Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary.
The only Doctor Who podcast that has the Loihagel and nothing can
stop us now.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Pisa.
I'm Simon.
And I'm Todd.
It's the 7th of September, 1987.
It's been more than 2.5 years since the Rani 1st turned up in
Killingworth to prevent the local miners from getting a good
night's sleep, and tonight, 5.100000 people have switched on to
find out what she's been up to since then, and possibly for
another important reason as well.
Does the Rani still have a role without 2 camp silly blustering
time lord men to make fun of?
Let's find out as we discuss time and the running.
All right, so this is obviously important because it's the second
appearance of Cato Mara's Rani in the show, but it is kind of
important in that it is also the start of an entire new era for
Doctor Who, and that's the Sylvester McCoy, Andrew Cartmel, late
period of JNT.
And I think it immediately looks a bit different from what's come
before.
I think it does look very different.
It's almost like season 23, Trial of a Time Lord, was this weird
cul-de-sac where they just didn't know how to make Dr. 2 and how
to make it look good on screen.
Whereas suddenly the production has taken this leap into the
future, I think.
And so the series as a very definite visual style, which was
lacking last season, and I think the money is suddenly there on
the screen, they're able to go out onto location and meld video
elements of the show to the location.
It suddenly it looks like a show which knows how it wants to
look.
And again, I think that probably comes down to the director
because I think part of the floor with season 23, and I said this
last week with Mind Warp, was that they kind of had forgotten how
to make Doctor Who, is that you've got the 3 directors of season
23 are not particularly strong directors.
Some of them will get to see again, but Andrew Morgan is an
incredibly strong director, and of course, we see that again next
year with remembrance.
That's true, I think.
And if you look at remembrance as the example, if you buy into the
fact that Doctor Who had a late Renaissance and became a very good
series that knew itself towards the end, I think this is half the
puzzle unpicked.
They've actually got the production looking like a show which
they're not embarrassed to put out on BBC One.
It may not be the style of show that a lot of people like, but
it's definitely, it knows what it wants to be and it knows how it
wants to look.
The other half of the puzzle. is unpicking the scripting.
And I think that when we come to remembrance of the Daleks, under
the same director, you suddenly have something that's really
great.
Yes, I think that was only half the picture and the other half is
definitely sadly missing at this point.
But you see how great he is as a director.
I still think there are problems with this.
Like the Rani TARDIS is just so poor and you can see the string
that she's hanging off.
I don't like the Tet traps lair.
I think that the scene involving the doctor and Mel meeting and
all that is one of the most embarrassing scenes ever perpetrated
in the history of Doctor Who.
There might be a confidence there, but I just think that there's
something, and I think it is the script, and it's a fact that I
think that Mel is a character with no character, and I think
there's mistakes there. he's as good a director as you're kind of
making out that he is.
I think there are problems with the way the production looks.
Like, I think the location work is very good, as you said, and
that they managed to meld video effects and visual effects like
practical effects in the traps and stuff like that.
But my experience of watching it for the 1st time, I remember
going to the phone, we had a phone attached to our house back then
and Vanderthal.
Yeah.
And I went to the phone.
Yeah we did.
And I rang my friend Matthew and I said, I think this is a key to
the show now, and I will continue watching it, but I'm not
entirely sure that I'm on board with it.
And I think the problem is the incredible light entertainment set
which is the Rani's laboratory, which doesn't look like a
laboratory.
It does look like a game show said.
And while it's trying to be visually interesting, you know, it's
that kind of stylised look in the studio that I think doesn't
really work.
Is this a problem with the script?
Like, was this script developed with no script editor?
Was this script developed like for potentially Colin Baker and
then augmented for Sylvester McCoy?
I mean, I had to give it to Pip and Jane Baker.
They had to do a lot of heavy lifting in the last 10 episodes.
Yes, with no Swift editor.
And it's only like, you know, on reflection that you, like as a
kid, I didn't see the faults perhaps in terror the vervoids or
even the ultimate faux.
But when I got to this, I began to like lose heart.
Like everything was just so A to B to see, like we've put together
and it's a workable script and it's got cliffhangers. got monsters
it's got aliens, but somehow it just doesn't quite work and I
don't know, I can't explain it.
Like, is that part of the problem?
Yeah, it is a script where there's not a whole lot going on.
But I want to address a couple of things that we were talking
about production wise there.
What are the problems with the sets is that they're too big.
And so they spend a lot of time in that in the Rani's laboratory
just moving around that laboratory with the camera following them
around.
I think that also stymies Sylvester's performance a little bit
because in location work, he's generally fine.
But when he gets into that 1st production block, most of which is
spent on the Rani's laboratory set, as just him and Kays O'Mara
often dressed up as Mel doing her mal impression, just the 2 of
them, on that big set, I think he has a crisis of confidence, and
you can see that on screen.
He's not able to deliver things.
Those early scenes in the Rani's laboratory where he's desperately
overplaying it and trying to almost to fill the set because it's
just them don't work at all.
And I think that's a serious blow to his early performances, the
doctor.
When you come back in the 2nd recording block, he's obviously
gathered himself together and does a much better job, even on that
set.
Those Pratt falls, the early Pratt falls, and it is in the scene
where Mel grabs him and it's in the scene, I think, where he's
running away from the run.
He's running away from the Rani.
But at the beginning of episode 3 when he runs away from her and
he escapes from her by Prattfall, by comedy Prattfall, in a
sense.
You know, he puts his scarf around her, pushes her over.
He runs out of a thing and does that jump and then, you know, the
little jump on the leg, which I think works really well.
And that's kind of where we end up landing with this doctor.
And we'll talk a little bit about how the Rani is kind of
cartoonized a bit by this story.
But the early Pratfalls are embarrassingly bad, I think.
And it's the same problem, I think, that Colin has in the studio
isn't it?
Where it's much, much harder to act in these garish, light
entertainment style sets that we've been getting.
And the moment that you get outside, everyone starts to behave a
little bit more naturalistically and to rein it in a bit.
Okay, I think there's several things going on there.
We're still in an era where the location work is done first. that
be correct.
So it's interesting that he's more confident in his 1st scenes
than...
Well, I think that's the thing of being able to shoot it on single
can.
Yeah, and even though it's yes.
So even that's video, we're still shooting it like it's film in
that it's one camera at a time, one camera position at a time, you
have the opportunity to rehearse and record in a way that you do
not get in the studio.
And you also in some respects have a bit more of flexibility with
doing a few more takes as well.
I suspect that that's what's missing in those early practical
sequences, which I actually think are very embarrassing.
They're actually almost unforgivable.
Oh, yes. going back to what Todd was saying about the 1st meeting
of the doctor and Mel.
It's terribly covered and should never have made it to screen.
It's embarrassing.
The light entertainment thing.
And this is an extension of what I was saying in Mind Warp, which
is the fact that things, I know there's disagreement out there, but
what I feel was very strong, visually strong, season 22 and script
wise and everything else, gritty, interesting, love it. you know
few failures, but basically I thought is brilliant, Doctor Who
exactly the way I wanted it at the time. you know, and then season
21 also was great and gritty and had interesting stories like
Planet Fire or Frontios, which were kind of doing something
unusual.
