| The Rani | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
 The Rani, as portrayed by (left to right) O'Mara, Panjabi and Dobson | |
| First appearance | The Mark of the Rani (1985) |
| Last appearance | "The Reality War" (2025) |
| Portrayed by |
|
| Voiced by |
|
| In-universe information | |
| Aliases | Mrs Flood (Dobson's incarnation) |
| Species | Time Lord |
| Home | Gallifrey |
The Rani is a fictional character in the British science fiction television seriesDoctor Who. She is a renegadeTime Lord, and a nemesis of the series' title character, a Time Lord known asthe Doctor. The Rani is an amoral biochemist who experiments on humans and other species, and considers everything secondary to her research.
The character was first portrayed byKate O'Mara, appearing in two classic serials,The Mark of the Rani (1985) andTime and the Rani (1987), before the original run ofDoctor Who went off the air in 1989. O'Mara reprised the role as the principal villain inDimensions in Time, a 1993Doctor Who charitytelevision special forChildren in Need. The Rani has since been featured in multipleDoctor Who audio dramas and novels. The character later reappeared in theDoctor Who revival series, using the aliasMrs Flood (Anita Dobson), throughout theFifteenth Doctor's adventures. In "The Interstellar Song Contest", 40 years after her first appearance, Mrs Flood bi-generates into a new incarnation (portrayed byArchie Panjabi), who reveals that she and Mrs Flood before her are the Rani.
The Rani is a renegadeTime Lord and amoral scientist who engages in unscrupulous biological experimentation on humans and other species. She is a rival of the series' title character,the Doctor, another Time Lord who is technically a renegade as well. Time Lords are an ancient race ofextraterrestrials from the planetGallifrey who possess the ability toregenerate into a new form when mortally wounded and who usetime travel technology in the form ofspacecraft known by the acronymTARDIS. In the Rani'sbackstory, she is banished from Gallifrey as a result of her radical experiments. She is a contemporary of both the Doctor and his arch rival,the Master, the three having attended the Time Lord Academy together in their youth.[1]
Radio Times described the Rani as "the renegade Time Lady who is as evil as the Doctor is good" and the Doctor's "archest of villains."[2] Harry Beckett wrote forDoctor Who TV that "her Machiavellian personality and sheer doggedness in achieving scientific results made her a formidable foe and a person who you would not want to cross paths with."[3] Caroline Frost ofHuffPost UK called the Rani "one of the few characters to match the irrepressible [Doctor] for wit, power and supernatural abilities."[4] The Rani's television portrayer,Kate O'Mara, described the character as "power-crazed" and "ruthless", noting that "one assumes that a creature such as the Rani, who is a scientist, is totally amoral and prepared to sacrifice all in the cause of science."[5] Nur Hussein ofSCIFI.radio called the Rani "iconic", writing that "Unlike the power-hungry villain archetype of the Master, the Rani was a ruthless evil scientist who wasn't interested in ruling the universe as much as she wanted to understand it, no matter the cost ... her amoral pursuit of science was an interesting foil for the Doctor."[6]Doctor Who TV designated the character "an absolutely wonderfulDoctor Who villain because her motivation is purely for scientific results."[7] Mark Donaldson ofScreen Rant noted, "The Rani didn't have the Master's obsession with the Doctor. She was never particularly interested in the Doctor and the Master's games."[8] The character has also been described as glamorous,[9][10] rapacious,[11] cunning and evil, powerful and dynamic, dastardly and possessing fiendish cleverness.[10]
While the Doctor's time traveling TARDIS is stuck with the exterior form of a 1963 police telephone call box due to an irreparable "chameleon circuit", the Rani's TARDIS is unbroken and retains its ability to disguise itself. Like the Doctor's, the Rani's TARDIS is paradoxically "bigger on the inside", with a similar console.
