Time and the Rani is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 7 to September 28, 1987. This story was the first to feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. Sylvester McCoy (born August 20, 1943) is a Scottish actor. ... Andrew Cartmel is a British science-fiction writer and journalist. ... John Nathan-Turner. ... This is a list of Doctor Who television serials. ... September 7 is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years). ... September 28 is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years). ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Trial of a Time Lord is the name used on screen for all fourteen episodes comprising the 23rd season (1986) of the original Doctor Who series. ... The Ultimate Foe is the generally accepted title for a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from November 29 to December 6, 1986. ... Paradise Towers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 5 to October 26, 1987. ... This is a list of Doctor Who television serials. ... A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... List of Doctor Who serials Doctor Who audio releases Doctor Who spin-offs - includes a discussion of the many novelisations and original novels based on the series History of Doctor Who The Doctor (Doctor Who) List of supporting characters in Doctor Who, including villains and aliens List of robots in... September 7 is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years). ... September 28 is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years). ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Synopsis

The story is set on the planet Lakertya where the Rani is building a super-brain. To assist her in this enterprise, she has kidnapped a number of geniuses, including Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein. It begins with the Rani and her allies the Tetraps hijacking the TARDIS; the disruption and turbulence causes the Doctor to regenerate. The Rani is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French microbiologist and chemist. ... Albert Einstein, by Yousuf Karsh Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. ... The Third Doctor emerging from the TARDIS (from the 1970 serial Spearhead from Space). ...

Plot

The Doctor uncovers a plan to kidnap Earth's geniuses.

The TARDIS is attacked by a powerful force whilst in flight. The entire console room is distorting and the Sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush are both knocked unconscious. The ship then materialises on the planet Lakertya as a Lakertyan, Ikona, looks on. The TARDIS' doors open and the renegade Time Lady, the Rani (Kate O'Mara) enters. She tells her unseen companion to "leave the girl" and that the Doctor was "the man I want." As she leaves, a lumbering, hair-covered creature, Urak, enters and it moves towards the Doctor's side and turns his prone body over. The Doctor's face begins to blur and glow. His long curly blond hair begins to disappear and turns into short black hair. The blurring and the glowing stops and the Doctor's physical regeneration is complete. Image File history File links Screenshot from the Doctor Who serial Time and the Rani. ... Image File history File links Screenshot from the Doctor Who serial Time and the Rani. ... Colin Baker (born June 8, 1943) is a British actor who is best known for playing the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush (from Paradise Towers). ... Tom Baker as the Doctor, in the Time Lord ceremonial robes of the Prydonian chapter (from The Deadly Assassin). ... The Rani is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Kate OMara (born August 10, 1939), British actress, born in Leicester. ... In biology, regeneration is the ability to recreate lost or damaged tissues, organs and limbs. ...

At her Lakertya base, the Rani finishes supervising two Lakertyans, Beyus (Donald Pickering) and his daughter Sarn, as they store Albert Einstein, who had been kidnapped, in a sealed cabinet alongside a number of others. The Seventh Doctor regains consciousness in the Rani’s laboratory. The Doctor's mental state is caught in his former persona, and he recalls his last conversation immediately before he was forced to regenerate. When he overcomes his temporary disorientation, he recognises the Rani. Examining her equipment, he sees an asteroid which he identifies as being composed of strange matter. When the Doctor demands an explanation, the Rani refuses to discuss her "ethics" with him. The Doctor is taken back with her use of the word and tells her not to be a "hypocrite." The Rani becomes angry and she grabs her gun. The Doctor starts to run, but he trips. Sarn rushes to help the Doctor and the Rani promises to punish her for doing so. A scared Sarn runs out of the Rani's lab as the Doctor re-emerges on his feet. He grabs his umbrella and threatens to smash a vital piece of the Rani's equipment to pieces. The Rani summons Urak who enters her lab and shoots the Doctor. Sylvester McCoy (born August 20, 1943) is a British actor. ...