Basically, they've still forgotten how to make the show in season
24, but in at least in time in the Rani, at least they've got a
competent director, you've got this light entertainment set, as
you said, it's all light and bright and spangly.
The effects, the explosions are all psh, rather than these meaty
kind of sounds.
Um, you've got a much more um, childlike story.
You're right.
When I was, and Todd, you'd remember this when we were watching it
at school and there are a couple of friends who'd mock the fact
that we were still watching this show and I felt that not that I
had ached out of the show, but that the show had gone backwards in
terms of the age that it was being pitched at.
And that was coupled with the fact that it used to be at 6.30 in
the evening and now in Australia.
Now it's 5.30 in the middle of what is basically a 2 hour
afternoon for kids programming block, which had cartoons around
it.
But it feels like that.
I can't blame the ABC for scheduling it there because...
So it aired in the same breath as Count Duckular.
Exactly. and Roger Ramjet and all those sorts of things.
Whereas you consider in British, it's actually being shown
opposite Coronation Street.
I mean, no wonder hardly anyone's watching it.
I remember at the time, desperately needing to like it because the
show had been cancelled and we were living on borrowed time, so we
had to like this, we had to defend it and I defended it.
I'm less keen to defend it now because I actually think season 24
is whilst they're experimenting and you can see what happens to
the show in the later last 2 years.
It's flailing.
It's really everywhere.
It's like I had the same experience, like, obviously, you were
talking that we were watching this together at school.
But I remember desperately wanting to love it.
And I remember my father coming in wanting to bond with me over
this show, which they had, my parents had just, you're not going
to buy Dr. 2 magazine anymore, like all this sort of stuff that
they didn't want.
And I had to turn to him and say, look, you don't have to watch
this with me.
This isn't very good.
And I remember me saying those words to my father.
Now, I don't know if it was time in the Rani or Paradise Towers
but it was one of these 2 stories that happened in.
And that will stick with me forever.
What you've just talked about season 24, I think, after this story
I think there's some really wonderful ideas coming in, but it's
but it's failure of consistent production in one aspect or
another.
How to deal with those ideas.
And the other thing for me is Monty Langford as Mel.
And you have to give Bonnie complete marks.
She's such a professional.
Like, you know, she's, she screams when she needs to scream.
She reacts when she needs to react, but it's just so stagey.
And at this point, I don't think she's learnt how she's very
young.
I don't think she's learned how to act for television.
Whereas the episode we've just seen today, the reality war, she
was just, again, superb in.
But in this and in the next story, these 2 stories just kill that
character for me so much.
And I'm sorry to go down that road.
I don't want to be negative because I really, I actually enjoy
watching Mel's and her performance over these 20 episodes to see
what she's trying to do.
She's trying to give it energy.
She's trying to give it oomph.
But it doesn't work.
Let me pick up on a few things there.
First of all, my father also watched time.
And he watched it quite impassively and I wasn't sure what he was
thinking of until the end of episode 4 when the doctor ushers
Einstein out of console room and says it's all relative where he
burst out laughing.
I thought that was hilarious.
In a good way.
Oh, that's good.
I am much more positive about this story because I think it's, as
ever, when you look at the scope of Doctor Who, there are blind
alleys and places where it goes and things which feel like they're
wrong at the time, but then you can see them in the sweep of the
series.
Season 24, I actually enjoy on its own terms.
I don't think a lot of it's very good.
I don't think a lot of time in the Rani is very good, but I really
enjoy this slight sidestep into a Doctor Who that we never
otherwise had.
I also think that it's a comprehensive production.
I know you've got problems with the way that's made.
I do think there's bits which are not very well done.
Like we talked about earlier, the Pratt Falls, the scene between
the doctor and Mel, which is just how on earth that made it to
screen. don't know.
But it is a comprehensive production.
It feels like there is someone behind the camera who knows how to
make television, and that hasn't always been a given previously
and I'll use as an example, the buildup to the cliffhanger of part
3, which starts 5 minutes before the end of the episode in a very
modern Doctor Who way, and is this melting pot of coverage and
performance and music.
The music is so beautifully to that cliffhanger, and the best
Doctor Who has always done that.
I'm thinking of previous cliffhangers, like maybe robots of death
part 2, and um, the Cave Zero and Design, part three.
I'm not saying obviously that this story is in that league.
Obviously it's not, but in the way that that is crafted, as
television, and as good Doctor Who, as few peers.
So, I feel a bit more like you about season 24, and I think at the
time, I was kind of on board from Paradise Towers onward, and I
acknowledge that Paradise Towers, even at the time, felt like kids
TV, and one of the things it does, is it, you know, it combines
that kind of dystopia, that strange urban dystopia with children's
TV in a way that Doctor Who sometimes will juxtap to things that
don't seem to belong together in a way that only Doctor Who can
do.
And so while that's a failure, I was excited by the new ideas, and
of course, we all know that it's the 1st Doctor Who story in some
considerable time that doesn't have a returning element in it.
And that felt to me to be incredibly fresh.
Refreshing.
Yeah.
Now, I actually think that something like Delta and the Bannerman
is amazing and is a template for the show going forward.
Well, let's not go too fast.
Why, no, no, I genuinely think it's great.
I'm going to agree with that as well.
I said, you know, it's halfway there and remember install of the
way there.
I actually think Deltron Fantoman's 75% of the way.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes.
It has people looking out a window and seeing other people.
I just think that's amazing.
Talk about a low bar for drama.
That's all I want.
Can I make an interesting observation of the way I 1st saw these
stories?
Because this is this marks the beginning of, and Todd's, the
beginning of our arrival into not just being obsessed fans, but
being an organised fan.
You were watching Time in the Rani one week and the web planet, the
next.
Possibly.
That's not the story that I'm really going to.
So I had already seen, because the ABC delayed season 24 by 12
months.
So we got it like in October or so, 88, and so it was already a
year old, right?
It through means that, you know, we can't just legally discuss. you
know we were able to see some of these episodes.
And so I went to a day event and my 1st Sylvester was Delta and
the Bannerman.
Right.
Which I was completely blown away by their opening credits.
I just watched this thing happen in front of me.
I thought, oh my goodness me.
That was around the middle of the year.
Todd, you and I went to one where they showed remembrance one and
two. was only one and two.
We also watch all the Daleks that same day.
Remembers one and 2 was quite the contrast, let me say.
It was probably literally the next day, if not the next day, then
8 days later, the time in the Riny was going to be broadcast.
So I saw Delta and the Batman.
The 1st 2 episodes of remembrance.
Then...
I see Time in the Rani.
Now can you understand why perhaps I don't have very fond views of
time and the writing and then of the season going on because we've
just seen remembrance.
Remember it's the 1st 2 episodes.
But I suppose that gave us hope because we knew that that was
coming, I suppose.
Yes, yes.
Because, I mean, our experience was, of course, the reason that
they delayed it was so that they could, because they went in to
remembrance straight after.
The reason they delayed it was because I don't think they felt
like showing, giving the show as much love as they used to. like
they were giving it in the late 70s and into the 80s.
I think from the, when the cancellation happened, the 85
cancellation happened, that's when suddenly they stopped caring
about the show as much and then it, uh, although they, they sort
of did because then they showed all the pertways again.
