History Recap / DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani

Eventually, the Rani's diabolical scheme is revealed: she's been kidnapping the smartest people throughout space and time in order to create a gigantic artificial brain. This brain can steer evolution, and since the Rani really loves dinosaurs, she's going to retroactively replace Earth's population with them. And possibly some other stuff. ''Evil'' stuff. However, her plans involves hooking the Doctor up to the giant brain together with the likes of Einstein and Pasteur, who of course all immediately proceed to not listen to the Rani. The Doctor rescues the lizardmen, straps their bombs to the giant brain instead, and taunts the Rani into activating said bombs. He drops the geniuses off back home and runs off for more adventures with Mel in the TARDIS. As for the Rani, she's left (literally) hanging with bat-people as she vows her revenge. She's still not very good at her job.

Eventually, the Rani's diabolical scheme is revealed: she's been kidnapping the smartest people throughout space and time in order to create a gigantic artificial brain. This brain can steer evolution, and since the Rani really loves dinosaurs, she's going to retroactively replace Earth's population with them. And possible some other stuff. ''Evil'' stuff. However, her plans involves hooking the Doctor up to the giant brain together with the likes of Einstein and Pasteur, who of course all immediately proceed to not listen to the Rani. The Doctor rescues the lizardmen, straps their bombs to the giant brain instead, and taunts the Rani into activating said bombs. He drops the geniuses off back home and runs off for more adventures with Mel in the TARDIS. As for the Rani, she's left (literally) hanging with bat-people as she vows her revenge. She's still not very good at her job.

The Doctor is very miffed to have regenerated, and even more miffed by what he thinks is regular old [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva post-regenerative amnesia]]. He refuses to do any work until his mind starts working again. The Rani, whose Mel disguise is working rather well, decides to go enslave some more lizardmen instead.

The Rani then takes the Doctor off to her secret laboratory, while leaving the companion Mel back in the TARDIS to stumble around the exotic alien landscape with that day-glo lizard we saw earlier. She doses him with amnesia juice. The Doctor awakens to see the Rani disguising herself as Mel and acting like Mel for... um... we're never really told why. Maybe the Rani simply wanted to be the Doctor's companion for a while.

Without even an opening credits sequence to kick things off, this sequence features an impressive ''(for the time)'' CGI shot of the TARDIS randomly flying around as it gets zapped with lasers. Why it's zapped with lasers, what's going on, who's doing what, that's unimportant: the TARDIS is being zapped and we're supposed to care. The TARDIS is then forced to land on an [[BBCQuarry exotic alien planet]] as a day-glo lizard guy watches. The TARDIS is then opened up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani the Rani]] steps in and gloats while one of her henchmen rolls over someone in the Sixth Doctor's outfit, revealing [[FakeShemp a guy in a wig]] who then [[TheNthDoctor regenerates]] into the Seventh Doctor right before our eyes[[note]]That's right, no fantastic ending to Colin Baker's Doctor, just... [[DroppedABridgeOnHim a nasty bump on the head]]. Then again, Colin Baker didn't appear in this episode, so it's not like the usual dramatic regeneration could be done.[[/note]]

The Rani then takes the Doctor off to her secret laboratory while leaving the companion Mel back in the TARDIS to stumble around the exotic alien landscape with that day-glo lizard we saw earlier. The Doctor awakens to see the Rani disguising herself as Mel, acting like Mel and generally being Mel's somewhat annoying self for... um... we're never really told why. Maybe the Rani simply wanted to be the Doctor's companion for a while.

Eventually, the Rani's diabolical scheme is revealed: she's been kidnapping the smartest people throughout space and time in order to create a gigantic artificial brain to... do more vague things. ''Evil'' vague things. So the Doctor decides to throw a wrench into everything by sabotaging the brain, rescuing the people the Rani kidnapped and finally running off for more adventures with Mel in the TARDIS. As for the Rani, she's left ''(literally)'' hanging with bat-people as she vows her revenge. She's still not very good at her job.

It's worth noting that this story was originally intended for Colin Baker's [[TheNthDoctor 6th Doctor]] by Pip and Jane Baker ''(old hands at writing for him by this point)'' , but was sent through the re-write cycles once Colin was fired. It's notable for the final appearance of the Rani in the series, as well as the first appearance of the 7th Doctor.

* TheCastShowoff: [=McCoy=] was good at doing pratfalls and mugging. See the CharacterizationMarchesOn example below.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: [=McCoy=]'s performance as the Doctor is different, to say the least, to the way fans like to remember him. [[JustifiedTrope However,]] this ''is'' [[TheNthDoctor his regeneration story]].

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Doctor notes that he and the Rani are the same age, 953 years old. Which makes his later claims to be 900 in the new series either lies, or else he's forgotten how old he actually is.

->''"I've had enough of this drivel!"''
-->So have we, '''Mel'''. So have we.

Without even an opening credits sequence to kick things off, this sequence features an impressive ''(for the time)'' CGI shot of the TARDIS randomly flying around as it gets zapped with lasers. Why it's zapped with lasers, what's going on, who's doing what, that's unimportant: the TARDIS is being zapped and we're supposed to care. The TARDIS is then forced to land on an [[BBCQuarry exotic alien planet]] as a day-glo lizard guy watches. The TARDIS is then opened up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani the Rani]] steps in and gloats while one of her henchmen rolls over someone in the Sixth Doctor's outfit, revealing [[FakeShemp a guy in a wig]] who then [[TheNthDoctor regenerates]] into the Seventh Doctor right before our eyes[[hottip:*:That's right, no fantastic ending to Colin Baker's Doctor, just... [[DroppedABridgeOnHim a nasty bump on the head]]. Then again, Colin Baker didn't appear in this episode, so it's not like the usual dramatic regeneration could be done.]]