Inside the TARDIS, Ikona rescues Mel. As he carries her away, Mel regains consciousness and escapes from Ikona. Sarn runs away and encounters Mel who is also running. Sarn panics and trips a wire which creates a transparent bubble, trapping her inside. The bubble bounces around before exploding, reducing Sarn to a smoking skeleton.

The Rani orders Urak to reset the trap while she injects the Doctor with something to give him amnesia. When the Doctor comes round, the Rani pretends to be Mel in order to persuade him to repair a faulty machine in her laboratory. Ikona recaptures Mel, and he believes her to be in league with the Rani. She saves him from another of the bubble traps and thus convinces him that she is friendly.

The Doctor is puzzled and confused and refuses to continue work. He and the Rani return to his TARDIS to fetch a radiation wave meter. There, the Doctor changes his clothes, trying on those of his fourth, third, fifth and second incarnations, amongst others, before settling on a new outfit for himself.

Mel sees Urak and stumbles into a bubble trap. She is caught inside the bubble, which bounces over a cliff and lands on a lake. Ikona rescues her and they retrieve some weapons before being attacked by another Tetrap. Escaping, they head for the Rani’s fortress where Ikona meets Sarn’s mother Faroon (Wanda Ventham). Faroon discovers her daughter’s skeleton and goes to speak with Beyus.

The Rani goes to fetch some vital material for the Doctor to use in the machine, but is captured by Urak who mistakes her for Mel. Mel meanwhile makes her way into the Rani’s control room where the Doctor believes her to be the Rani. The two travellers eventually convince each other that they are who they say they are by feeling each other’s pulses. Beyus helps them to escape by telling the Doctor the combination to unlock the control room door – it is 953, which is both the Doctor’s and the Rani’s age.

Outside the control room, Mel finds the cabinets containing the kidnapped geniuses and sees that one is reserved for the Doctor. The Rani returns and, while Mel, Beyus and Faroon escape, the Doctor hides in a dark Tetrap eyrie. The Rani locks the gate behind him and he finds himself surrounded by the awaking Tetraps.

Beyus rescues the Doctor and tells him to go to the Lakertyan’s Centre of Leisure, where the reason for his obedience to the Rani will be revealed. The Doctor takes a micro-thermistor from the Rani’s machine and leaves.

Mel is captured by the Tetraps and paralysed by a sting from the tongue of one of them. The Rani tells Faroon to give the Doctor a message that she will exchange Mel for the micro-thermistor.

At the Centre of Leisure, the Doctor and Ikona find that the Lakertyan people are indolent and apathetic. There is a new globe-like device suspended from the Centre, but no one will tell the distressed Ikona its purpose. The Rani, using remote control, suddenly stops the globe from spinning, causing killer insects emerge from it. The Doctor, Beyus and the other Lakertyans run screaming from the Centre.

Faroon delivers her message to the Doctor, who agrees to the proposed exchange. The Rani tricks him, however, as the ‘Mel’ she releases is revealed to be only a holographic projection. The renegade Time Lord reinserts the micro-thermistor in her machine, making it operational, but finds that the combined brain power of the kidnapped geniuses is still not sufficient for her purposes. Urak suggests that she link her own brain in. She refuses and orders that the Doctor’s cabinet be prepared.

The Doctor notes that the Rani has a fixed trajectory rocket launcher and realises that she must be working to meet a specific deadline. Ikona distracts the Tetrap guarding the entrance to the Rani’s fortress and the Doctor enters. He is caught by Urak, paralysed and placed in his cabinet. The Rani then enters a sealed room, followed by Mel. Inside is a massive brain. With the Doctor’s input, the brain is able to start carrying out the calculations that the Rani desires.

Urak and the other Tetraps leave the fortress to punish selected Lakertyans by placing around their leg a bracelet-like control device that will reduce them to a skeleton if removed.

The Rani finds that the Doctor is confusing the brain and orders him disconnected. The Doctor jumps from his cabinet, and he and Mel then trap the Rani inside it. In the control room, the Doctor finds that the Rani’s rocket is intended to strike the asteroid of strange matter. He and Mel watch a recording of a supernova on a screen. Mel realises that the Rani is using the brain to come up with a lightweight substitute for strange matter in order to detonate the asteroid.