But you know, they didn't feel the need to catch up and show it
too quickly.
That also mirrors my journey as a fan in that I was now embedded
in organised Doctor Who fandom, and I ceased caring about Doctor
Who on television.
That was no longer the forum in which I received my Doctor Who.
And so this is all a haze to me after that big Pertwee and Tom
Baker run in 1986.
That's basically, I've stopped watching Dot 2 on television.
On TV, yeah.
One of the things, though, that I think was immediately apparent
is that we're in a quarry, but in that quarry, we have a much
clearer sense of where everyone is and what they're doing at
different locations in a particular scene, and we are doing a
better job of combining visual effects and video effects, as I
said earlier, not just on location, like we do with the traps.
But you remember the scene where one of the locustions gets killed
by a bangle and she falls and her hand falls into the water and
the water is like there's froth in the water where her hand is
while there's a special effect and stuff.
There just seems to be a lot of care in matting all of the effects
together and kind of making them come.
I just thought that was an accident and they had a little bit of
soap suns in there.
No, no, no.
This is a definite thing.
That's a definite thing.
That's what we're saying about Andrew Morgan. what we've talked
about before, you know, against people like Richard Martin.
He has control of the production.
Obviously not in all places because there are things which go
wrong, but he has created a production which coheres.
And so you go out onto, I think it was a bad choice to move it
from a forest where it was scripted into a quarry because that
plays into all of those Doctor Who cliches about quarries being
alien plants and makes it seem a bit hoary and old.
Having?
I don't know.
I really don't know why they decided to do that.
Maybe because it looked too similar to the forests of Mysterious
Planet, but it's a decision that's been lost in time.
But having said that, the fact that going out into that quarry
they've made such an effort, giving it a pink sky with Quantel
adding on the bits from the Rani's laboratory, not just the
practical bits in the quarry, but the visual effects kind of
dragon's head that rears over that, the fact that the model work
is so good of the Rani's rockets taking off.
And well matted.
Well matted.
It feels like a cohesive production in a way that a lot of season
23 did not.
Even with the tinsel in the stormwater drain.
Well, I mean, that's a stylistic choice, and I don't necessarily
agree with it.
But however, there's blue rocks and the blue tinsel, which leads
up to the Riney's headquarters, putting that in the pipe, again, as
Nathan said, makes it feel like it's the same location.
It's the same location.
But interestingly too, the sky is so much better than the one only
a year earlier in my...
It's not too over the top.
And that's what I take from it.
It's just like, suddenly it's 1987 there has been a leap in
technology.
If you look at 85 to 87, there's that huge change.
And in the 80s changes so much, you look at everything pre 85 and
the last few years of the 80s can be really almost into the 90s.
But interesting, also, we're suddenly with the technology, is the
introduction for the 1st time of proper computer graphics.
Yes.
As representing real life, with, 1st of all, we've got the opening
pre-credit sequence, which is not effective in the modern era.
Good on them for saying, let's give this a go and saying rather
than having a stupid card, well, little Tartar's model flying
about.
We've tried to use the computer graphics.
Well, Doctor has taken its cue.
Season 23 felt a little bit lost in time.
They were forced to film location sequences on videotape, I think
because of budgetary reasons.
And so it was almost like, well, we have to do this.
Now they've sat and thought about it and thought, Doctor Who is
now a videotape show, how can we bring all of this together?
So the emphasis on effects has moved from film model work to video
model work, and with doing that, they are then able to integrate
that better into the show that they have.
And so Doctor Who, as a whole, looks better than it has since
maybe the perwi era for a show that all looks like it's on the
same wavelength.
I mean, you look at the strange matter asteroid visual that's on
her control.
And you look at 12 months earlier in Terror the Voids where
they're playing Space Invader.
Yeah, like it's just there's no comparison.
I think Terror the Vervoids is a good comparison for that because
Terror the Vervoids is this weird, tremendous backward step when
it comes to the special effects.
Those scenes of the Hyperion 3 in space and they actually, if
you've looked at the special edition or at the Blu-ray, they've
cut some of those scenes because they are so woeful, bad.
And you think, how did they let this happen?
Well, you go 2 stories forward and suddenly they figured out how
to do that again.
I mean, I think it's impressive and we kind of underestimate it
now, but the way that that image of the strange matter asteroid on
the Rani screen is matted into the screen when we're looking at it
from an angle.
And so it's a parallelogram or something, some kind of
quadrilateral, it's not just keyed into a square on the wall.
It's actually front on, even though it's basically an angle.
Yeah, that is Quantel, isn't it?
That the way they manage to...
They're able to manipulate the angle of the image, yeah.
I think that looks really good.
And even though the crappy kind of rotating three-dimensional
asteroids and to a lesser degree, in the opening credits into a
lesser degree, the TARDIS, they're bad, but that rotating galaxy
thing out of focus is actually pretty effective, I think.
Can we talk about the opening credits?
Yeah, why not?
Well, I mean, obviously they blew me away in 1988 when I saw them
on a screen in Karlslaw 5, I believe. to get that in.
If you know, you know.
The thing is, I was blown away by the fact that it was not using
the traditional linear opening credits anymore.
And I thought, wow, this was a step forward.
It a leap forward.
I thought the music whilst it still wasn't the Peter Howell
version for me.
I still thought it was great.
And yes, look, there are so many good things about the opening
credits, particularly for its day.
I think the regrettable things, and the guy who made the opening
credits agrees with us, was the asteroids are unfortunate, but
that's what they are, because they can't do fractals. enough
computing power because they'd have needed weeks and weeks of
rendering to get the fractals deep enough.
Any asteroid of this era is a potato.
Sea silver nemesis.
Well, it's already a potato.
It's a crunched up piece of paper, really, because it's pointy
anyway, there's that.
If only the galaxy could have been, because we're kind of moving
around the galaxy.
Imagine if the galaxy had been moving faster on the inside than
the outside.
It's just...
That is never going to do that.
But...
It's just...
Exactly.
It's just too hard.
But the worst thing is the doctor's face.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Because it's, it's, um, when you can sit, yes, it's painted silver
but that's the least of it.
It's the fact that the face, it just fades in, it's deep etch in a
very perfunctory way, it just goes from the 3 different states of
his face, when you consider how elegant Colin smile is at the
beginning of his credits.
It's like this lovely fades through, I think, several states of
photographs.
Whereas this is just blink, blink.
It's stuck on, it gave me the ear.
It's from the 1st moment I've seen it and I've lived with that
feeling for the last nearly 40 years.
Let it outside.
Yes No, no, I have.
I have.
I think you're right.
The Colin thing where the lights change during the course of it
like you underestimate how good that is, I think.
It's got something that we miss in the modern era, I think.
The doctor's face is the important part of the credits and it
feels like Sylvester has been somehow shoehorned into those
credits rather than being an organic part.
Exactly.
Yes, yes.
So, let's talk about the Rani.
Let's...
So I have to say that I am not a big fan of Mark of the Rani, and
the reason is that I think probably to a culpable degree, I'm in
Doctor Who for the monsters, and there are no monsters, and the
master doesn't count.
