The Rani (Doctor Who)
The Rani is a fictional character in the British BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, portrayed by Kate O'Mara. She is a renegade Time Lord, and a nemesis of the series' title character, a Time Lord known as the Doctor. The Rani is an amoral biochemist who experiments on humans and other species, and considers everything secondary to her research. The character appeared in two classic serials, The Mark of the Rani (1985) and Time and the Rani (1987), before the original run of Doctor Who went off the air in 1989. The Rani later appeared as the principal villain in Dimensions in Time, a 1993 Doctor Who charity television special for BBC Children in Need. The character has since been featured in multiple Doctor Who audio dramas and novels.
This article is about the Doctor Who classic series character. For the Sarah Jane Adventures character, see Rani Chandra (The Sarah Jane Adventures).The Rani
Description[edit]
The Rani is a renegade Time Lord and amoral scientist who engages in unscrupulous biological experimentation on humans and other species. She is a nemesis of the series' title character, the Doctor, another Time Lord who is technically a renegade as well. Time Lords are an ancient race of extraterrestrials from the planet Gallifrey who possess the ability to regenerate into a new form when mortally wounded or killed, and who utilize time travel technology in the form of spacecraft called TARDISes. In the Rani's backstory, she is banished from Gallifrey as a result of her radical experiments. She is a contemporary of both the Doctor and his longtime enemy, the Master, the three having attended the Time Lord Academy together in their youth.[1]
Radio Times described the Rani as "the renegade Time Lady who is as evil as the Doctor is good" and the Doctor's "archest of villains".[2] Harry Beckett wrote for Doctor Who TV that "her Machiavellian personality and sheer doggedness in achieving scientific results made her a formidable foe and a person who you would not want to cross paths with."[3] Caroline Frost of HuffPost UK called the Rani "one of the few characters to match the irrepressible [Doctor] for wit, power and supernatural abilities."[4] The Rani's television portrayer, Kate O'Mara, described the character as "power-crazed" and "ruthless", noting that "one assumes that a creature such as the Rani, who is a scientist, is totally amoral and prepared to sacrifice all in the cause of science."[5] Nur Hussein of SCIFI.radio called the Rani "iconic", writing that "Unlike the power-hungry villain archetype of the Master, the Rani was a ruthless evil scientist who wasn't interested in ruling the universe as much as she wanted to understand it, no matter the cost ... her amoral pursuit of science was an interesting foil for the Doctor."[6] Doctor Who TV designated the character "an absolutely wonderful Doctor Who villain because her motivation is purely for scientific results."[7] Mark Donaldson of Screen Rant noted, "The Rani didn't have the Master's obsession with the Doctor. She was never particularly interested in the Doctor and the Master's games."[8] The character has also been described as glamorous,[9][10] rapacious,[11] cunning and evil, powerful and dynamic, dastardly and possessing fiendish cleverness.[10]
While the Doctor's time traveling TARDIS is stuck with the exterior form of a 1963 police telephone call box due to an irreparable "chameleon circuit", the Rani's TARDIS is unbroken and retains its ability to disguise itself. Like the Doctor's, the Rani's TARDIS is paradoxically "bigger on the inside", with a similar console.
Literature[edit]
A novelisation of The Mark of the Rani, written by Pip and Jane Baker, was published by Target Books in January 1986.[48] The Rani is the villain in Race Against Time, a 1986 Choose Your Own Adventure-style children's gamebook, also written by the Bakers, which is part of the Make Your Own Adventure with Doctor Who series.[49] In the story, the Sixth Doctor recruits the reader to help him defeat the Rani and her dangerous Time Destabilizer.[49] In December 1987, Target Books published a novelisation of Time and the Rani, written by Pip and Jane Baker.[23]
The Rani appears in the Virgin Missing Adventures spin-off novel State of Change (1994) by Christopher Bulis, set after The Mark of the Rani. The Master has escaped the Rani's sabotaged TARDIS, but left her adrift in a space-time bubble until she encounters a benign entity that creates a distorted pocket reality where the Egyptians possess 20th-century technology, due to their access to the databanks of a duplicate of the Doctor's TARDIS console. The Rani tries her hand at political machinations in this reality before the intervention of the Doctor breaks her control over the entity, at which point she escapes in her repaired TARDIS.[50][51][52]
The Rani is mentioned in BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventure novel The Ancestor Cell (2000) by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole. The Eighth Doctor's former companion, Fitz Kreiner, claims to have killed the Rani and the Master and now displays their skulls as trophies.[53] The Past Doctor Adventure novel Divided Loyalties (1999) by Gary Russell features a dream sequence where the Rani is one of a group of promising young Time Lords called "the Deca" which include many future renegades, including the Doctor, the War Chief, the Meddling Monk and the Master.[54] The Rani briefly appears in an artificially created parallel universe in the Past Doctor Adventures novel The Quantum Archangel (2001). In this reality she, the Master, the Monk and Drax pose as a group of German scientists.[55][56]
The short story "Rescue", written by David Roden and published in the Doctor Who Yearbook 1995, features the Rani rescuing Cyrian from a Cyberman invasion of his home planet DV Acrol 8, and establishing him as her companion before the events of Dimensions in Time.[57] The Rani returns in the 50th anniversary Sixth Doctor Puffin Books digital short story "Something Borrowed" (2013) by Richelle Mead. In this story, she poses as the fiancée of a Koturian nobleman to learn more about the species' unique form of regeneration, but is foiled by the Doctor and Peri.[58]
The Danbury Mint released a Doctor Who Chess Set in 1992, featuring a pewter figurine of O'Mara's Rani as the Black Queen.[5][59] Eaglemoss Collections produced a Doctor Who Time Lords figurine set featuring the Rani and the Inquisitor in 2018.[60][61] Multiple collectible trading cards of the Rani have been produced:
Reception[edit]
O'Mara's performance as the Rani has been widely praised, with her portrayal deemed both memorable and definitive.[3][6][10][40] Nur Hussein of SCIFI.radio described the performance as "delightfully over-the-top",[6] and Harry Beckett of Doctor Who TV noted, "She looked exactly how an evil Time Lady should appear ... O'Mara had a prepossessing sense of evil about her, a seductive look that could be both a sneer and a flirtatious smile."[3] Dan Wilson of Metro wrote, "Kate O'Mara played the part to perfection. Powerful and dynamic, with more than a hint of dominatrix glam, she really made the part her own ... O'Mara soars above the bad writing ... If the Rani is to return, then the actor who takes the role would do well to take the best of what Kate O'Mara gave."[10] The Rani has become a favorite among both fans and critics, who have clamored for her return to the series for decades.[3][8][9][10][39][40]