YMMV / Doctor Who S24 E1 "Time and the Rani"

• Narm: The Sixth Doctor's regeneration into the Seventh during the Cold Open is framed as a dramatic twist meant to catch audiences off-guard, given that the Doctor's regenerations usually occur at the end of their respective stories. However, the execution of it is widely derided as inappropriately goofy due to a combination of its suddenness, the lack of explanation about what caused the Doctor to regenerate (leading to widespread jokes that he fell off his exercise bike and/or banged his head on the TARDIS console), and the very obvious Fake Shemping that Sylvester McCoy had to do on account of Colin Baker refusing to appear for the story after he was fired by the BBC^note  which itself is why the regeneration opens the serial; the Sixth Doctor was originally going to regenerate at the end of it.
• Narm Charm: Kate O'Mara's sneering, arch impression of Mel is hilarious once you accept that it's meant to be funny and not deadly serious, and she and McCoy are clearly enjoying playing off each other.
• Padding: A common criticism of this story is that Part 3 is just marking time, and it would have been better at three episodes, leaving room to expand one of the season's three-parters to four episodes - for instance, "Delta and the Bannermen"'s love story could have been fleshed out more.
• So Bad, It's Good: For a long time, this was considered a strong contender with "The Twin Dilemma" for the title of the absolute worst story from the classic series. However, the thing that it was for years heavily criticised for — the fact that all the campiest, silliest aspects of the show are turned up to maximum — is now inversely considered to be the story's greatest strength, as it ends up making for something that's so absurdly campy and ridiculous that it's almost impossible to dislike, outside of the Sixth Doctor's unsatisfying death — and even that's no longer nearly as contentious as it was, with Big Finish's "The Last Adventure" now widely accepted as the canonical finale to the Sixth Doctor's run.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The special effects are pretty much the only good thing about the serial. The planet and the bubble traps in particular look incredible for their time. The fact that the opening sequence used from this serial to "Survival" was the first CGI intro to a TV show period makes it all the more impressive.

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