Mark of the Rani

Viewing recommendation: all in one go works. I suspect you'd lose momentum one at a time, but it could work.

Newsflash: Malcassairo watches and reviews terminal turkey episode. Bookmakers now open for bets on whether she'll like it, like it a lot or promote it to new favourite episode.

Oh, but I spotted at once what was wrong with Mark of the Rani. The proportion of people who like the Master is small, the proportion who like him outside of Deadly Assassin smaller, and the proportion who think he's great in the 80s miniscule.

The thing is, the Master is integral to the way I understand and appreciate Doctor Who. I actually forgot to record Utopia - that's a mark of how lax a viewer I was in happy ole 2007 - as I had forgotten to record Human Nature and Shakespeare Code earlier in the series. My fellow "Team Traken" members informed me I really, really had to see it - and after that, I wouldn't have missed Sound of Drums for anything. Incidentally, it's also a lesson in how internet piracy can sometimes be beneficial to the companies, because my generous donations to the BBC's DVDs-and-merch range have been a direct result being able to find Utopia uploaded on the web.

And thus my first encounter with the Classic series was a direct combination of "who is this Master fella?", "what did he mean about the Axons?" and "look, there's a three-disk boxed set with the Master on the side". Keeper of Traken remains a very, very special episode to me. The same goes for Logopolis and Castrovalva. By which point, you'd already have a hard job convincing me Antony Ainley was not a worthy Master. And this was exacerbated by a quick trip through Kings Demon's and Time Flight, followed by a Master-centric tour of the late 60s.

The point is, Master-hate is rife, and maybe with some justification. But I won't hear a word of it, because I still think he's a brilliant character. This is partly down to the way he makes the Doctor tick, and that trademark mix of amusement and scorn. He's charming, educated, very funny - but he's the only one laughing.

So while I knew this episode starred the Master, I had no idea just how much of him there was in it. But more on that in a minute.


The first ten minutes are jawdropping. Real music, all with flutes and violins and stuff. Gorgeous photography. I briefly wondered whether we were watching the wrong show. This was apparently filmed on a genuine "living history" museum, and the BBC are obviously trying to justify the extravagance by shooting on as many real sets as possible. Thus much of it is on film, and all the regulars just look lovely as a result.

No, there's nothing to fault this episode in the visual department (ignoring Godzilla, but we'll come to that later), and the net result is that preposterous coat has never looked better. Nor is there anything to fault the plot - no, it's not simple, and there is no obvious linear structure to it (Daleks invade, Doctor must stop Daleks), and yet between the Rani attempting to keep her head down and the Master mad for vengeance it does make sense. Real life is messy and abortive - this is Androzani style chaos, made complex purely by the number of different things going on, not Ghost Light inpenetrability. In addition, ignoring a comment about hedgerows, it's not even remotely dated.

Really, the storyline (such as it is) is merely a vehicle for the wonderfully twisted Rani-Master-Doctor love triangle. You have to wonder what those three got up to at the Academy. The relationship is wonderful, all the sniping, griping and little shifts of power. Suddenly I see why the authors thought the Deca was a good idea. It's clear that the titular "mark" the Master refers to isn't so much a literal, physical complaint so much as an emotional one - have you ever seen the Master so keen to stay friends with anyone else? Neither he nor the Rani seem like the type to easily tolerate other people, but the pair of them are all over one another - and when the Doctor gets involved the trouble is just quadrupled. All that hate, love and obsession makes you wonder how Timelord society manages to focus with that many psychos about. It's also powerful evidence for the existance of Gallifreyan sex drive...

Yes, it's a screwball rom com with laser guns and organic-matter-converters, and the alliances, double-crossing and one-upmanship I adore so much in regular Master episodes are just increased by having another brain in the mix. It's also fun to have the Rani acnowledge the audience's opinions on the Master, by affectionately sending up both him and that daft feud. It's another 80s example of bringing back a classic villain, then undermining them with a new one - see the Daleks play second fiddle to Lytton (which almost works), and the Sontarans in Two Doctors (which doesn't, and makes you wonder why they were even included). And it works for the Master, because all of what the Rani says is secretly true. All these criticisms make you wonder why they thought putting him in was a good idea - especially considering he was dead - but I'm glad for it.

The Master is so, so sinister in this one, especially in the first episode. Naturally I'm laying my own feelings about Planet of Fire slap over the top - I do that in a lot of episodes, but he seems really quite bothered about what the Doctor did. There's something more than usual unhinged about the way he relates to the Doctor, to Peri to the world in general. At several moments in this, I genuinely thought they were in trouble.


He's been trying to kill the Doctor since, oooh, Terror of the Autons part 2? Yet I'm rarely convinced he means it. He always seems to expect the Doctor to get out of it. Take Logopolis-Castrovalva. The Doctor isn't meant to die on that radio tower, nor in Event 1, nor in the fake city. It's only an unfortunate slip on the Master's behalf that results in the regeneration - in my opinion, the Doctor was already very near to the end of his natural life. If he'd wanted him permenantly dead, he could have gone down during that regeneration and calmly assassinated all three companions doing whatever you do to kill Timelords properly. He's certainly smart enough. The very fact he creates Castrovalva suggests he's expecting the Doc to get out of Event 1. He has a whole regeneration crisis in which to get him out of the way. The fact he doesn't suggests he, subconsciously if not consciously, the Doctor is meant to survive these things.