The Rani, portrayed by Kate O'Mara, first appears in the 1985 classicDoctor Who serialThe Mark of the Rani, written byPip and Jane Baker and starringColin Baker as theSixth Doctor.[11][12][13] When cast as the Rani, O'Mara was known as a prolific theatre actress with extensive credits on film and television.[14] She had previously co-starred with Colin Baker as business adversaries Jane Maxwell and Paul Merroney on the hit drama seriesThe Brothers from 1975 to 1976.[15][16][17] In 2013, O'Mara noted that the Rani had been specifically written for her.[4]
InThe Mark of the Rani, the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS is thrown off course and arrives in a 19th century English mining town during theIndustrial Revolution. He and his humancompanion,Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant), encounter the Rani, a Time Lord and old acquaintance of the Doctor's who rules the planet Miasimia Goria. Her biological experimentation on the enslaved populace has heightened their awareness but inadvertently compromised their ability to sleep, turning them violent and plunging the planet into chaos. To restore order, the Rani has been harvesting the neuro-chemical that promotes sleep from human brains, carrying this out in violent periods of Earth's history so the resulting aggression and sleeplessness go unnoticed. The Doctor's longtime nemesis, the Master (Anthony Ainley), is also present, with his own plan to speed up Earth's development and use the planet as a power base. The Doctor eventually foils the Rani and the Master and the villains escape in the Rani's TARDIS, but the Doctor has sabotaged the navigational system and velocity regulator. As the ship spins out of control, one of the Rani's specimen jars containing aTyrannosaurus rex embryo falls to the floor and begins to grow rapidly, leaving the Rani and the Master trapped by the creature.[18]
Mark Braxton ofRadio Times praised the scenes between the Rani, the Doctor and the Master, and called O'Mara's performance "spirited".[11]The Discontinuity Guide byPaul Cornell,Martin Day andKeith Topping noted that "the concept of the Rani mocking the ridiculous Master/Doctor rivalry is wonderful."[19] O'Mara calledThe Mark of the Rani her favorite of the episodes she performed in the series.[5] In her 2003 autobiographyVamp Until Ready, she said that while shootingThe Mark of the Rani, she was treated much differently by crew members who did not recognise her while made up as an old crone, versus when she was transformed by flashy wardrobe, hair and "my most glamorous make-up."[5] O'Mara creditedDynasty'sJoan Collins, whose onscreen sister O'Mara played on the series in 1986-87, for making "being an 'older woman' acceptable" in television and film.[5]
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O'Mara returned as the Rani in the 1987 classicDoctor Who serialTime and the Rani, again written by Pip and Jane Baker but this time starringSylvester McCoy as theSeventh Doctor.[12][20] The Rani is the only returning "arch-enemy" of the Doctor in the serial,[2] and at the beginning of the story her attack forces the Doctor to regenerate from Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor into McCoy's seventh incarnation.[5][21] Time Lord regeneration is a device used by the series since 1966 to accommodate the recasting of prominent characters like the Doctor.[22] The 1987novelisation ofTime and the Rani explains that after the events ofThe Mark of the Rani, the Rani and the Master escaped theTyrannosaurus rex because it broke its spine on the ceiling of the Rani's TARDIS due to its rapid growth.[23] The end ofTime and the Rani required O'Mara to be hung upside down like a bat, but after some blood vessels in her eyes burst, the studio nurse forbade filming her in that manner to continue. Shooting continued by turning the camera upside down and employing a wind machine to make O'Mara's hair fly upwards.[5]
InTime and the Rani, the Rani forces the Doctor's TARDIS to crash on the planet Lakertya and triggers the Doctor to regenerate. Aided by bat-like alienTetraps, the Rani has taken control of the planet and its peaceful inhabitants. She has created a giant "time brain", using intelligence drawn from geniuses across time and space, which she intends to use to make the calculations necessary to turn Lakertya into a Time Manipulator that would allow her to manipulate evolution on a cosmic scale. The Rani injects the Doctor with an amnesia drug, and disguises herself as his companion,Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford). She extracts information from his brain without taking into account his erratic nature, and he and Mel are eventually able to thwart the Rani's plans and free the Lakertyans. The Rani escapes in her TARDIS but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps, who take the Rani as their prisoner, having realized that she planned to let them die in the conversion of Lakertya.[24]
Patrick Mulkern ofRadio Times wrote that O'Mara's "arch delivery was the saving grace ofTime and the Rani."[15]Doctor Who: The Television Companion also praised the actress: "Another highlight is Kate O'Mara's performance as the Rani which, although undeniably camp and over the top, perfectly suits the mood of the piece and is never less than entertaining. She almost steals the show, in fact, and her impersonation of Bonnie Langford in the amusing sequence where the Rani fools the disorientated and drugged Doctor into believing that she is Mel is wickedly perceptive."[25]