It does get points for kicking a small child over in an early
scene and it loses points for killing a dog.
So it's not one that I go back to very much.
And all I remember is, of course, that Kate's performance is
markedly more muted in it than it is here.
Now, Todd, you really like this mark of the Rani, Rani.
I really do.
I think that she's actually clever.
Like she's been on earth in various circumstances collecting the
sleeping drug for her aliens to control them.
And she's been getting away with it for centuries, right?
Until the master and the doctor come blundering in.
And she's got backup plans.
I mean, she's still quite evil.
Like I did notice when I rewatched it, that she's still quite
happy to kill off her henchman with the mark of the Rani.
Oh, right when she gets Pip Baker in the corner there.
At the drop of her hat, you know?
Is that just dumb kill?
But I just think she's got the great set and the master takes on
all the villainous roles.
Like he takes the heat off her, you know?
She's hardly in it for the 1st 25 minutes.
She's just in her little bit of a disguise.
So it's really quite different.
I mean, she's got, you know, she's got her tree things as well.
She's got backup plans, even with Perry, she's got the powder
stuff to get out of that.
She's she's clever.
I don't find her as clever in time in the running.
I mean, she's got a different role to play because she's got to be
front and centre.
Things that just irritate me.
The big hair, that nose stud, it just really gets to me.
But she's dumb.
Like, she's supposed to be this clever scientist, but she can't
work out what PVC, you know, element that she needs the doctor to
work out.
What is it?
It's some plastic.
Which is such a weird description of something slightly amber
almost opaque.
That's such a paper Jane line.
But she's supposed to be clever.
She can't even do that.
She has to have a fixed trajectory rocket for God's sake.
You know?
And then she gets trapped inside that cubicle, but she's just
banging on that little bit of plastic like anybody could break
out.
And then the doctor just checks her in that like look to your left
and then that little bit of a scarf thing that takes her 10
minutes to get over.
These things irritate me.
I just think she's clever in the 1st story.
I say everything you just mentioned.
I really like about the Rani in this story.
No.
See, I do, and we will talk about that because she is in a way
cartoonized because there's a real proper panto element to the
story which we're obviously going to deal with.
And it's not just the fact that she dresses as Mel, but it's the
way she plays the Rani Asmel.
And so she's defeated in a way that you can defeat a pantomime
villain.
And there's, obviously, there is a massive English tradition of
pantomime and it's definitely a thing that happens and it is
happening here.
So the thing that she brings from Mark of the Rani is that she's
ruler of a planet.
So only this had instead of been Lukersha had been me as a great
Doctor Who Planet names of all time, Maya Simi Agori.
Yeah, pretty great.
She is Robert Holmes.
She does get like in Mark of the Rani.
I was actually quite surprised at how ruthless she actually is.
And also she doesn't really care for the people either.
Like, she's actually quite evil, but it just gets overshadowed by
what the master's doing.
Yeah, look, I think it is a performance team because obviously
this 2nd appearance by the Rani is written by her creators, Pip
and Jane.
And I think on page, they've retained a lot of what made the Rani
different and made her a villain who wasn't just the master.
Yeah.
She retains that iciness and that dispassion for things, which is
commented upon by Mel.
And she tells Bass as such, which says, you know, Lilocutions mean
absolutely nothing to me.
And I do believe that.
That sets her aside as a villain.
And I think the things that make her different in this story come
down to her presentation rather than the way she's written.
Exactly.
And going back to what I was saying before is the whole thing is
just betrayed in a much more kidzy way.
Like Todd, I much prefer her in the 1st her 1st outing.
I think we got a little bit of it in what we've all just seen in
the 21st century where you've got the Rani sort of stating that
you know, as time lords, the doctor is slumming it by being around
all of these humans.
But I think it's a thing that we've come back to time and time
again on this 2nd time round series is that the 2nd time round, the
adversary, the enemy is made that little bit more generic.
And I think that the Rani suffers from that too.
She does, no, she isn't just the master, but she does become more
like the master.
She does become a little bit more the generic moustache twirling
villain, and I think that's not helped by the lack of elegance
around her lines, just all the interactions.
The thing that Mark the Rani has going for it, which actually has
gone down in my estimation since I 1st saw it in 1986.
It would have been January 86.
It doesn't resolve in a satisfactory way. got this great setup and
then it kind of just disintegrates.
But what it's got going for it is the look.
It looks so good.
It's the BBC classic drama.
It's an old museum, like a kind of an old Sydney town type place.
But, you know, it's just so much better presented and the fact
that the performance is more downplayed and colder rather than
Vampia, I think, even if the same elements are there in time in
the Rani, because it's plagued so much bigger, it's just much less
interesting for me.
It took a moment to retrieve the file assignment, but it's Iron
Bridge Gorge Museum.
Right.
You can file it back away now.
Thank you, it's gone into the resources of my mind.
I do think there are still sciency things that the Rani gets to do
in time in the Rani.
And I'm not that worried that she needs to recruit the doctor as
an expert because one of the things that it reminds us of is that
the doctor is a scientist as well, which is not something that
we've mentioned terribly frequently, perhaps in the last few years
and that they have different specialisms, in a way.
And we learn that he's, you know, expert on thermodynamics and
she's a neurochemist or something like that.
So they have different roles.
She's created this brain, which is grown in the thing.
She has a plan that involves time stuff because she's a timelord.
And so all of those sorts of things, you know, she still has that
focus on science and she doesn't seek power in a way for its own
sake.
Now, admittedly, you know, what you're going to do with the, what's
it called, a time manipulator.
For God's sake.
You know what?
I think she's going to bring back Omega.
Oh, but certainly.
But I have to say that the things that you dislike about her in
this, Simon, are the things that I think were inevitable and in
some ways the right thing to do, which is he's Kate O'Mara. let
her go to town Yes.
Why is that inevitable though?
Because it's Kate O'Mara.
Well, let me just say, I think Rani is a distillation of Pip and
Jane Baker's interests.
They have this weird preoccupation with language, as we know, but
they're also interested in science.
They read science journals and they were interested in bringing
that to Doc 2. didn't do it very elegantly sometimes, but I think
the Rani is what they want in a character in Doctor Two.
What I think maybe some people don't like and what the Rani
suffers from in the story.
I actually personally like it like Nathan does, is that there's a
collision of real world events.
So Kate O'Mara, in the meantime, has been playing Caress Morale in
dynasty.
And I think when she comes back to play the Rani, not only does
she still have caresses hair, but she's still got, oh, she does.
Does she caress her hair?
Do you want to caress it?
she brings back to the role.
And it's also a symptom of the Rani having been moved to centre
stage.
She's no longer a 2nd banana to the master, and so now she's the
chief villain, and she's occupying that space, but she brings that
externalisation in the performance, which is required in something
like dynasty.
I don't think she necessarily puts herself back in the same space
that she was performing in and Mark the Rani.
I think she's bringing that LA soapy, very obvious kind of
television performance to the Rani, which is a hugely 80s thing as
well.
It's absolutely up to the minute.
It's the sort of, you know, the big TV events were sort of giant
bitch fights on dynasty and who shot that kind of thing.
Like that was huge in the 1980s.
