The Rani Elite

The final release of 2014 is the first to feature the Rani. Originally played by Kate O’Mara who passed away in March 2014. It is always going to be one of the biggest things that we wish could have happened to hear Kate O’Mara reprise the role and she was keen to do so but sadly she never got the chance. The Rani previously appeared opposite Colin Baker’s Doctor in the 1985 adventure ‘The Mark of the Rani’ and less successfully in Sylvester McCoy’s opening story ‘Time and the Rani’ in 1987.

The thing about the character of the Rani is that even though she is bad, she doesn’t have any plans to wipe out humanity or invade a planet but to do her work in science. The only problem with that being is that her techniques aren’t exactly above board. Quite why its taken Big Finish so long to get round to the character of the Rani is a bit of a mystery however its better late than never and at least the first story for the character is such a good one.

Since Kate O’Mara passed away it was always going to be interesting to see who was cast to replace her and before it became a big thing to have a female Master, we have a female Rani and this time its played by Siobhan Redmond who according to Wikipedia has starred in such things as Eastenders, Holby City and Midsomer Murders (who hasn’t been in that). The story sees the Doctor arrive at the College of Advanced Galactic Education where is he receiving an award/honour. But its not long before he gets involved in trouble. Even though it has Rani in the title, there is an agonisingly long wait before we get the first indication that it is the Rani and then an even longer wait before the Doctor and the Rani meet. When they do its q good scene and they pick up where they left off.

Data Cube is something that is bought up in the early part of this story and in the business end of the story its gets bought back in a way that is quite clever and as I had forgotten about it, I thought that it was quite a good thing to include in the story.

The Rani is helping rich people by planting their minds put into new people’s body. It’s an idea that is very much of the character. It’s very similar to what she was doing in her two TV adventures. It’s hard really to really dislike her because I always get a feeling that she is doing it with honourable intentions but just has questionable morals and could with a bit of work be persuaded to change. The thing I like about Redmond’s performance is that it isn’t over the top. There was a hint of that in Kate O’Mara’s version but with Redmond she’s stuck to what the character is really about and with a new version of the Sixth Doctor to work against this means that the Rani’s involvement in the story is worth it.

What I like about this story is that its written by Justin Richards who is a nuts and bolts writer. That might not sound like a compliment but it’s a huge compliment. Richards doesn’t do stories that have complicated things going on that I struggle to understand. What he does and has done in this story is written a story that is straight forward in narrative terms but it feels like a traditional Doctor Who story. This is the perfect end to a perfect series. I think this has been one of the strongest series that Big Finish have done because each story has been really good in different ways. It’s good to have few more Six and Peri stories because they seem to be a bit thin on the ground. Now what they to do is try and address the Flip situation to a satisfactory point.