The original run ofDoctor Who went off-air in 1989. The Rani later appeared as the villain inDimensions in Time, a 1993Doctor Who charitytelevision special written byJohn Nathan-Turner and David Roden forChildren in Need.[12] The two-part special was acrossover betweenDoctor Who and theBBCsoap operaEastEnders, in celebration ofDoctor Who's 30th anniversary.[26][27] Needing a returning villain for the special, Nathan-Turner chose the Rani because she was popular with fans.[7]
InDimensions in Time, the Rani attempts to trap the first seven incarnations of the Doctor in a time loop inWalford. She has opened a hole in time, allowing her access to the Doctor's timeline and cycles through his lives, causing him and his companions to jump back and forth between past and present incarnations. The Rani has been collecting specimens of every creature in the universe to create a supercomputer, and at one point unleashes her "menagerie" to attack theFifth Doctor (Peter Davison). Her plan fails when the Seventh Doctor and his companionAce (Sophie Aldred) overload her computer, sending the Rani, her companion Cyrian (Samuel West) and her TARDIS into the time tunnel.[28]
In late 1984, Nathan-Turner engagedRobert Holmes to write a three-part story, later calledYellow Fever and How to Cure It, forseason 23 ofDoctor Who.[29] The serial was to feature the Sixth Doctor, Peri andBrigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) facing off against the newly-introduced Rani, the Master and theAutons, and would be shot inSingapore, where episodes of the BBC dramaTenko had been filmed.[29] Once rights to the Rani were secured, all three episodes were commissioned together on 6 February 1985.[29][30] However on 27 February 1985,BBC One announced that production ofDoctor Who would take an extended hiatus, citing a decline in ratings and audiences' growing concerns over violence on television.[31][32] Whileseason 22 had consisted of 13 episodes, each with a runtime of 45 minutes,[33] in the intervening months anew season 23 was conceived that would consist of 14 episodes at 25 minutes each.[30] Holmes was asked to continue with the story but as six 25-minute episodes,[29] this version seeing the removal of the Master.[34] He completed a story outline,[35] but ultimatelyYellow Fever and How to Cure It and other planned serials were set aside in favor of a season-spanning arc calledThe Trial of a Time Lord.[30] Thanks to fan uproar,Doctor Who returned after just 18 months, with the new season 23 airing in September 1986.[31]
In the planned story forYellow Fever and How to Cure It, the Sixth Doctor and Peri arrive in Singapore to find the Rani allied with the Nestene Consciousness to create Autons with bullets that can shoot around corners and hands that can melt the face of the adversary. The Master is also in Singapore, jealous of the Rani's arrangement with the Nestene and intent on interfering with it.[29]
The original run ofDoctor Who was broadcast from 1963 to 1989,[36] and the series was revived in 2005.[37][38]Doctor Who fandom has frequently asked for the return of the Rani, considered a popular fan-favorite thanks to O'Mara's performance.[3][5][7][39]
In 2012, then-executive producer and showrunnerSteven Moffat said, "People always ask me, 'Do you want to bring back the Rani?' No one knows who the Rani is. They all know who the Master is, they know Daleks, they probably know who Davros is, but they don't know who the Rani is, so there's no point in bringing her back."[39] The following year, Harry Beckett ofDoctor Who TV voiced his desire for the Rani to return, and noted that despite Moffat's comments, the producer had indeed brought back other lesser known old characters to the series.[3] In late 2013, O'Mara said she would love to reprise the role, and that her age would be "an idea to be exploited."[9] She explained, “To have a much older woman as your adversary, there's something interesting about that. She's learned so much over the centuries—it would be like in the fairy stories, where it's always the old woman who is the most frightening."[4] O'Mara died in March 2014.[14][21][40]
After being cast as theFifteenth Doctor in 2022,Ncuti Gatwa voiced his desire to have hisSex Education co-star,Gillian Anderson, play a villain opposite him onDoctor Who.[8] This renewed buzz about the Rani's potential return portrayed by Anderson, who had been discussed in association with the role as far back as the 2010 debut ofMatt Smith as theEleventh Doctor.[8]
In theTales of the TARDIS episodeThe Curse of Fenric (2023) the olderSeventh Doctor implies that the Rani was involved in the decision made byAce (Sophie Aldred) to part company with him. In "Space Babies" (2024) theFifteenth Doctor includes “the Rani” among the list of names used by various Time Lords when explaining his own name toRuby Sunday (Millie Gibson).
It is later revealed in "The Interstellar Song Contest" (2025) that Mrs Flood, a mysterious character portrayed byAnita Dobson and initially introduced as Ruby Sunday's neighbour who appears throughoutSeries 14 and15, is an incarnation of the Rani, who bi-generates into a new, second body at the end of the episode, portrayed byArchie Panjabi. As Mrs Flood, the Rani is the neighbour of both Ruby and Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), who breaks thefourth wall on occasion and is later seen stalking the Doctor through time and space.[41]
In "The Reality War", Panjabi's version of the Rani is eaten byOmega, while Dobson's version of the Rani uses a time ring to escape.