The Rani escapes from the cabinet and explains her plan to the Doctor and Mel. She needs helium-2. This will fuse with the upper Lakertyan atmosphere to form a shell of chronons – discrete particles of time – and then the brain will multiply, filling the gap between shell and planet, thereby creating a time manipulator, a cerebral mass capable of dominating and controlling time anywhere in the cosmos. Urak overhears the Rani boasting that all life on Lakertya will be destroyed. The Doctor gives the brain the correct formula and it devises loyhargil as the substance required. As the production of loyhargil starts in the Rani’s laboratory, the Doctor and Mel escape from the fortress.

The Doctor helps remove the control devices from the Lakertyans, then returns to the fortress and places them around the brain. Beyus stays to complete this task as the Doctor, Mel and Faroon escape. The Doctor confronts the Rani, who detonates the devices. The brain nevertheless completes its countdown and the rocket launches, but because of the Doctor’s interference, it misses the asteroid.

The Rani escapes to her TARDIS, but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps who take her prisoner. Urak has tied the Rani up and he tells her that when they return to their home world the Rani will be forced to help them overcome their "plasma needs" and then he laughs.

The Doctor takes all the captured geniuses on board the TARDIS so that he can return them home. He also gives the Lakertyans the antidote to the killer insects, but Ikona pours it away as he believes they should solve their own problems from now on. As the Doctor and Mel board the TARDIS, Mel mentions that it is going to take time for her to get use to the Doctor's seventh persona. The Doctor smiles at her and says, "I'll grow on you Mel, I'll grow on you."

Notes

1. This story's working title was Strange Matter.
2. This story was novelised by Pip & Jane Baker and published bt Target Books in 1987 with photomontage cover. It was rereleased in 1991 with cover art by Alister Pearson.
3. Although this was the first story to feature the Seventh Doctor, it was written in anticipation of Colin Baker returning as the Sixth Doctor. When he declined to even film the regeneration sequence, Sylvester McCoy was made to wear his predecessor's costume and a blond curly wig and film the sequence himself, making him the only actor to appear onscreen as two different Doctors.
4. The story features a pre-credits sequence where the TARDIS crash-lands on Lakertya. This is only the third time in the series history that there was a pre-credit sequence. Castrovalva (1982) and The Five Doctors (1983) were the first two stories to have a cold opening.
5. The Seventh Doctor tries on several earlier costumes including the Troughton fur coat, the Pertwee smoking jacket, Tom Baker's coat and scarf, Davison's cricket outfit and other costumes. He also wears the Colin Baker coat for much of the first two episodes.
6. The Loyhargil, the massive brain entity, is an anagram of the "holy grail".
7. This was the second and final appearance in the series of Kate O'Mara as the Rani. O'Mara reprised her role in the charity sketch Dimensions in Time (1993) and in the BBV audio adventure "The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind."
8. This story was the first time Doctor Who's titles were created with a computer. Moreover, much of the effects, like the bubble Mel is trapped in, were done in the same manner.
9. Keff McCulloch composed the new opening titles music, used until the end of the regular run of the series.
10. Features a guest appearance by Peter Tuddenham. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.

Target Books was a British publishing company, founded in the early 1970s as a subsidiary of WH Allen Limited. ... Colin Baker (born June 8, 1943) is a British actor who is best known for playing the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Castrovalva is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from January 4 to January 12, 1982 It was the first full serial to feature Peter Davison in the starring role. ... The Five Doctors was a special movie-length episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the programmes twentieth anniversary. ... Dimensions in Time was a charity special of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that ran in two parts on November 27 and 28, 1993. ... Peter Tuddenham is an actor who provided the voices of Zen, Orac and Slave, computers on the science fiction TV show Blakes 7. ... Several celebrities have made guest appearances in Doctor Who. ...

External links

• Cast and Crew list, on the BBC website