town arrive and mention that their men have disappeared as well. Peri wants to leave but the Doctor stays, knowing that there is something beyond just the Luddites.

The Master sneaks into the wash house where he observes two more miners being gassed and then taken into a secret room where they are hooked up to some equipment by the old woman running the house. The Master confronts her and she reveals herself as the Rani, a fellow Time Lord. He offers his services but the Rani dismisses him. He then kills one of her helpers and threatens to expose her unless she helps him with the Doctor.

The Rani is extracting a chemical from human brains and the violent, anti-technology reactions are side effects of her work, not the purpose. Again, she attempts to dismiss the Master, but he steals her collection of extracted chemicals and blackmails her into helping him.

The Master sneaks off to agitate a group of Luddites to attack the Doctor. The Rani has one of her brainwashed servants try to take him down but when the element of surprise is lost, she calls him off for fear of breaking the vial.

Using the information gleaned from the townsfolk, the Doctor heads to the bath house where he is captured along with two other miners. The Rani recognizes him and wakes him. Peri is also captured by the returning Master. The Doctor deduces what the Rani is doing and tricks the Master into thinking the Rani has double crossed him. He wheels the Doctor outside bound to a stretcher. Once the Doctor is outside, he kicks the Master's weapon away. Peri accidentally pushes him downhill where he is grabbed by the Luddites the Master had agitated earlier. They try to drop him down the mine shaft but he is rescued and the mob dispersed by George Stephenson.

Stephenson takes the Doctor and Peri back to his workshop. The Doctor urges him to cancel the meeting with other famous men but the messenger, Luke, is apprehended by the Master and hypnotized to thinking that he delivered it and to attack anyone who tries to stop the meeting. The Master shows the letter to the Rani and convinces her to help him, allowing her to exploit the planet openly as she desires. She agrees and the two leave to implement a plan.

The Doctor and Peri return to the bath house and after setting off a booby trap, they find the Rani's TARDIS. Whilst inside, the Rani activates a recall device. Peri leaves but the Doctor stays behind and hides in the TARDIS as the Rani and the Master enter and grab equipment they will use against him.

The Doctor reunites with Peri but split up again with the Doctor looking for George Stephenson and Peri going with Luke to find herbs to create a sleeping agent to help the men affected by the Rani's experiments. The Doctor finds Stephenson who was preparing to walk into a trap set by the Master via Luke.

The Doctor talks him out of going and goes himself, walking around the booby traps set by the Master and the Rani. He gets the drop on them and holds the Master's weapon against them. As he does so, Peri and Luke wander into the minefield set by the Rani. Luke step on a mine and is transformed into a tree. He retains enough sentience to stop Peri from also stepping on a mine. The Doctor forces the Rani to lead Peri out. She does but the approach of some Luddites forces them to split up. Peri takes the Master and the Rani back to the mines while the Doctor tries to stop the Luddites.

The Doctor is overpowered and tied to a pole. He is carried to the minefield where his two carriers are also transformed. The explosion frightens off the others. The Doctor slips his bonds and runs to the mine. There he finds Peri who was tricked and knocked out by the Rani. The Rani had tried to flee but the Master forced her to stay. He fires at the Doctor, destroying a support pillar and triggering a cave in. The Master and the Rani flee to her TARDIS while the Doctor and Peri flee to the exit.

The Rani takes off but the Doctor had sabotaged her TARDIS and she and the Master are sent out to the far reaches of the universe. The Doctor had also taken the brain fluid from the Master and he has Peri give it to Lord Ravensworth to give to the men. The Doctor had also asked George Stephenson to haul the TARDIS out of the mine and he finds it in Stephenson's lab. The Doctor and Peri then leave prior to the arrival of the other great minded men.

Analysis

I enjoyed this story and unquestionably the primary reason was the Rani. In many ways, she acted as a voice of the audience, criticizing the Master on his hare-brained schemes as well as dressing down the Doctor occasionally. Her interplay with the Master was entertaining and her deadpan actually helped undercut the Master's cheesy-ness which made him a slightly more credible villain. It was nice to see a villain with both real intelligence and pragmatism. She had no desire to do anything other than exploit what she needed from the humans. She ruled a planet and that was enough for her. It is only the Master's blackmail and his offer of unlimited access to Earth that convince her to aid him. She even calculates that retreat is the better option at the end and does not give in to the bravado the Master does in facing down the Doctor a second time.

The Doctor is enjoyable too, although it's hard to shake the feeling that he is playing second fiddle in this story. His banter with Peri is a bit less mean-spirited and you can see the beginnings of where they will end up in The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet with their much more playful jabs at each other. There are even fun little bits that come out as he is clearly giddy at meeting like scientific minds (a trait continued in the subsequent The Two Doctors) as well as propensity for bad puns. He also demonstrates a clear concern for the people exploited by the Rani, trying to help them, although not overly successfully.

Unfortunately, it is Peri that is hard to deal with here. Lord Ravensworth and George Stephenson act more the companion here, getting involved and working with the Doctor to solve the problem, though neither has a large amount of screen time. Peri spends all her time whining about they should leave and her tone in this whining is especially annoying. She comes across as especially dumb in her ignorance of Luke's fate, missing several similar mines due to dumb luck, and in how she is easily taken in and subdued by the Rani while guarding them in the mine shaft. Her positive contribution in this story is effectively zero as the one or two times she does something positive is easily cancelled out by her overwhelming hindrance.

Back on the plus side, the episode is filmed almost entirely on location and it looks good. There is a real grit to the town's appearance and it's nostalgically nice seeing that grainy film quality throughout rather than bouncing between it and video tape. It's also nice to see a full use of the surrounding area. In a studio shoot, the mine field in the forest would have probably looked very fake. Here though, there is an authenticity, even if they still stayed too tight in their focus of the area.

One thing that did bug me though was the unaddressed mine field. Mine fields were a big political issue in the 80's so I'm not surprised to see it used here. However, no mention is made of clearing it once the Doctor and Peri have delivered the brain fluid to Lord Ravensworth. In fact, the fact that Stephenson only just managed to retrieve the TARDIS makes it seem as though the Doctor and Peri have just come from the collapsed mine, leaving the Rani's mine field untouched to transform others wandering through. I don't need all loose threads resolved, but given the significant nature of this threat, a passing line about neutralizing the Rani's mines would have been a rather important thing. It's a small thing but that really bugs me.

Overall, I'd give this one a decent grade. It would be better if Peri weren't so annoying and there is a little too much running around without much point in the middle, but it still is probably the best of the Season 22 Sixth Doctor that I've seen. I wouldn't mind pulling it out to watch a second time, but I freely admit that it would be for the Rani rather than the Doctor.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5