Time and the Rani

Time and tide wait for the snowman.

Time and the Rani might be considered the worst Doctor Who story ever. To be fair to it though, it was slapped together extremely quickly with no time for script editing nor any budget. They also did not get Colin Baker back to do a regeneration scene, not surprising given how insultingly he was dismissed. Still, it does exist as it's own thing and must stand on it's own merit.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS is pursued by the Rani and forced to crash on the planet Lakertya. An explosion on the TARDIS causes him to regenerate as the Rani forces her way in and takes him prisoner, leaving Mel behind. The Doctor wakes later in the Rani's lab and tries to fight his way out but he is knocked out by her Tetrap servant. She then injects him with a chemical to inflict short term amnesia.

One of the locals, Ikona, captures Mel believing her to be allied with the Rani. He intends a hostage swap with the Rani for the Lakertyan leader Beyus, who is being forced to assist her. One of the other Lakertyans attempt to escape the Rani but is killed in a bubble trap. Mel prevents Ikona from falling into a similar trap and he realizes that she is telling the truth about not being allied with the Rani. The two of them make their way into a disused pipe to hide from the Rani's guards.

The Rani disguises herself as Mel and as the Doctor comes to, she convinces him that he was working on a machine in the lab and injured in the explosion which caused him to regenerate. Confused by the memory loss, he assumes it's part of the regeneration crisis and begins to work on the machine. But he is easily distracted and eventually realizes he is lacking the proper equipment. The Rani, losing patience with the Doctor's antics, suggests they head back to the TARDIS to gather the equipment.

As they walk back, the Doctor begins to regain his memory and is also becoming more suspicious of "Mel". Entering the TARDIS, he picks a new outfit and then begins to hunt for the needed equipment. On the monitor, they spy the real Mel trying to get back to the TARDIS, although the Rani tries to convince the Doctor that she is the Rani. As Mel approaches, she stumbles and is caught in a bubble trap. She floats away and lands on the edge of a lake, the bubble being slightly trapped so that it doesn't roll on the detonator. Ikona follows Mel and frees her from the trap.

The Doctor and the Rani return to the lab where the Doctor discovers a flaw in the machine. The Rani leaves to get a replacement part while he continues to work. Mel and Ikona run into Faroon, Beyus' wife. They tell her what happened to her and Beyus' daughter and Faroon is determined to tell Beyus in person. She walks into the Rani's fortress. Mel is determined to follow and Ikona creates a distraction for the Tetrap guard, allowing her to get in.

Mel meets the Doctor but he initially believes her to be the Rani while she is confused about his new appearance. They check each other's pulses to see if they are telling the truth and realize the deception. They meet with Beyus and Faroon, discovering that the Rani has captured some of Earth's greatest scientific minds and is holding them in suspended animation. She has also reserved a space for the Doctor.

Outside, the distracted Tetrap guard captures the Rani, believing her to be Mel. He frees her upon realizing his mistake and escorts her to her TARDIS where she retrieves the needed materials. She heads back and Mel and Faroon hide. The Doctor pretends as though he still thinks she's Mel, but the Rani quickly guesses that he has discerned the truth.

The Doctor flees and tries to hide in the Tetrap lair where he is quickly surrounded by the creatures. But Beyus activates the feeding system and releases the Doctor. He sends the Doctor out but also tells him to go to the leisure center of his people to understand why he obeys the Rani. He tries to stop the Doctor when the Doctor takes a piece of equipment from the Rani's machine but the Doctor knocks him down and escapes. He meets Ikona outside who saves him from an attacking Tetrap and takes him to the Lakertyan city.

Outside, Faroon returns to the city and Mel tries to get back to the TARDIS but is captured by the Tetraps. She is brought back to the Rani and held as a hostage until the Doctor returns the stolen piece of equipment.

Inside the leisure center, which Ikona is disdainful of, the Doctor discovers a sphere installed by the Rani. The Rani, learning of the Doctor's arrival and warning against helping him, opens a panel in the sphere releasing several deadly insects. They sting and kill two Lakertyans while the rest flee. Outside, a Tetrap offers the Rani's deal to the Doctor, which he accepts.

