Doctor Who: The Mark Of The Rani Review

There are alot of classic Doctor Who villains out there from the Daleks to the Cybermen to some more lesser known villains like The Ice Warriors. With all of these characters having the same thing in common in that not only have they all been brough back in modern Doctor Who but they've also been featured in multiple Doctor Who stories with the episode that i'm going to be talking to you all about today featuring the debut of a character who only appeared in two Classic Doctor Who and an anniversary charity special that we don't talk about before making her big return just a few short weeks ago and so then join me as I review the episode that sees The Master team up with another evil timelord with the episode in question being called simply just "The Mark Of The Rani" enjoy.

The plot of this episode is when The Doctor and Peri find themselves being sucked down to earth in the nineteenth century and land in the town of Killingworth they discover that something has infected all of the male minors that work there and set out to stop it before it's far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad as is pretty par the course for these early Colin Baker stories this one is pretty dark story wise which is something that does work given the fact that one of the episodes main villains is The Master and he is be default a very dark character with this episodes plot being a good example of just how good that the Colin Baker era could have been if the BBC had more faith in it as this is a plot that very well could have worked as the plot of a feature length film and while yes there are aspects pf the plot that don't quite work out all that well like the fact that they never explain why only the male members of this village are being given this thing that prevents them from sleeping in the first place as that is something that could have been used to make The Rani seem all the more smarter then what she already is in the first place and the fact that this episodes does at times feel a tad bit undercooked as a result of it not really explaining all that much with the plot of this episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this episode is Colin Baker as The Doctor , Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown and Anthony Ainley as The Master. Also starring in this episode is Kate O'Mara as The Rani , Terence Alexander as Lord Ravensworth , Gawn Grainger as George Stephenson , Peter Childs as Jack Ward , Gary Cady as Luke Ward , William Ilkley as Tim Bass , Hus Levent as Edwin Green , Kevin White as Sam Rudge and Martyn Whitby as Drayman.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With the actors that you expect a good performance from Colin and Anthony for example really giving us exactly that which is something that does make alot of of sense as Anthony had been playing The Master since the later end on Tom Baker's run on Doctor Who and therefor it would make sense that he would really know how best to play his version of the character and to his credit he still does play the character really well with even Colin Baker really starting to come into his own as The Doctor as well as even tho he debuted around the middle of the previous series this series would mark his first full series as the character and as a result of that is the fact that we get alot more of what Colin can do as an actor something that does come into play quite alot during this particular episode with even Nicola Bryant turning in a somewhat passable performance as Peri as she really doesn't get to do all that much outside of scream for The Doctor in this episode however this episodes true standout performer has to be Kate O'Mara as The Rani as she just steals every single scene that she's in with it being made clear as day that she's having a blast making this episode and playing this really over the top and yet still smart character which is something that really does shine through in her final performance in this episode with this episode acting really being helped by the fact that this episodes script is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.

With this still being very early on in The Sixth Doctors life he is still a tad bit cold towards Peri something that we do see all throughout this episode. As he does frequently yell at and put her down quite alot during the episode and while he doesn't outright strangle her like he did in his debuting episode there are times where you can see that that's what he's thinking almost as if he is still trying to work not only who he is as a person but also if he can trust her as well which is something that does give this version of The Doctor a unique hook if you will as all throughout the show the character will just straight away trust his new companion and will almost never yell at them and yet when he does yell at them it's for there own safety and yet here's a version of The Doctor that is just constantly angry and is always fighting that urge to yell at her for other reason which does make it weird that they would remove this aspect of the character in his very next series as people did complain about that aspect of his character almost as if they were expecting him to be like the version of the first Doctor that we got towards the end of William's Hartnell's time on the show where as was this kind person who would do anything for anybody and yet what they instead got was basically a more modernized version of the early version of The First Doctor where he was mischievous and where he was ego centric and where he was a bit angry and untrusting towards his companions but what those people failed to realise was the fact that that Doctor went through a character where he learned to be more nicer and more warmer towards his allies and that's something that this version of the character doesn't get the chance to go through and therefor it makes his change in the character come out of nowhere.

As you can all no doubt work out from the above title this is the first episode to feature the character of The Rani. With the character here being someone whilst she is still evil in her own way with the more then willing to use humans as her personal test subjects without them even knowing it however even she is prone to falling for The Master's own tricks which could be seen as being hindrance to her character in this episode as while it does make there dynamic in this episode one that's really interesting it does also make look like a much more weaker villain not due to how she is being written in this episode as she's written really well but because of the fact that The Master is the much more stronger character and there any new villain that he gets paired with is going to come off looking like the weaker of the two and while of course it would have been impossible to predict that she would be coming back in just a few short years there still should have been some effort as to showing us why she hates The Doctor as the only hint of that that we get in this episode is when The Doctor starts to question her on what she's doing on Earth at this time and that's really it loke there should have been some backstory to explain why the two characters don't get along and why she hates The Doctor especially as the makers of this episode were clearly not going to make it apart of the main plot of the episode anyway and even tho she's paired with the much more stronger character of The Master The Rani herself when she's on her own or not in a scene with The Master does get a chance to show us the audience just how good that she could be as we see that she's every bit as smart as The Doctor only without thee humanity to know when to stop.