And so you can see why they're doing that.
But then the other thing that they have is the utterly baffling
decision to get the Rani to dress up as Mel.
I say something here.
It is the baffling decision because Mel has no character.
Can I just, I just personally think she's got no character up to
this point at all.
She's not met the Rani.
So the running has had to spy on Mel and the doctor to work out
how to play Mel.
And at the time, and this distracts me from the performance of the
Rani, like because she's not been the Rani.
She been Mel.
And at the time, I absolutely thought it was just the worst thing
ever.
So I sigh people, because I went back to it, and she's actually
doing a bloody good job, and I actually really quite enjoy it now
seeing how Bonnie Langford does it, seeing how she does it.
And when she drops character, and like calls him Chris or whatever
she does.
She goes, she goes. she goes back to, it's actually underplayed
quite often, and it reminds me of Mark the Rani, like when she
just breaks that for a moment, and I really, really enjoyed it.
And for me, that's the strongest part of this story.
I, you know, I've spent quite a bit of this sort of berating this
production, but I actually, for some bizarre reason, now I
actually think it works really well.
No one can chew on a wasp before spitting out a one word insult
like cater.
I think the idea is almost unforgivable, but the execution is
superb.
It's so great.
It's literally the best thing about.
But it was one of the most, I did want the earth to open up and
swallow me when I was watching that in 1988.
I understand that, but I do think in retrospect, this story is the
one where Kate dresses up as Bonnie.
And because Bonnie has been on English television since she was a
tiny child at this point.
She's been certainly on English stage. since she was a child.
Violet Elizabeth Bot.
True, yes.
Yeah.
So everyone kind of knows her.
She's a thing.
She is Bonnie Langford.
Yeah, exactly.
And so it is Cadis Bonnie.
Mel doesn't have a character partly because 5 of her 1st 6
episodes are written by Pip and Jane Baker.
And also because Doctor Who Companions in the classic series
rarely have characters.
What they do have is a great opening story that sets the template
for what they are, which Mel never gets.
That's right.
And she's just got the one paragraph bio, essentially.
The computer programmer from Peace Pottage, which she is nothing
at all like.
Like, you do scripting.
I teach software engineering.
And then the doctor goes, put this little string of whatever
around the bracelet on the legs of the locations and you do
computer programming.
You know how.
The target has to be the right sort of wire.
It does.
I wouldn't know what from an ornament.
So you have Kate playing Bonnie and it's absolute panto.
Those things where she reverts to being Kate.
Perhaps she's fashion conscious.
There are sides to the audience.
Yes, yes.
And so she's being a panto villain.
She's occasionally throwing to the audience in this sardonic way.
And in fact, it's kind of funny when the doctor overhears them
because they're so stagey and she has to quickly walk it back.
Oh, nothing, you know.
So, like, oh, I love it.
It's so funny.
I mean, it is so great.
I do agree with you.
Like, because now I understand British culture and I now
understand Banto.
When I was 15 I didn't have any reference point for that.
So this is obviously like British audiences will get it.
But as an Australian boy in Sydney, I didn't get that and it just
went over my head and I just found it embarrassing and going, what
is this?
you know?
And I was longing for a return to the gritziness of things that I
still had on VHS that I was still watching far more than this
things like Vengeance and Varos, things like Resurrection of the
Darks, all those sorts of, even the 5 doctors for its sort of
relative simplicity was felt far more mature than what I was being
put through here.
But I mean, it's not maturity that's the problem, is it?
It's not that this is immature.
It's immature.
Well, no, but what it's doing.
Like, I think that there is kids TV elements to it and stuff, and
it is Pip and Jane, and they are deliberately writing to
children.
And the science staff is very much their vague memory that the
show was intended to have some kind of didactic purpose, I think.
Yeah, like the mid-20th century BBC did.
But what it's doing is it's drawing on a theatrical tradition.
And so what it's not really trying to do is represent a sort of
coherent or credible sort of reality.
It's being kind of metatextual.
And so there's something grown up about that, I think.
I think we have to unpick the decades of critique that have been
overlaid onto this, where the fandoms received wisdom, basically
saying what a terrible idea this was.
And to go back and understand what an imaginative leap it was in
Doctor Who storytelling terms, to have the villain impersonate the
companion.
We haven't seen that before.
That's new for Doctor Who.
There is a different and more serious version of this story where
the Rani is presenting herself as a generic companion to the
doctor.
Whereas the fact that not only is she dressing up as the companion
and putting on the voice and the wig.
But also the fact that you can see the Rani passing herself off as
say, the 1st Romana or Nissa.
You can actually maybe buy into that, but the fact that it's Mel.
In fact, it's Bonnie Langford is what people can't take on board.
And actually, that's what I think is the genius of it because it
turns the story into something else entirely.
But like having things like these crucial scenes, you know, like
the Dr. Pixies outfit scene, which is kind of a thing at this
point because the show has become much more aware of regeneration
and because this producer is now doing his 3rd regeneration.
So he has to find a new way of doing it.
But having Kate play the companions role and having Kate comment
sardonically on his clothes.
Every time it cuts away from the choice of costume.
It's to an even bigger iron.
Yes, yes.
Can I just say we cut into that scene?
It's very elegantly done from Mel in the quarry saying one thing
about the doctor, you can't miss him in that outfit.
Q, Collin's coat being...
Yeah.
Wouldn't that have been in the scripting, you know?
Yeah, but it's an elegant piece of scripting and people don't give
Pip and Jane enough credit for the things that they get right.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, they really are trying here.
They're trying to present, um, alien race that doesn't look like
humans with the locersians.
They're trying to do monsters with their different viewpoints.
I mean, they're all cartoon.
Like, and I don't think the occursions work because who runs like
that when you can pick up things like we normally do and I don't
buy that at all.
I run.
But, you know, you know, they really are looking at what makes
Doctor Who and trying to put in things.
I think that the locustions actually look great.
That are probably one of the best things about the story.
Yeah, they've got a really consistent look with the clothing that
they wear, the colouration, is really good.
I love the fact that the mains that they have coming out of their
head aren't all just identical.
It's all different, aren't they?
They're all different.
And I think they're not just accidentally different because that's
just the way they came out of the thing.
They're deliberately different.
So it's like Kona, who's a very handsome young, you know, played
by this very handsome young man. hes the handsome young hero.
He's got this very large mane, which is impeccable.
And then you've got Farun's Maine, which is kind of, obviously
she's an older woman, so it's got a bit of grain and she's female
so it's coloured.
And then you've got Icona's ugly brother.
And he's just a shambles.
So it's like that, it's not really nice that they've got their
that, that feels like they've gone to an effort.
Like that's not just an accident.
And they sort of gesture at them being lizardy by just giving them
a few scales on the face without making them look too odd.
And I actually think that Icona Mark Greenstreet is doing
something with his hands and the way that both he and San hold
their arms when they run is odd, and it is an attempt to make them
look less human.
It is an attempt to make them look alien in a way.
And there's that scene too, where they all walk into the leisure
centre and they kiss the rock, kiss the rock. like there's just
little alien themes.
That's what we were saying, cohesive production.
Yeah, but it's a 60s way of presenting an alien race.
