History Recap / DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani

The Doctor and Peri land in what we'll learn is Industrial Revolution-era Killingsworth, and set off to track the time distortion. The miners from the bathhouse have apparently been brainwashed into homoerotic behavior and [[KickTheDog small-child kicking]], which is an improvement on Peri's dialogue. She makes a valiant effort to convince us that she's A) intelligent, with her specialty in botany and B) insightful, talking about extinction and the effect of technology on the environment, but despite her hideous dress covering up her two best assets, it's not working. Her obliviousness extends to the Doctor, who notices there are no birds, but completely fails to notice the blatantly-moving scarecrow Peri points out. Those of us who have seen the Master before know random disguises are his [[PlanetOfHats hat]], so clearly, we've got at least one renegade Time Lord hanging about.

The brainwashed miners come upon a piece of equipment being hauled into town, and attack it, though not before the Doctor and Peri have witnessed them - and the strange mark on their necks. The equipment belongs to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephenson George Stephenson]], the famous engineer who built England's first railway line. And just in case anyone was ambivalent about what significance the scarecrow Peri [[{{Lampshaded}} pointed out]] might have had, the next shot is of the scarecrow spying on the Doctor and Peri, hopping a fence to follow them, and letting out a ''very'' distinctive [[EvilLaugh chuckle]]. Oh, it's definitely the Master - he's stalking his favorite enemy.

* ArtisticLicensePharmacology: If that really was meant to be mustard gas in the Rani's booby-trap, the miners' face-covering gas masks would not have kept the Doctor and Peri safe. The gas should have given them severe chemical burns on the parts of the body that are not covered by the masks.

* GreenAesop

'''This episode was NOT brought to you by the tourism boards of Gallifrey or Miasimia Goria.'''

The Doctor and Peri land in what we'll learn is Industrial Revolution-era Killingsworth, and set off to track the time distortion. The miners from the bathhouse have apparently been brainwashed into homoerotic behavior and [[KickTheDog small-child kicking]], which is an improvement on Peri's dialogue. She makes a valiant effort to convince us that she's A) intelligent, with her specialty in botany and B) insightful, talking about extinction and the effect of technology on the environment, but despite her hideous dress covering up her two best assets, it's not working. Her obliviousness extends to the Doctor, who notices there are no birds, but completely fails to notice the blatantly-moving scarecrow Peri points out. Those of us who have seen a Master episode know random disguises are his [[PlanetOfHats hat]], so clearly, we've got at least one renegade Time Lord hanging about.

* BreatherEpisode: After the unrelenting nastiness of the past few stories, the show busts out a (relatively) LighterAndSofter episode poking fun at how overcomplicated and full of themselves Time Lords, especially evil Time Lords, are, and especially [[LampshadeHanging hanging many lampshades]] on the Master's propensity for getting out of trouble and his general nutiness.

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Another Evil Time Lord thing. We're well aware of the Master's penchant for abusing the thesaurus, but the Rani gets in on the act, too. Of course, this episode ''was'' written by Pip and Jane Baker.

The mysterious woman who runs the bathhouse hijacks a local kid to do her bidding (and unfortunately, her [[OohMeAccentsSlipping accent]] leads to Creator/ColinBaker on the DVDCommentary asking "what part of Jamaica" she's from), and a close-up reveals that the makeup people totally forgot about half of the prosthetic Kate O'Mara wears in the rest of her scenes. The Doctor and Peri ride by on their way to see Lord Ravensworth (the local landowner), and his [[AppliedPhlebotinum timey-wimey detector]] goes haywire when it's pointed at the bathhouse and the rapidly-becoming-obvious woman who runs it. Detects a Time Lord, you say? And there's a mysterious woman lurking about, experimenting on people and generally being very suspicious? No, couldn't be a certain fellow renegade classmate of yours who's got this Thing for experimentation and a serious lack of morals. Six is ''not'' one of the more observant of Doctors.

* HamToHamCombat: A ''three way'' example, between Creator/ColinBaker, Creator/AnthonyAinley, and Kate O'Mara.
* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: Creator/ColinBaker and Kate O'Mara had previously costarred in Creator/TheBBC drama series ''The Brothers''.

The brainwashed miners come upon a piece of equipment being hauled into town, and attack it, though not before the Doctor and Peri have witnessed them - and the strange mark on their necks. The equipment belongs to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephenson George Stephenson]], the famous engineer who built England's first railway line. And just in case anyone was ambivalent about what significance the scarecrow Peri [[{{Lampshaded}} pointed out]] might have had, the next shot is of the scarecrow spying on the Doctor and Peri, hopping a fence to follow them, and letting out a ''very'' distinctive [[EvilLaugh chuckle]]. Oh, it's definitely the Master - he's [[FoeYay stalking his favorite enemy]].

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Stephenson. Despite the "celebrity historical" being a regular feature of the revived series that happens at least OnceASeason, George Stephenson was first real historical personality to appear in the series since the various Dodge City figures in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters "The Gunfighters"]] back in 1966[[note]]Well... Gray the solicitor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E4TheHighlanders "The Highlanders"]] was a historical figure too, but a long way from "celebrity", being basically an original character attached to an extremely minor historical figure.[[/note]]. This story was also the first to mix its historical celebrity into an aliens'n'monsters plot, which would become the standard format in later years.

The one where the Master gets kneed in the balls.

