The Rani is one of the most famous renegade female Time Lords ever to feature in Doctor Who. A scheming villainess, the amoral Rani has enslaved planets and experimented on “lesser” species for her own scientific ends. The Doctor sparred with the Rani during their university days together on Gallifrey, but their quarrels continued for centuries to come. The Rani used bat-like servants called the Tetraps from Tetrapyriarbus to enslave the planet Lakertya and conduct her diabolical experiments in search of the Loyhargil.

Time and the Rani

★☆☆☆☆

TX: 7-28/9/1987

Written by Pip & Jane Baker      Directed by Andrew Morgan

The Doctor’s TARDIS is attacked by the Rani, causing it to crash-land on the planet Lakertya. Resultantly, the Doctor regenerates and is then brought to the Rani’s lair. Sadly, I never had the pleasure of meeting the late, great Kate O’Mara who played the original Rani, nor her creators Pip & Jane Baker. After being drugged to enhance his post-regenerative amnesia, the Doctor is tricked by the Rani (disguised as his companion Mel) into helping her to construct a giant time manipulator. The Doctor learns that a missile is being aimed at an asteroid composed of strange matter, passing above Lakertya. The Rani plans to use this to collect the stolen genius of the greatest scientific minds in the universe, including Einstein, by assembling a giant brain. This will allow the Rani to obtain the Loyhargil, a means of controlling time anywhere in the universe, at the expense of all life on Lakertya. Dodging many lethal traps, the enslaved native Lakertyans help the Doctor and Mel to defeat the Rani by sabotaging the launch of the rocket. The Rani escapes, but is captured by her monstrous, bat-like servants, the Tetraps, inside her own TARDIS.