Without even an opening credits sequence to kick things off, this sequence features an impressive ''(for the time)'' CGI shot of the TARDIS randomly flying around as it gets zapped with lasers. Why it's zapped with lasers, what's going on, who's doing what, that's unimportant: the TARDIS is being zapped and we're supposed to care. The TARDIS is then forced to land on an [[BBCQuarry exotic alien planet]] as a day-glo lizard guy watches. The TARDIS is then opened up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani the Rani]] steps in and gloats while one of her henchmen rolls over someone in the Sixth Doctor's outfit, revealing [[FakeShemp a guy in a wig]] who then [[TheNthDoctor regenerates]] into the Seventh Doctor right before our eyes[[hottip:*:That's right, no fantastic ending to Colin Baker's Doctor, just... [[DroppedABridgeOnHim a nasty bump on the head]].]]

* FakeShemp: Colin Baker was either never asked to film his pathetic death and regeneration or didn't want to, reports differ. Whatever the case, poor Sylvester [=McCoy=] had to wear a wig and the regeneration was done by obscuring his face with some [[SarcasmMode finest quality]] Quantel blurring effects.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The kidnapped geniuses, if they count as characters when none of them get any lines.

* FixFic: The PastDoctorAdventures novel ''Sprial Scratch'' turns the Doctor's Bridge Drop into a HeroicSacrifice.

** It should be noted that the Doctor had referred to himself as being 1250 years old in the much earlier story "The Leisure Hive".

* {{Synthesizeritis}}: This is the debut of incidental musician Keff [=McCulloch=], who's very...of [[TheEighties his time]].

Eventually, the Rani's diabolical scheme is revealed: she's been kidnapping the smartest people throughout space and time in order to create a gigantic artificial brain to... do more vague things. ''Evil'' vague things. So the Doctor decides to throw a wrench into everything by sabotaging the brain, rescuing the people the Rani kidnapped and finally running off for more adventures with Mel in the TARDIS. As for the Rani, she's left ''(literally)'' hanging with bat-people as she vows her revenge.

!Tropes

Without even an opening credits sequence to kick things off, this sequence features an impressive ''(for the time)'' CGI shot of the TARDIS randomly flying around as it gets zapped with lasers. Why it's zapped with lasers, what's going on, who's doing what, that's unimportant: the TARDIS is being zapped and we're supposed to care. The TARDIS is then forced to land on an [[BBCQuarry exotic alien planet]] as a day-glo lizard guy watches. The TARDIS is then opened up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani the Rani]] steps in and gloats while one of her henchmen rolls over someone in the Sixth Doctor's outfit, revealing [[FakeShemp a guy in a wig]] who then [[TheNthDoctor regenerates]] into the Seventh Doctor right before our eyes[[hottip:*:That's right, no fantastic ending to Colin Baker's Doctor, just... [[DroppedABridgeOnHim a nasty bump on the head]]. We pause again to heap invectives on MichaelGrade.]].

The Rani then takes the Doctor off to her secret laboratory while leaving the companion Mel back in the TARDIS to stumble around the [[strike:BBC Quarry]] [[BBCQuarry exotic alien landscape]] with that day-glo lizard we saw earlier. The Doctor awakens to see the Rani disguising herself as Mel, acting like Mel and generally being Mel's somewhat annoying self for... um... we're never really told why. Maybe the Rani simply wanted to be the Doctor's companion for a while.

It's worth noting that this story was originally intended for Colin Baker's [[TheNthDoctor 6th Doctor]] by Pip and Jane Baker ''(old hands at writing for him by this point)'' , but was sent through the re-write cycles once Colin was fired. However, this would not have saved the meandering plot or the rather overly silly concept in general. As such, it's really only notable for the final appearance of the Rani in the series, as well as the first appearance of the 7th Doctor.

* TechnoBabble: The Rani's description of how she intends to [[spoiler:transform the planet and her giant brain into a time manipulating weapon]].

* FixFic: The novel ''Sprial Scratch'' turns the Doctor's BridgeDrop into a HeroicSacrifice.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timerani_2258.jpg

--

* FixFic: The DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse novel ''[[http://www.drwhoguide.com/whobbk72.htm Spiral Scratch]]'' is an attempt to make poor Colin's regeneration into something less lame.

* [[{{ptitlews9vjxau4x1j}} Hey, It's That Voice!]]: The voice of the brain is [[BlakesSeven Peter Tuddenham]].
* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Those mines!

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Similarly to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet "The Mysterious Planet"]], a good chunk of the special effects budget was blown on this story, and it shows; the opening shot and the bubble traps look amazing for 1987. However, it left later stories like ''Dragonfire'' with barely enough money to make a phone call. And a ''local'' one at that.
* {{Xenafication}}: Mel shows combat skills she never does before or later in the scene where she thinks the new Doctor is a bad guy.

<<|Recap/DoctorWho|>>

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: [=McCoy=]'s performance as the Doctor is different, to say the least, to the way fans like to remember him.

The Rani then takes the Doctor off to her secret laboratory while leaving the companion Mel back in the TARDIS to stumble around the [[strike:BBC Quarry]] [[BBCQuarry exotic alien landscape]] with that day-glo lizard we saw earlier. The Doctor awakens to see the Rani disguising herself as Mel, acing like Mel and generally being Mel's somewhat annoying self for... um... we're never really told why. Maybe the Rani simply wanted to be the Doctor's companion for a while.

->''"I'm sick of this drivel!"''
-->So are we, '''Mel'''. So are we.

-->'''Mel''', insert joke about this story's quality here.

* CastShowOff: [=McCoy=] was good at doing pratfalls and mugging. See the CharacterizationMarchesOn example below.