In particular, it's not like Yurak and the and the tet traps who
are just sort of big rubber constitutes.
But I think that comes from Pip and Jane Baker.
I'm pretty sure that they would have been quite descriptive about
what they wanted. in that, not just from the directoral point of
view.
Pippin Jane's problem is not any of that.
Pip and Jane's problem is their inability to write dialogue.
Now, I know we're in the heightened Doctor Who universe here and
you want it to be science and so on like that, but I know people
critique Eric Saywood's dialogues being not naturalistic, but
Pippin James gives that a real run for its money.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Very unfortunate.
And you can see people like Mark Green Street.
And I think it affects the performances.
It affects what you could have some quite, you can tell that, you
know, you've got some good hactors here.
You've got Mark Green Street. you've got Wanda Ventham, and you've
got Donald Pickering, and they are all real serious actors, and
they are, and Kate Amara is a real serious actor in her own way.
But the point is, their performance is inevitably going to be
affected by this ridiculous dialogue that they're having to say.
Before we started recording, I mentioned Cat O'Mara's line, the
bumbling fools ready made as a sacrificial lamb.
Because she actually swallows that in embarrassment and quickly
sort of ushers another character out of the way.
So, Simon, you remember in 1998, we went and spent a lovely
afternoon with Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering.
Husband and wife. amazing.
Well, of course, those 2 had known each other for many, many years
and in fact, they told stories about Wanda's, I think, then 12
year-old son listening at the door just to hear Donald's very blue
stories. like, of course, that's Benedict Cumberbatch.
But we spent a very lovely afternoon with them and basically, you
know, talked through everything.
They were such a wonderful double act, and they had various things
to say, which we've just talked about.
So, it was very funny seeing Donald Pickering's reaction when you
talk to him about BS because he was looking at pictures of BS in
Doctor 2 magazine they brought along.
His brow just sort of dark and he went, I just felt like such an
asshole.
Which I think says a lot, but also Wanda, we spoke to her about
the dialogue, obviously presenting it in a way as wasn't it crap
dialogue presented as, you know, how do you present dialogue of
this nature?
And she said, you have to treat it as Shakespeare.
You have to deliver it with all the conviction of Shakespeare.
And I think that's what they're doing in this story.
It's maybe not quite appropriate for what the rest of the story
is.
I do think it helps to ground it a little bit.
I actually find that scene where Faroon, there's 2 moments where
Wanda, I think, is her performance is really quite moving, and the
one is when she discovers Sun's body, and the way that Icona
gently breaks it to her.
And the way that then Bonnie reacts.
And, you know, there's some fake tears and stuff happening there.
I had to be told.
Yeah, I know, I know, I think it's one really good.
And then the other one, which again is a little bit overwrought
but I think actually sells it, which is normal, basically. based
without San, which I think is wonderful.
I mean, they are really really great.
And I think, you know, the closest the story comes to being about
anything, is the sacrifice that Bayos makes, that all the time we
despise Bayos as a collaborator, but the reason he collaborates is
the same reason that he dies, it's to save his people.
So he collaborates to keep his people safe and he sacrifices his
life to keep his people safe.
I like the sequence where he says, when the doctor asks him, you're
why have you assisted?
and he says, collaborated is the word you're avoiding doctor?
But also, there are different kinds of collaborators.
There are collaborators who are out to get advancements for
themselves.
He is a collaborator because he thinks that's the best of 2
several bad options, which is fine.
And the fact that the story does, visit that, like, who is the, is
it better to run off to the hills and and be the rebel encampment
or is it better to try and...
Are you Bayas or are you Icona?
Exactly.
And I think it doesn't do that very deeply.
But at least at least that does it.
Yeah, yeah.
And Bayos, you know, like it validates his approach by...
And so we're sympathetic to him.
We don't dislike him.
No, no.
And then I cona validates.
Exactly as well by taking over at the end.
There's actually character work going on.
That's not a critique, which people lay at the feet of a Pippin
Jane script, but there is.
Can I just say as well, it puts that scene where they discover
San's skeleton into context because Wanda said that immediately
before they started rolling, one of the very camp dresses came
up.
Trent said, do be careful, darling.
There's tet trap dung everywhere, and she had to deliver that
scene, trying to get a straight face.
Brilliant.
Simon's right.
It's the dialogue that lets it down.
And the performances that these guys actually make it work, whereas
I think for me, in the following 2 stories, I think there's much
better dialogue, but there's performances that don't work for me.
Very much so.
And the direction is not anywhere.
It's very flat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there's occasional good lines.
I mean, obviously, Pip and Jane never met a piece of naturalistic
dialogue, but are you prepared to abandon walking in case you
squash an insect underfoot.
I think it's actually a really good line and a great one line
distillation of what the Rani's character is.
You need that sort of line.
It's just the fact that they come one after the other.
And that's actually kind of a nice one.
It's not the sacrificial land, but I can't even repeat it, Nathan.
It's all these other ones which are just ridiculous.
And they don't float.
Sometimes they don't even seem to flow like one line into the
next.
Did they just like some random sentences?
The worst thing that happened to Pip and Jane is they were asked
to write space-based stories because they're kind of very fruity
English language is suited to an historical story.
It doesn't work.
It really doesn't poke you in the eye nearly as much.
When it's put in the mouths of Commander Tonka Travers or the Rani
it sounds immediately more artificial.
And I agree with you.
I think it's much more naturalistic in Mark of the Rani, and I
think you get two of the vervoids, and then it ramps up with the
ultimate faux part two.
So by the time I get to hear, it's dialogue fatigue.
I'm really struggling with it.
And we really do get a huge wodge of Pip and Jane at the end of
season 23 in the beginning of season 24.
It is a lot to cope with I think.
Because you said before that Pip and Jane wrote 5 of Mel's 1st 6
episodes, no.
They wrote 9 of 10.
Exactly.
They basically write practically half of her material.
Yeah, I think he can get away with aliens being given quite weird
dialogue, but it's when it comes out of the mouths of our
supposedly human characters.
My favourite line of the story is when Mel says, I could nominate
a few candidates for extermination myself.
And you think, who says that?
I do.
I think going back to Bonnie, if I may, I'm not saying she's a bad
actress, but I think as Todd sort of implied before, I think she's
she's giving a performance which is far bigger than the medium
requires or demands, shall I say, particularly in this era.
I think she's much, much better in the 21st century iteration.
Although I had to say in this morning's episode where, I don't
know what the line is, where she says that the Rani is, I've met
you before and you're utterly evil or something.
It's like, it was really channelling the male of the late 80s.
It was almost the same line reading.
How utterly evil.
But what I will say is that I think in her defence, and I've used
this defence, even before she came back in the 21st century, that
the character and the actress were for Colin's doctor.
Yes.
And I think she does work so much better against the bigness.
Collins a much bigger stage year performance.
He's a bigger guy.
He's got the loud outfit.
And so having her, he kind of really works and vervoids an
ultimate foe, whereas I think Mel in season 24 is when you kind of
go, oh, I don't know whether this is quite right.
I would agree that apart from Delta, I really like her in Delta.
I would agree that it works in verboids.
I think it works less so in Ultimate Foe.