The reasons are manifold. Ignoring the smutfic, there is possibly some Gallifreyan bond defining their mutual obsession, be it literal brotherhood or some sort of marriage-equivalent. I wonder what Lungbarrow fans have to say, whether there's a way the Master could fit into the info in that tome. The Master, one presumes, gets his kicks from merely having the power over him, and watching the escape attempts.



In any case, having the Doctor abandon him to fry seems to have really unbalanced him - even more than usual. See how jumpy he is on his first encounter with the Rani! You'll noticed the chuckle-count is down to a single instance at the start of the episode, which if nothing else should suggest he's feeling less smug than usual. The impression I'd always had was the incident had been forgotten, but it was hardly brushed off! The explaination, granted, is lacking - although I found the assertion that it was merely because he was "indestructable" strangely compelling. That dog really dislikes him: perhaps there is something genuinely sinister in however he got out. I really want to see Survival now, to see if there's actually a solid change in character direction post-Planet of Fire, or if I'm just imagining things.

Scarecrow must be one of the more wonderfully weird costumes he's ever worn, but the brown does look good on him. More than anything else, this highlights his versatility and opportunist nature. He plans to kill the Doctor. But then the Rani shows up, and he adapts to include her. Apparent motivation: it will be easier with two of them. Actual motivation: see sex drives, Gallifreyan (above). Or a combination of the two. And then he discovers there's a bunch of gathered geniuses, and he can't pass up such a glittering oppertunity. Overcomplicated? Certainly, but you can't fault his ambition. Another way i tend to regard his behavior is pure malevolence. He gets some coool gadgets in this too.

With the Rani the fun is just doubled - who plainly also sees something in him, or he'd have got dead a lot sooner. Their sparring is genuine, but there's affection somewhere also. Not that I see it working in the long run. The way they leave the servants is chilling. I also loved the much criticised OTT dialogue. "Fortuitous must be an apposite epithet" is the infamous one, but I love the unfathomable vocab as characterisation for both 6 and the Master. If you were a genius Timelord and veteran of 14 lives, it's to be expected that you'll have picked up a lot of words, and feel smug enough to use them in conversation. If the coal miners were also using words like "apposite" in their dialogue, then I might appreciate the problem. Plus, shouldn't Doctor Who be educational? There is a strict contrast with the local accents, which irritated me at first but I got used to them pretty quickly.

Of course, it was the Doctor's reaction to all this which I wanted, and it was suitably rewarding. He's great, but that's a pretty redundant comment to make about any Doctor, and completely redundant viz Colin Baker. I love the efficiency with which he rounds them both up with the TCE - the Master looks understandably worried. And he's quoting poetry again!

Peri does her best, though she can only be the most useless companion of all time. She is a bit overlooked here, and I don't believe she could just conjure up sleeping draught from Valerian either. Also, that yellow costume is appalling. Traditional Doctor Who wisdom would suggest this was merely because you couldn't ogle her cleavage like that...

What is it about Peri? Now obviously the Doctor is always going to happily plunge into danger for his companions, but he also tends to let them wander off too. Five frequently spends whole stories without wondering where they've gone. Yet Peri - maybe it's just because Six applies his sledgehammering efficiency to everything, but you get the opinion he'd nuke a small planet to keep her in one piece. This isn't just a Caves thing either. Several times in this, the Doctor gets into danger and his first reaction, when most of us would still be thinking "oh, I'm in danger!", is to worry about Peri.

And I adored the Rani's TARDIS, from the external design to that gorgeous Time Rotor.


Now. Most people try to criticise Mark of the Rani for logical reasons, ignoring the fact it's actually a kneejerk reaction to the amount of Master. There is not much logical ground to do so, and Doctor Who has produced far more glaring turkeys. They tend to pick on the tree thing, though I honestly didn't notice the quality of the effect. I was too busy going "coooooool, he's been turned into a tree!".

I'm amazed more people don't mention the real low point of the story. When the Doctor remarked that the Rani had a baby t-rex on her TARDIS, I said "oh surely not!" and we laughed because it was such a daft idea. I wouldn't have laughed quite so hard if I'd thought they were actually going to use it. But they did. It's like someone suddenly noticed they hadn't fufilled the crap rubber monster quota for the episode. I suppose it doesn't bother most people, who already regard it as a bad story, but for me this was a nosedive plummet into mediocrity. I hoped this was a phrase I would never live to see: worse than the Morlocks from Timelash.

Yet the length of this review should stand as a testiment to the sheer passion and enthusiasm I feel for this episode. And that stems from my love of the Master - much as your dislike of the episode might just stem from your dislike of him. Think about it.