Day 342 — December 8th 2021
Time and the Rani Parts One and Two
Time and the Rani — Part One
Ooh, Season Twenty-Four. In many ways, this run of adventures is the entire reason I chose to do an Old Testament marathon this year. When I did my last marathon in 2013/2014, Season Twenty-Four came out with the lowest average score of any season between 1963 and 2014. I can’t remember what that average was, but it was lower than any other. That’s not especially a reflection on Sylvester McCoy’s time as Doctor Who, though, because at the other end of the spectrum Season Twenty-Six came out with the highest score of them all!
Ever since completing that marathon I’ve thought of this as being the low point in Doctor Who’s history, and I watched baffled as several friends declared their love for the run. Almost exactly a year ago to the day I was asked to provide some alternate covers for Cutaway Comics’ brilliant Paradise Towers sequel, and to refresh my memory after so long I decided to stick the story on and watch it again. And do you know what? I really enjoyed it! I enjoyed it so much that when it finished I carried on and watched Delta and the Bannermen. And after that I did Dragonfire. When I woke up the next day I decided it would be a shame to not complete the set, so I finished off the weekend with Time and the Rani over breakfast. I found so much to love in those four serials that I decided my opinions might have changed in the years since I’d last done my marathon, and it was that train of thought which led me to An Unearthly Child on New Year’s Day.
Ahh, but. I wondered. Would I reach Season Twenty-Four towards the end of this year and discover that, in context, I was back to not being a fan? Or would my newfound appreciation for these fourteen bonkers episodes hold firm? It’s something I’ve been genuinely looking forward to since January, and in many ways it’s falt like I’ve watched through all those other episodes specifically to reach this point. So going in on the first of the season, has it held up? Well…
I mean this isn’t going to be many people’s favourite episode of Doctor Who, I think that’s fair to say. I don’t think the series has ever looked or felt more like children’s television, and I’m not sure they’ve worked out exactly what Doctor Who should look like in the late 1980s yet. There’s things in this episode which are almost embarrassingly bad, like the moment they indicate that they’re not in some random concrete tunnel on location somewhere but on a distant alien world by sticking a bit of tinsel up in the pipe.
On the other hand… I quite like the tinsel in the pipe! Hah! It’s so pathetic that it’s almost brilliant, and I get the sense that if I were watching this episode with a couple of friends sitting round and having a laugh then it would be more enjoyable than most. The same goes for some of the other silly things, like the way the aliens run, and the fact that this planet looks more like a quarry than any alien world we’ve had in years. It’s certainly a far cry from the vistas of Planet of Fire. Oh, how the mighty have fallen…!
By that same token, there’s things in this one which are really good, like the Rani’s killer bubbles. The effect has certainly dated — in close up shots it’s basically a big pixellated mess — but it feels so much more modern than the bizarre blue triangles in the last story that it feels five years later rather than nine months.
The same is true of all the CGI in this one, from the opening attack on the TARDIS to the new title sequence. The animation has dated massively, and yet there’s something so exciting about seeing the series move into that arena that I can’t help being swept along with it. They might not have worked out what Doctor Who should look like as the decade draws to a close, but my God they’re really going for it trying to find out.
I’m going with a 5/10.
Time and the Rani — Part Two
All that talk in Part One and I’ve not even mentioned the new boy yet! I don’t think it would be fair to say that Sylvester McCoy hits the ground running as Doctor Who. He’s certainly not playing quite the same persona here that he will be as his three years progresses, but I think there’s something fun about him already. A lot of my favourite moments in that first episode were him paired up against Kate O’Mara, and I find his arrival more genuinely exciting than either of the previous two incarnations. There’s something about the way he plays the role that reminds of of Troughton’s arrival — it’s unpredictable and new again, and I love that. His first lines are brilliant, and in hindsight show him as a Doctor Who that makes a lot of plans right from the off;
Doctor Who: ‘That was a nice nap. Now, down to business. I’m a bit worried about the temporal flicker in sector thirteen. There’s a bicentennial refit of the Tardis to book in. I must just pop over to Centauri Seven and then perhaps a quick holiday. Right, that all seems quite clear. Just three small points. Where am I? Who am I? And who are you? The Rani! Stay back!’
I think his continual mixing of metaphors is broadly considered a bit rubbish, but I’ve found that a lot of fun, largely because of the Rani’s exasperation in being the one who has to correct him. I could watch the pair of them bounce off each other all day long, and it’s a shame they only get this one outing together (and Dimensions in Time I suppose. I’ll be covering that one after Christmas).
His best moment so far comes in this episode, when he and Mel finally come round to trusting each other after a few minutes sparring. There’s a beautiful innocence to the way he breathes her name as his senses clear, and the way he behaves with her across the rest of the episode feels like a tonic to the way the character has been written in the series for the entire decade up to this point. Tom Baker’s Doctor Who was often grumpy and snappy in Season Eighteen, and doesn’t really have a lot of the fun he’d had with Romana the year before. Davison softens over time but spends most of his first year being a total arsehole to his companions. I’m still sore about the way he behaves in The Visitation. And don’t even get me started on the Sixth Doctor Who’s awful abusive relationship with Peri. By contrast the Seventh Doctor Who here is tactile and caring, gently touching his head against Mel’s and sharing his excitement with her as they piece together the Rani’s plans.
I like this incarnation right from the word ‘go’, and that feels like a welcome change. All the same, it’s another 5/10 for this one.
