Time and the Rani by: Pip and Jane Baker and directed by: Andrew Morgan

 

Time and the Rani stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie with Kate O’Mara as the Rani.  It was written by: Pip and Jane Baker and directed by: Andrew Morgan with Andrew Cartmel as Script Editor and John Nathan-Turner as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Mondays from 7 to 28 September 1987 on BBC1.

 

There are many points Doctor Who fans like to point to as the beginning of the end of the show.  Today, most point to Warriors of the Deep as the story that gave Michael Grade the idea to cancel the show, but of course that failed.  Some say The Twin Dilemma at the end of that season led to the low viewership necessary to put the show on hiatus, however Season 22 did not have significant drops in viewership, at least not when compared to Seasons 19 to 21.  Then by the time the 1987 season was put into production, the BBC had enacted their move which would lead ultimately to cancellation, albeit after three more years of production before the plug was pulled.  That move wasn’t allowing John Nathan-Turner to move on to another show to see what a new producer would do, nor was it even the firing of Colin Baker forcing a recast, nor was it the hiring of Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor.  No, what gave them the final push to cancel the show was moving Doctor Who once again outside of its Saturday evening slot, something that was successful when done under Peter Davison due to the twice weekly airing and slightly earlier than the timeslot Season 24 was given.  The Season 24 timeslot was generally aired closer to 7:30-8:00 pm, directly up against ITV’s long running soap opera, Coronation Street which killed the ratings, peaking with the first episode at 5.1 million viewers, the full season peaking at 5.5 million for the first episode of Dragonfire.  Viewing figures peaking in the low 5 millions would only occasionally be broken, but would steadily decline until Season 26 gave the BBC all it needed to cut the show completely.

 

It is lucky, however, that Season 24 even made it to air, as John Nathan-Turner, promised he would no longer be in the role of producer at the end of Season 23 was dragged back and told to fire Colin Baker, cast a new actor, and get scripts and a new script editor ready for production to start and airing to happen in the fall of 1987.  Time and the Rani was commissioned as Strange Matter by Nathan-Turner, who approached Pip and Jane Baker knowing that they could work quickly and within budget.  Luckily, Bonnie Langford had already signed on for a second year as companion Melanie, Kate O’Mara wished to return as the Rani, and Nathan-Turner was able to negotiate with the BBC to at least use Colin Baker in at least the first serial to give him a proper sendoff and regeneration, all before production began.  Baker, rightfully unhappy with how he was treated by the BBC in an unjust firing from his dream role, declined the offer to appear in the serial so the regeneration scene would become the opening of the story which the BBC then vetoed so it was decided the regeneration would be filmed with the new actor as the Doctor, face blurred with special effects as a pre-title sequence.  Nathan-Turner was successful in hiring Andrew Cartmel as script editor for the Season, a role he would fulfill until the cancellation in 1989.  Sadly, Cartmel had little input into Time and the Rani as Pip and Jane Baker had little respect for the new script editor due to his inexperience, forcing Cartmel to use Nathan-Turner’s influence as leverage to cut certain sequences before production began.  This absence of influence is felt in the finished version of Time and the Rani, as it’s a serial that suffers from a meandering plot.  The Rani’s plan isn’t fully explained until the final episode while the first episode has the Doctor as an amnesiac while Mel spends much of it running around the planet with a character who isn’t even named until the second episode.  The plan itself also makes little sense with the strange matter she is attempting to harvest will give her power, somehow.

 

Pip and Jane Baker’s script is one where the characterization is all over the place.  The Lakertyan’s while under some really good makeup from Lesley Rawstorne and performances from stalwart actors like Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham, don’t actually have much characterization outside of being a race enslaved by the Rani.  The Rani’s Tetraps again have an interesting enough design, but they don’t have any motivation outside of servitude and eventual rebellion, although the rebellion doesn’t come.  There also seems to be a statement against outside help with the Lakertyan’s dumping the Doctor’s solution to their bee problem so they can be self-sufficient, but that really doesn’t work at anything.

 

Nathan-Turner had Sylvester McCoy in mind for the role of the Seventh Doctor, after seeing him in a production of The Pied Piper and being suggested to him by both McCoy’s agent Brian Wheeler and BBC producer Clive Doig.  The BBC requested screen tests with some other candidates which were written by Andrew Cartmel (and one later integrated into Dragonfire) opposite Janet Fielding which landed McCoy the part.  While the script is doing McCoy no favors, he manages to hold his own throughout the production.  There isn’t even a characterization down yet, just some traits but there is a charm to McCoy in every scene except a few early on where he is just getting into the groove of things.  The scenes in Colin Baker’s coat feel out of place, for good reason the costuming just doesn’t fit with McCoy as an actor or as a person (it’s far too big of a coat).   He and Kate O’Mara are shining off one another, both realizing that this script is one that must be taken with some elements of camp to make it work.  This is a story where the Rani disguises herself as Mel and claims Mel is the Rani after all, a plot point that only works with campy performances and that’s something that O’Mara delivers on.  The fandom at large is often harsh on Bonnie Langford, but like McCoy and O’Mara she is working admirably with the material she is given.  There is a sense of independence in her subplot, although not explored, as the first half of the story has her attempting to find and save the Doctor from the Rani and her first scene with the Doctor is one of the shining moments of the serial.

 

The serial’s direction was given to Andrew Morgan who clearly has talents that aren’t really being used here due to the location filming consisting of a standard Doctor Who quarry although the effects to the sky and early use of computer-generated imagery on a large scale while aged, is admirable.  Morgan also manages to make a lot of the studio sessions work well enough, but where he really shines is whenever there is a need for pyrotechnics, something that he will repeat and improve greatly upon the next year when he was contracted to direct Remembrance of the Daleks.  The music by Keff McCulloch is far too synth heavy, although his rendition of the Doctor Who theme and the new titles that accompany it is excellent.

 

Overall, the fascinating story of the troubled production of Time and the Rani goes a long way to explain why the story is so weak, mainly due to a weak script, the lack of a script editor, and a generally rushed production, it does not forgive it.  There are still some things to enjoy here, with Kate O’Mara dominating every scene she is in, McCoy developing the way he is going to play the Doctor as the story progresses, and Bonnie Langford holding her own in a script that really is doing her no favors, and of course the direction, but it is still a very weak start to a season that already had little support.  3/10.