Mel arrives with the Tetrap and the exchange is made but Mel then disappears and the Doctor learns he has been tricked by a hologram. He decides to reinfiltrate the Rani's lab. Iknoa again distracts the guards but additional guards show up and the Doctor is captured. Mel is released from the prison and ordered to assist Beyus with the computers while the Doctor is brought in and installed in the cabinet earmarked for him.

Once installed, the Rani activates the machine and the various minds are directed into a giant brain in a sealed chamber. She is transferring their minds to it to aid her in developing a means to detonate a passing asteroid made of a material called "strange matter", which normally can only be detonated by interacting with itself. The resulting explosion would create a supernova and interact with the Lakertyan atmosphere, creating time particles. Lakertya would then be transformed into a giant time engine, allowing the Rani to manipulate large swaths of time for her own purposes.

The Rani dispatches the Tetraps who enter the Lakertyan city and fit all the Lakertyans with ankle bands that will kill them if they are removed or if a master switch is activated. As the Tetraps leave the Rani's lab, Ikona sneaks into the lab.

The Rani, observing the brain, begins to notice that the Doctor is beginning to infuse the brain with his own discordant personality. Angered that he might override the calculations, she pulls him out of his cabinet but before she can attack him, she is grabbed from behind by Ikona and shoved into the cabinet herself and locked in. The Doctor studies the brain, deducing it's function and figuring a way to stop it.

The Rani threatens Beyus as he passes by and he releases her, fearing for his people's safety. The Rani confronts the Doctor and admits that her plan will destroy all life on Lakertya, a fact that is overheard by the lead Tetrap. The Doctor and Mel get past the Rani while she is distracted by the brain completing it's calculations and informing her of what material she must fill the nose of the missile with.

The Doctor, Mel and Ikona return to the Lakertyan city to raise the people to fight the Rani. The Doctor manages to free them from their detonation bracelets and collects them in his umbrella. He and Mel then race back to the Rani's lab.

While they are away, the Rani finishes loading the missile and prepares to leave for her TARDIS. The chief Tetrap, aware of the consequences, offers to go with her in the TARDIS but she orders him to stay and contain the Lakertyans. He then follows her at a distance as she leaves, leaving the lab abandoned.

The Doctor and Mel return and use the bracelets to surround the brain and create a field, delaying the countdown. Beyus offers to stay and activate the bracelets. The Doctor and Mel run out and confront the Rani as Beyus activates the devices, halting the countdown at four seconds. The Rani angrily overrides the system, blowing up the brain and Beyus but launching the missile. She then leaves in her TARDIS.

The missile launch destroys the Rani's lab and the Doctor reassures the Lakertyans as the delay in launch threw the missile off it's trajectory and it misses the asteroid. He and Mel then depart in his TARDIS, while in the Rani's TARDIS, the Tetraps have taken over and captured her, preparing to take her back to their home planet where he mind will be used to help their people.

Analysis

After watching the first episode, I saw two possibilities for this story. Either it was going to turn in to The Twin Dilemma where it plummeted into badness around Episodes Three or Four, or this story was not going to be as bad as I expected. In the end, I have to say that I don't think this one is that bad. It's not particularly good, but I don't see why it typically finishes so low in various polls.

The Seventh Doctor's regeneration crisis seems to be quirkiness. Early in the story, there is heavy dose of physical comedy that thankfully starts to go away and is banished when we get to Paradise Towers. Throughout the story he has a constant quirk of misstating common sayings, which could have gotten old, but I'm actually a little sorry didn't stick around as a gimmick of his. Once or twice in a story would have been sufficient. But other than those, the Seventh Doctor emerges mostly as himself, just a touch more manic than he will become and I can't fault that. Had the physical comedy continued, it would have grated, but I see no problem with the Seventh Doctor in this story.

Mel is not great but she's not overly annoying either. He worst trait is that she does a lot of screaming in this story and most of it unnecessarily. I understand a scream when first confronted by a Tetrap as it does a little jump scare and most people find bats somewhat repulsive. I can also justify screaming her head off when in the bubble trap, given it's design to kill you. But after that, he screaming should have been curtailed. There is no reason for Mel to scream her head off every time she sees a Tetrap, even if they are grabbing her. I would have liked to have seen a bit more backbone and fortitude from her.