The Rani, voiced by O'Mara, is the lead character of the 2000BBV Productions audio dramaThe Rani Reaps the Whirlwind, written by Pip and Jane Baker.[42] The story takes place directly following the events ofTime and the Rani, with the Rani as the prisoner of the Tetraps. Condemned to death, she plots her escape while being forced to use her scientific knowledge to help her captors replenish their dwindling food supply: blood.[42][43][44] The title of the audio drama was originally announced asResurrection of the Rani.[42]
At the time of her death in 2014, O'Mara was in negotiations withBig Finish Productions to reprise the Rani in a newDoctor Who audio drama.[12] Producer David Richardson said:
The Rani's return was very much prompted by Kate ... Her agent contacted me and said that she would love to reprise the role with us, and when I mentioned this to executive producer Nicholas Briggs and script editor Alan Barnes they leapt at the opportunity ... Justin [Richards] wroteThe Rani Elite for us, and we were just a few weeks away from recording when the terrible news reached us that Kate had passed away. At first, we were not sure what to do—until Kate's agent again got in touch again, and said that it had been Kate’s wish that we proceed with a new incarnation of the Rani.[12]
Scottish actressSiobhan Redmond was subsequently cast as a new incarnation of the Rani, first appearing in the 2014 audio dramaThe Rani Elite, written byJustin Richards.[12] In thisSixth Doctor audio adventure, the Rani attempts to reverse engineerchaos theory using the collective minds of the academic elite attending the College of Advanced Galactic Education.[45]
Redmond's incarnation of the Rani returns in the 2015 audio dramaPlanet of the Rani, having been imprisoned for 90 years and escaping to seek her revenge against the Doctor.[46] She arrives on the planet Miasimia Goria, a world she once ruled over, where the current leader, Raj Kahnu, regards her as his mother whilst also harbouring deep contempt for her. Kahnu, a genetically engineered humanoid who resides inside the body of a mechanical cockroach, later allows the Rani to leave the planet in a TARDIS survival pod that her previous incarnation had left there.
Anovelisation ofThe Mark of the Rani, written by Pip and Jane Baker, was published byTarget Books in January 1986.[47] The Rani is the villain inRace Against Time, a 1986Choose Your Own Adventure-style children'sgamebook, also written by the Bakers, which is part of theMake Your Own Adventure with Doctor Who series.[48] In the story, the Sixth Doctor recruits the reader to help him defeat the Rani and her dangerous Time Destabiliser.[48] In December 1987, Target Books published anovelisation ofTime and the Rani, written by Pip and Jane Baker.[23]
The Rani appears in theVirgin Missing Adventures spin-off novelState of Change (1994) byChristopher Bulis, set afterThe Mark of the Rani. The Master has escaped the Rani's sabotaged TARDIS, but left her adrift in a space-time bubble until she encounters a benign entity that creates a distorted pocket reality where the Egyptians possess 20th-century technology, due to their access to the databanks of a duplicate of the Doctor's TARDIS console. The Rani tries her hand at political machinations in this reality before the intervention of the Doctor breaks her control over the entity, at which point she escapes in her repaired TARDIS.[49][50][51]
The Rani is mentioned inBBC Books'Eighth Doctor Adventure novelThe Ancestor Cell (2000) by Peter Anghelides andStephen Cole. The Eighth Doctor's former companion,Fitz Kreiner, claims to have killed the Rani and the Master and now displays their skulls as trophies.[52] ThePast Doctor Adventure novelDivided Loyalties (1999) byGary Russell features a dream sequence where the Rani is one of a group of promising young Time Lords called "the Deca" which include many future renegades, including the Doctor, theWar Chief, theMeddling Monk and the Master.[53] The Rani briefly appears in an artificially createdparallel universe in thePast Doctor Adventures novelThe Quantum Archangel (2001). In this reality she, the Master, the Monk andDrax pose as a group of German scientists.[54][55]
The short story "Rescue", written by David Roden and published in theDoctor Who Yearbook 1995, features the Rani rescuing Cyrian from a Cyberman invasion of his home planet DV Acrol 8, and establishing him as her companion before the events ofDimensions in Time.[56] The Rani returns in the 50th anniversary Sixth DoctorPuffin Books digital short story "Something Borrowed" (2013) byRichelle Mead. In this story, she poses as the fiancée of a Koturian nobleman to learn more about the species' unique form of regeneration, but is foiled by the Doctor and Peri.[57]
TheDanbury Mint released aDoctor Who Chess Set in 1992, featuring a pewter figurine of O'Mara's Rani as theBlack Queen.[5][58] Eaglemoss Collections produced aDoctor Who Time Lords figurine set featuring the Rani and theInquisitor in 2018.[59][60] Multiple collectible trading cards of the Rani have been produced:
O'Mara's performance as the Rani has been widely praised, with her portrayal deemed both memorable and definitive.[3][6][10] Nur Hussein ofSCIFI.radio described the performance as "delightfully over-the-top,"[6] and Harry Beckett ofDoctor Who TV noted, "She looked exactly how an evil Time Lady should appear ... O'Mara had a prepossessing sense of evil about her, a seductive look that could be both a sneer and a flirtatious smile."[3] Dan Wilson ofMetro wrote, "Kate O'Mara played the part to perfection. Powerful and dynamic, with more than a hint of dominatrix glam, she really made the part her own ... O'Mara soars above the bad writing ... If the Rani is to return, then the actor who takes the role would do well to take the best of what Kate O'Mara gave."[10] The Rani has become a favorite among both fans and critics, who clamored for her return to the series for decades.[3][8][9][10][39]
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