I think there's, you know, was it dull and boring as they come or
whatever it is.
Yeah, yeah, she's not as good in that.
And I do think that Mel does work in George of the Man Room quite
effectively.
But having listened to her on Big Finish, I think seeing the
progression of the character and what she brought to that before
she came back into the current show, just seeing and hearing her
performance change has been a delight.
And today I thought she was again tremendous.
So, I mean, I don't hate it, but she's just too big for the small
screen at this point for me to be a believable character.
It's interesting that we both like her in Delta and what we miss
of course, is because we've got all this space stories, is the
Delta. it's not contemporary earth, but it's as close as you're
going to get, how fascinating it would have been to have seen Mel
in a present day story.
That's right.
Deltron Banner is the only story where she actually interacts with
human beings.
And it's set on earth and it's on location.
And she turns it right down.
Yeah.
She's gracing that.
But also, I think time in the Rony distorts our view of Mel.
I think without Mel and Bonnie's performance in Time and the Rani
Mel feels different.
This story is almost a distillation of what people don't like
about it.
Not me.
I like it.
But she's too big and she's wearing an outlandish outfit, even in
1987.
That's not something that you would have seen people wearing down
the street.
Whereas her outfit in Paradise Towers or Terra the vervoids.
You could get away with that.
It would look it would look weird.
But it was all the time.
Whereas what on earth is she wearing?
And also the candy stripe and the white tights in a quarry. muddy
wet quarry.
It's so bizarre.
And then the fact that because the Rani is dressing up to
impersonate her, she has to adopt that most outlandish of costumes
pretty great, actually.
Fantastic.
I see that it offends people sensibilities in some way.
And I think time and there only distorts our idea of what Mel is.
Maybe it's KJ Mara's impression of her, which distorts our idea.
Yeah, could very well be.
When she comes back in the giggle, she actually gives an interview
to DWM, where she actually says that she thought that she did a
bad job as Mel, which made me really sad and the interviewer
obviously kind of says, no, that's ridiculous.
You know, you were great, you did what you were meant to do.
And she jumped at the opportunity to come back and do a more
mature job this time round, which I think, you know, she obviously
has managed to do.
It was delightful seeing her in the kitchen.
Wonderful.
Because the job that she's doing back then is the job of a child.
She's a child star.
Obviously, she's a grown woman, but she's sort of channelling that
kind of child star energy into a family TV series for Jog 2.
Now she's a grown woman.
She's got all of those years on the stage in dramatic roles.
She's got that incredible role in EastEnders, which she won awards
for with her reaction to her child's death on screen, things like
that.
She's able to bring all of that life experience to bear.
And because Mel was only ever Bonnie.
Mel now is bonning.
So, as we've already alluded to, we have all watched the reality
war mere moments before sitting down to record...
Literally 5 minutes between stopping and getting in the car to
come here.
I did get up at quarter to 4 this morning.
You flew to watch. as early as possible.
No, I, like Simon, I finished about 10 minutes before I left.
And Russell very clearly wanted to bring the Rani back, partly
because every major female character in the history of the new
series has been rumoured to be secretly the rhyme.
And so at one point we have to do it.
And also, I think, you know, it's Russell's mission, I guess, to
give as much of the classic series law to a new audience, a 21st
century audience.
And my feeling was that he didn't do a very bad job of this in the
sense that the performance isn't the Catomara performance from
Time in the Rani, I think.
It's a lot more muted than that.
It's not the full-throated panto. vampi, but not camp.
It's not scenery chewing.
Yeah, it's not scenery chain.
Yeah.
And having 2 actresses actually play the Rani in various aspects
is actually gives it a lot of colour and flavour, and I really
like the fact that Mrs. Flood needs to see another day.
But Archie, I think, did a wonderful job.
She had so much exposition to get through, but she made it seem
effortless, but the Rani still had a plan.
The Rani's plans do seem to be getting bigger and bigger and
bigger.
Do you think maybe very unfairly.
Ah, Japanjabi was meant to be the Rani and Mark of the Rani, and
Mrs. Flood was meant to be the old crone running half house.
Come on in.
Well, so we did have some elements of the Rani in that one of the
things that we know the Rani does is dress up as the doctor's
companion.
And so we do see her.
I think this was Brendan's comment in the 2nd great and bountiful
human empire.
Mrs. Fod does dress variously as Clara, Rory and Romana one in
series one of this era of Doctor Who.
If only she turned up in Sarah Jane's hand of fear outfit.
Just like Andy Pandy.
I would have actually quite liked it if the Roddy and Mel, when
they finally met, were wearing the same out.
They're delicious.
Oh, can I just say that is the one thing for all of Pip and Jane's
greatness.
We missed out on the scene in Time in the Rani, of the Rani
dressed as Mel and Mel coming from.
That should have been the scene that you hinged everything on.
Yeah, absolutely.
And and she's still quite scien-y, I think.
I think she did have a plan, like, with all these wishes and what
the vindicator.
There was all that science-y stuff to do with that.
So I was quite happy with all that.
I think she avoids being missy.
Yes.
Because Missy as such was such a uniquely brilliant portrayal and
characterisation, but I think they've started to feed off each
other, which is what the best characterisations do.
I think the floor with Archie is that she's only done those two.
Well, I know she was at the end of that previous episode, the
Eurovision episode, but I wanted there to be more of her.
And I would hope that she would come back, despite being eaten by
Omier.
I don't...
I'd hope to...
I tend to.
But look, but given the fact that if we look at the trajectory of
any villain monster anything, they start with a kind of a unique
concept or a relatively unique concept, become more generic of the
2nd time round, and then the 3rd go, they or 3rd or 4th go, they
try and do something a bit different and try and expand on it.
I'm not prepared to say that we're necessarily at that point, but
I think that they didn't just make her even more generic a
villain.
I originally thought we've had Missy, why do we need the Rani?
I mean, in a sense, we've had the evil female time lord.
So why do we need the Rani?
But because the Rani isn't out to destroy the doctor
specifically?
And because the Rani usually has some kind of plan that involves
her power that is kind of mediated through some kind of science
although here, you know, as always, it's a combination of science
and kind of magic and alchemy, that in a way, what we do have is
raining back in the time of the Rani Rani and making it a little
bit more like the original.
But you still get all those lovelier sides and comments from Mrs
Flood, like she gets to do all of that.
And can I just say those platform shoes that Archie was wearing, my
god, walking around the sets and all that sort of thing?
Did you notice that?
costume?
They were really built up.
Like she was on some... the outfit was great.
Oh, yeah, she looked wonderful.
Yeah.
Like it's such a callback and her hair and everything.
Oh, God, there I go.
Yeah, the hair.
But the thing that I think I can see in all 3 of those portrayals
of the Rani and why the Rani is not just missy, is because they're
all at the academy together.
And so you can imagine that, you know, the master and the doctor
are having some kind of bitch session fight sort of over here and
trying to outdo each other and blah, blah, blah.
And the Rani is on the other side of the classroom lab just
looking at them going, just wanting to get her experiment.
Just wanting to get there, his experiment, those idiots over there
and basically being, you were thinking like that they were just
fools.
Releasing dinosaur to eat the president's cat.
For example.