That being said, Mel did not fall into a whimpering mess the way Peri usually did. When not screaming, Mel was offering comfort and planning to the Lakertyans. She was always trying to help them or get back to the Doctor so she did show some fire and independence. I would have liked for her to be given a chance at some subterfuge or sabotage when she was forced to work with Beyus on the computers and that might have developed if there had been time for a rewrite or two. Still, on the whole, Mel is passible in this one and doesn't go poorly as she does in later stories.

The Rani continues to be enjoyable in this story. If the whole story had been like Episode One and part of Episode Two where the Doctor and the Rani work together (even under deception), this would be a far more enjoyable story just because I don't think anyone can get tired of the Rani's constant frustration and asides with the Doctor. It's not quite as self aware as in The Mark of the Rani but she also doesn't have the Master to play off. Still, it is enjoyable, especially as she has to keep herself from throttling the Doctor.

Unfortunately, once the posing as Mel phase is over, the Rani becomes much more of a generic villain. Her witticisms dry up and it becomes all about ordering the henchmen about to ensure the success of the plan. Her performance is still decent, but it loses the thing that really makes her stand out. Plus I kept getting distracted by a spot on side of her nose that I never really noticed in prior Episodes.

Another reason I thought at first that maybe this story was derided so much was because of the performance of the Lakertyans but that is not the case. Beyus and Faroon are well acted and carry the gravitas of a cowed people trying to preserve themselves. Ikona started a little shaky but as the action continued, his performance improved greatly. Sarn wasn't very good but she dies halfway through Episode One so it is only a small blemish and they other Lakertyans don't get enough screen time or dialogue to make any kind of impact. I had no qualms about them and didn't see any particular problems with their makeup either.

There were some production shortfalls, but nothing that ruined the story for me. The Tetraps weren't great but as long as they stayed in shadow, they worked reasonably well. I think if the outdoor scenes had been filmed later, it would have helped make them work a bit better. Likewise a later time might have helped diminish the need for tinting the sky as much. It wasn't as jarring as in Mindwarp, but it was still a pretty obvious computer effect that stood out whenever seen.

But I can imagine that the point where most people throw up their hands is the giant brain. It makes no sense. Where did it come from or how it was made is completely ignored. Nor is why a brain is used rather than just a large computer. It's something thrown in to be weird and I think just a touch horrifying for young kids but ends up coming across as just dumb. It doesn't help that the brain looks very much like the fabric prop that it actually was. Dimming the lights in the room helped but it still doesn't look particularly good and the story starts to go off the rails.

In my own mind, I can imagine that Pip and Jane Baker probably had an outline of a story they were working on to submit later and had probably gone over a few scenes before they got the desperation call from JNT. This is how I imagine that Episodes One and Two have a bit more depth and are more memorable. Episodes Three and Four have a much more slapdash feel and I think this is the point where what is on screen was a first draft effort rather than having been massaged a bit like the earlier script. Still, for me, this isn't so bad that it ruins the whole experience. It is still fairly well acted and the worst parts don't go on for so long that it becomes a slog.

Probably more bothersome to me than the brain was the lazy plot device of the bracelet bombs. The Rani was already controlling the population with the threat of deadly insects so why the bracelets except as something for the Doctor to use? Again, in a second or third draft, the insects would have been excised and only the bracelets would have been used as a means of controlling the population. The Doctor freeing them would have had the liberating effect of prompting them to action and it would have given Beyus the freedom to rise up as the Rani now could not commit instant genocide against his people. The Tetraps could have easily fled the lab and invaded her TARDIS after overhearing the Rani as her betrayal of them was easily understood at that point.

I don't think story ever had the potential of being great, but it had the potential of being better than it is. But I also think that in that lost potential, it is not as bad as it is made out to be. It moves quickly and the characters are all pretty much enjoyable. The plot is not overly complex, even if the Rani's plan is. It hums along well enough and any failures in production value were going to be there anyway because of budget and just the fact that it was the 1980's. Is it good? No. Is it terrible and something I would never watch again? Also no. I would call it slightly below average in my book, which rates it above at least two other Seventh Doctor stories. Would I watch it again? Probably, although I think I would get bored with it a second time around, especially in the later episodes. So for me, Dragonfire stands easily as the worst of the Seventh Doctor stories rather than this one.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5