The Master and the Rani continue their labyrinthine, overcomplicated plan. They utilize [[StuffBlowingUp tree mines]] (because the Rani has clearly read the EvilOverlordList and knows mines are the sneakily evil way to go), [[EvilLaugh evil laughs]] done in counterpoint, and the ever-popular [[KansasCityShuffle "distract the dumb American with your weapon of choice and knock her out"]] ploy, but the Master's [[FatalFlaw stupid obsession with trying to kill the Doctor]] overrides the Rani's common sense. His pride gets them trapped in her TARDIS, which has been futzed-with by the Doctor to send them to the end of the universe with a rapidly-growing T-Rex embryo (because [[RuleOfCool everything's cooler with dinosaurs]]). The Rani is ''not'' pleased, and gives the Master a [[GroinAttack kick to the nuts]] for his trouble, but unfortunately, is still stuck with him in a runaway TARDIS. At the end of the day, she's just not very good at her job.

And thankfully, the Master decides to pay the Rani a visit, establishing who the villains are and letting me free from pretending the woman in the bathhouse is anyone other than the Rani. He interrupts her, she dispenses with the disguise, and within five seconds, they're [[TheMasochismTango bickering like an old married couple]]. We get some lovely exposition about how [[{{Ubermensch}} brilliant]] the Rani is, how she's been exiled from Gallifrey for [[ScienceIsBad experimenting]] [[NoodleIncident on the Lord President's cat]], and the fact that she really, really kind of ships [[HoYay Doctor/Master]]. She tells them, in essence, to get a room, and he tries to [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord sweet-talk]] her into teaming up with him, and when the niceties don't work, outright blackmails her by stealing the only vial of brain fluid she's got (she needs the fluid for her aliens on the [[EmperorScientist planet she rules]]). The brain fluid becomes the {{MacGuffin}} invoked every time the Rani has to do something completely counter to her established amoral, rational, and scientific nature.

-->'''The Master:''' Come, come, the whole universe knows I'm indestructible!\\

-->"Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once".

-->"Now perhaps you'll accept there are more things in heaven and earth than are ever dreamed of in your barren philosophy".

'''This episode was NOT brought to you by the tourism boards of Gallifrey or Miasimia Goria'''

[[caption-width-right:344:"Once I've gotten the Doctor right where I want him, I'll destroy every fibre of his colorful [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes coat]]!"]]

More workers (we're just going to start calling them Luddites, because that's supposedly what she's turning them into) show up at [[strike: the Rani's]] the mysterious woman's bathhouse. She follows them in, and the Master, brushing straw from his clothes, spies on her for a bit, then goes back to stalking his other ex. There is much blah-blahing from the Doctor and Peri trying to bluff their way into a meeting held by Stephenson (which will be attended by a number of other historical geniuses and men of learning), but they eventually get in to see Lord Ravensworth - who, despite not being a historical genius, has to do ''something'' in this plot to justify Terence Alexander's casting. The Doctor and Peri bicker and the Master continues to be the most blatant stalker in history, and a bunch of Luddites mistake the Master (with his thing for black velvet and big vocabulary and anachronistic gadget [[strike: that looks like a vibrator]]) for one of the geniuses attending the meeting, but he sends them after the one in the "yellow trousers and a vulgarly-colored coat".

[[caption-width-right:344:"Once I've gotten the Doctor right where I want him, I'll destroy every fiber of his colorful [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes coat]]!"]]

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Stephenson. Despite the "celebrity historical" being a regular feature of the revived series that happens at least OnceASeason, George Stephenson was first real historical personality to appear in the series since the various Dodge City figures in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters "The Gunfighters"]] back in 1966. This story was also the first to mix its historical celebrity into an aliens'n'monsters plot, which would become the standard format in later years.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Stephenson. The first real historical personality to appear in the series since the various Dodge City figures in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters "The Gunfighters"]].

We open with a bunch of grubby miners from OopNorth, going to the bathhouse after a long day's work. The old woman who runs the place herds them into a room - where poison gas suddenly comes up from the floor and knocks them all unconscious. Meanwhile, the Sixth Doctor and Peri are in the TARDIS, which is being pulled off course by a "time distortion". Both Creator/ColinBaker and Nicola Bryant [[OohMeAccentsSlipping massacre]] American accents as the Doctor establishes that the only person who could pull the TARDIS off course like that is a Time Lord (or a Dalek, but we're pretty sure it's a Time Lord). Back in the bathhouse, two gas-masked [[{{Mook}} mooks]] carry the unconscious miners into another room, mysterious red marks appearing on their necks. In a serial called "The Mark of the Rani". Hmmmm, can't imagine what ''those'' are.

* ArtisticLicensePharmacology: If that really was meant to be mustard gas in the Rani's booby-trap, the miners' face-covering gas masks would not have kept the Doctor and Peri safe. Further details are left out to avoid inflicting gratuitous psychological damage on readers, suffice to say that you should '''not''' look up the [[BodyHorror detailed]] [[CruelAndUnusualDeath effects]] of mustard gas on exposed skin if you value your SAN points.

* GroinAttack: The Rani's CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* HellBentForLeather: Check out the [[EvilIsSexy Rani's]] trousers.

* HamToHamCombat: A ''three way'' example, between Creator/ColinBaker, Anthony Ainley, and Kate O'Mara.

--->'''The Master:''' You underestimate me. Certainly I want to destroy him, see him suffer, but that is just an exquisite first step. [[BlatantLies I have a greater concept]], one that will encompass the whole human race!
---> '''The Rani:''' You're unbalanced. No wonder the Doctor always outwits you.

* TheXOfY

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: The Doctor quotes ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: The Doctor quotes ''Theatre/JuliusCasar''