In what was a very odd move on the part of the BBC the whole series that this particular episode is apart off has every single episode be two forty five minuet episodes. Which is great when you've got stories that involve either Daleks or Cybermen but when your introducing a new villain you kind of want at the very least five episodes to tell the story as you also have a brand new character to set up and introduce as well as tell a good story but what makes this worse is the fact that this choice seems to have been made very late in the day as you can straight up tell where all of the cliffhangers would have been if this episode was made up of four twenty five minuet episodes and not two forty five minuet episodes as the episodes action would just be ramping up and getting exciting again and a main hero character will find themselves in some trouble before the episode will fade to black however instead of now playing the end credits which is what you should do after a cliffhanger the episode carries on for another twenty five minuets where the same thing happens again only now we get the end credits sequence at the end of the cliffhanger and while granted we now take having forty five minuet to tell a Doctor Who story for granted and in the 1980's it was still a new thing and one can't help but wonder if the show would have improved the next series if the makers of this show had stuck to this two forty five minuet episode format instead of just falling bac on doing four twenty five minuet episodes as to be fair here you can tell a more grander story with two forty five minuet episodes then you can with four twenty minuet episodes as now you can take your time in telling the story in the best way possible but in the old format which does still work you are also rushing the episode along to get to the next plot beat as well.

While seeing The Master and The Rani team up for this episode was a really good idea and is something that does somewhat work for the episode. What doesn't work is the fact that we don't get any kind if clue as to what there evil plan or why there even working together in the first place as while yes they both do hate humans so having them team up does make sense from that point of view but what doesn't work is the fact that The Master wants to speed up Earth's development which does go against his character as he hates humans so therefor wouldn't he want to do anything to slow down there development and not speed it up where as The Rani is more concerned with helping the people on a planet that she's already conquered regain their ability to sleep by using the humans as her own personal test subjects and that's really it which is something that her character would do as she is a scientist altho she has no morals so she's willing to use anyone or anything as her test subjects regardless of if they know about it or not but all that does is make it pointless for them to team up as The Master could have gone to anytime to achieve his goal he didn't have to be with The Rani much like how The Rani didn't need him all that much either because as we see in the episode she's more then capable of getting the make members of this village to come to her willingly which does beg the question of why there teaming up in the first place as nether of their plans need the other to make them work with being something that very easily could have been explained in the episode by having The Doctor or even The Master or The Rani for that matter just say that there teaming up because The Master needs her knowledge on certain things and the only way that she'd give it up with if he helped her with her plan and that's really it with that being something that could have been in just one line of dialog by any of the three characters.

Now then this episode really has / had an exact grand total running of exactly one hour and thirty minuets. Which is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for any series 22 episode of Doctor Who and to be fait this episode really does gave the right amount of plot there to really cover that amount of running time but at the same time tho it really doesn't use that running time all that wisely as the episode doesn't explain why The Master and the rani are teaming up in the first place nor does it explain why The Master wants to seep up the human race's development nor why it's only the make members of this village that's being tested upon all of which are things that are key plot points in the episode and all of which serve to make elements of this episode plot feel undercooked almost as if the makers of this show had no idea that they were going to be getting all this extra time until all of the scripts for this series were done by which time it's two little to late to add anything that would have fixed these issues with the episode not even taking the time to either fully develop alot of it's characters as The Rani despite being in the title gets no development as a character as we don't get to find out all that much about her including why she would personally want to hate The Doctor in the first place with the episode not even giving The doctor's own companion alot of things to actually do in the story thus making her feel more like an afterthought when there are parts in the episode where she could have played a more active role even if it's just consoling the female members of the village just something would have been nice but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this an action shoe that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With this episode shockingly having a decent amount of action in it with all of this episodes action being really well handled and even tho you can see some of men not really hitting whom ever it is that there meant to be hitting it's done so well that you don't really notice it alot of the time with the best action scene being in the whole episode being the cliffhanger for episode one where The Doctor strapped to a bed manages to knock a device out of The Masters hand which then sends him going down a hill in the village all with Peri chasing after him but it doesn't stop there as some of the infected men that The Doctor had made even more angry earlier on in the episode get to him first and then part him on a mine cart and push him on it tracks with the aim of sending him crashing down into the mine which is such a good way to end the episode as now us the audience are now left wondering how The Doctor will get out of this one as he doesn't have the use of his hands and while the way he gets out of it is a bit anti-climatic as one of The Doctor's allies just comes out into frame and stops him and that's really it doesn't and it change the fact that really the entire cliffhanger bit itself was something that was really well done especially on a BBC budget with the sequence itself looking good really good and being alot more better then what it really had any right to be with the same thing also being true for all of this episodes action scenes as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall this is a sold debut episode for The Rani as it does give us a good idea of her character but at the same time tho this is an episode that does have alot of flaws in it something which does very sadly tend to be the same with all of Colin Baker's run this is despite the fact that this episode is still a pretty solid episode in it's own right as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad tings that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally sued in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies ad gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Amazon . Co . Uk , the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with really alot of them being really better quality then what you'd really think of and really all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.