I love that she's still taken with dinosaurs, even if they're bone
dinosaurs.
I have to say, obviously, I think the Rani is possibly the best
thing. about the season finale that we just saw and a lot of that
is down to Archie.
The thing which did disappoint me was her relationship with the
doctor.
She's always had an adversarial and almost belittling relationship
with the doctor.
She's never bought into that kind of that flirting with him that a
lot of other RTD villains do.
And I thought it was a shame that that was their relationship.
Whereas I think she could have been the much colder, more
dispassionate representative of the Rani, whereas Mrs. Flood could
occupy the position of being the cosier, friendlier Rani.
I think to the join with me and we can rule the galaxy together
offer is a kind of thing that's characteristic of the master
rather than a variety.
Yes, the Rani wouldn't want him there.
Getting in the way.
Getting under a feet, for goodness sake.
Ronnie doesn't want to run a galaxy. too much work.
She wants the galaxy to be her slave workforce while she conducts
her experiment in the leptonic era.
Well, what, of course, we're missing.
We were missing from the Reality War is what happens to the Rani
at the end of her previous 2 story.
And that is to kind of be hoist by her own potato.
I mean, so I suppose she is hoist her own batai because she gets
eaten by Omega.
But you just needed that final scene of her being, you know, going
off in her Tartars with like, you know, dinosaurs hatching or
Tetraps prodding her or something, you know, Mrs. Flood sort of
making her tea or something.
I was prepared to...
Bet money that Mrs. Flood was kind of going to lose it with the
Archie Rani and turn into Yurak.
She was going to...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought that that was it.
And I was forgetting the Rani out of the way and she says, I can
control the machine.
I was also disappointed that Mrs. Flood didn't escape with the
time ring more in a Genesis of the Daleks kind of way.
Rolling around on the floor.
Rather than in a sort of a Captain Jack kind of way. with his
band.
Yes, I wanted to see her in the immortal words of dimensions in
time, hoist by her own petardis.
Oh my god.
Why did we talk about dimensions in time?
I haven't seen it forever.
What we're missing these days is Kate Tamara's performance and she
is the OG.
I want to talk about what Kate Amara means to me because she's
embedded in the fabric of Dog 2.
I think she's the 80s villain.
Like the master is the 70s villain.
And Kaysomara has such an incredible relationship with Doctor Who
because not only does she come back.
She's in the story, she comes back to kick off a new doctor.
She then comes back, 6 years later for the big anniversary
runaround, which is seen by 16000000 people where they're on the
EastEnders lot.
She's the villain of choice for that.
That would have set back the show coming back another couple of
years.
The reason people keep saying is the Rani coming back, not because
she was tremendous character, although she was, but it's because
she's important to the show.
And I think Kate O'Mara's involvement in the show was great
because Kate O'Mara not only had the history with Colin Baker, who
she'd starred with in the brothers, which lent Frishon to those
scenes, she was also married, of course, to Jeremy Young, who
played Cal in 100,000 BC.
She was then later married to Richard Willis, who played Vash in
full circle.
Wow.
She also had a baby by Ian Cullen, who was Ixta in the Aztec.
She, she is like, she's like, kidding me?
She's like Clara in the 50th anniversary.
He's woven throughout the history of Doctor Who.
And I just think she is such an incredible presence as the Rani
the Rani, especially in this story, Time and the Rani, is her.
It's Catomara powered.
And I think we were very lucky to have her.
And so, do you remember the 50th anniversary convention in London
which we attended?
She was there.
Yes, sitting next to Peter Davidson on a panel with this
incredible mane of silvery gray hair.
She looked wonderful and she was very ill at the time.
She died like 3 months later from ovarian cancer, but she wanted
to be there, and seeing her there in the flesh, the Rani from all
of those years ago, just meant a lot to me, and I was so pleased
that I got to see her.
Now do that all again and call it an unearthly child.
Well, that's all about this week.
We'll be back next week to catch the second appearance of Blonfel
Fotch Passimir Day Slovene in Broomtown.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where
you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our
other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, Flight
through Entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.
Until next time, all together now. leave the goal.
It's the man I want.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
See you soon.
That was 500 Year Diary, starring Todd Beelby, Nathan Bottomley
Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, an even bigger eye roll was recorded on the 1st of
June 2025 and released on the 15th of June.
To commemorate the life of Cato Mara back in 2021, our James Bond
commentary podcast, Bondfinger, did a short series of commentaries
on some of her TV performances from the 60s and 70s.
You can check them out at bondfinger.com slash Omarathon.
Now do that all again and call it unearthly child.
I knew when I was making that.
That's where we go out.
That's it.
I don't get it.
Because he called it 100,000 PC. Oh, and a small part of me died.
But it's just how beautifully heartfelt that speech was followed
by you being picky.
It is absolutely perfect.
I thought my fan cards would be revoked. real time when you're
assembling your thoughts, they're about to come around your mouth
and I almost said an unearthly child and defaulted to 100,000 BC
and had the thoughts at the same time as I was speaking, Simon
won't like.
Go save it Vash. of course, because time in the mark of the Rani.
I mean, she's a, what, 40-something year old woman?
Oh, there.
He's a toy boy.
He's 18 years her junior.
And just fun fact.
That's quite a hot...
Well, yes.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
But also the fact that he also married Kira from Full Circle.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He's on set with his future with his future wife there.
Practically everybody else in that gang of gay.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thai lost.
I don't trust her.
Do you think it was interesting today that we had that flashback
to John Pertuy with the Daleks and the floating heads of Trouton
and heart and all the pictures and then you having dimensions in
time, the floating heads of Trouton and Hartnell.
So Russell does.
So obviously in last in last week's episode in Wishworld, we
actually get 3 flashbacks to Cato Mara as the Rani, including one
from Dimensions in Time.
And Russell did this thing.
He did a post about the Rani.
And I think he actually mentions that as one of the kind of, you
know, like one of the adventures that the Rani is in, which is
absolutely it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he doesn't care anything about Canon because it was on
television.
It happened.
And, you know, like he talks about her being in disguise and all
of that sort of thing.
And how, and he even kind of teases the fact that he wouldn't put
us through that two-part story without giving us the Rani and Mel
meeting for the 1st time.
And that was so great.
Don't you think?
Like that thing where she says, I haven't thought about...
And I thought you were a painted princess who wouldn't have
survived or whatever, like, like all of that stuff was just
terrifically great, I think.
Oh, it was quiet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, we would have been justly quite furious. one of the many
fabulous things about the Rani, which is true of great dog 2
villains, is that she has an independently adversarial
relationship with the companion.
Yeah, not just Mel, but also Perry and Mark and Randy. you know
the 1st time she sees her.
Who's this brat?
Yeah, but that's, but that's, that's the way the mark.
I mean the master's always at his best when he has a independent
relationship with the companion, which Missy, which Missy has with
Clara, right?
Miss Grant, I've come to take away from all this.
Exactly.
Thank you, Miss Grant.
I'll let you know.
It's Delgado's best line in the role.
And, you know, the moment where Missy pushes Clara down the hole
in order to test how deep it is, yes, exactly.
Acting as an audience.
Oh my god. so good.
So good.
I think we're done.