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

• Author Phobia: The Tetraps were a merging of two creatures that Pip and Jane Baker thought were the most horrible - bats and rats.
• Author's Saving Throw: The regeneration scene has been so widely mocked over the years that the Doctor Who New Adventures, the Past Doctor Adventures, and the Big Finish audio play "The Last Adventure" all took up the task of writing a more satisfactory exit for the Sixth Doctor at one point or another, with "The Last Adventure" now being widely considered the Sixth Doctor's canonical final story.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Andrew Cartmel has said that there were many things he disliked about the script which lacked depth. After seeing the first episode, his agent rang him and said, "I thought you were one of the good guys!"
    "This was a story which wasn't about anything — and, frustratingly, it was Sylvester McCoy's debut."
  • Director Andrew Morgan thought that the pink sphere weapons were static and dull and that he had been ill-advised. He was new to effects work and felt bullied by the effects people into making decisions that affected the look of the show. He eventually felt it was one of the worst jobs he ever did.
  • Sylvester McCoy felt that the story wasn't as bad as it was portrayed, but concedes that as it was written for Colin Baker, it was like a coat that didn't fit.
  • Pip and Jane Baker weren't keen on McCoy, feeling he was too jokey. They particuarly disliked the spoon-playing, with Pip complaining, "Where would a Time Lord learn to play the bloody spoons?" ^note To which one might say, "the same place he learned to play the recorder."
• Hostility on the Set According to many reports, writers Pip and Jane Baker got on terribly with the new script editor Andrew Cartmel, with Cartmel frustrated at how controlling they were over their script, and they in turn seeing him as an incompetent upstart.
• On-Set Injury: The Rani's final scene of her being held prisoner by the tetraps originally involved her being hung upside-down like her bat-like captors, rather than by her arms. The scene was reworked after Kate O'Mara popped a blood vessel in her eye due to being left hung upside down for longer than intended.
• Recycled Script: Pip and Jane Baker drew upon their 1986 Find Your Fate book Race Against Time, in which the Rani tries to build a Time Destabiliser in order to reshape the universe to her design.
• Troubled Production: Considering how late in the day most of the key production staffers and even Sylvester McCoy himself were brought in, this was somewhat inevitable.
  • Firstly, the story was originally supposed to be Colin Baker's regeneration story, but Baker, who'd been fired at the insistence of BBC controller and vocal Who cynic Michael Grade, refused to show up unless he got a full season, necessitating rewrites to make it McCoy's debut story instead.
  • Andrew Cartmel didn't get along at all with writers Pip and Jane Baker (no relation to Colin), who repeatedly told him that as a novice with no prior TV experience he had no business trying to advise them on anything other than what was or wasn't feasible on the show's budget — which was actually the thing he was least qualified to advise them on — and didn't even always take his advice on that front.
  • In particular, the Bakers refused to remove a scripted scene where King Solomon is abducted in the midst of the argument over who is the rightful mother of a baby just as his guard prepares to split it in two with an axe so as to give one half to each "mother"; the Bakers refused to back down on this until John Nathan-Turner pointed out that if neither he nor Cartmel were familiar with that parable, odds are most viewers at home wouldn't be either.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Dermot Crowley and David Fielder were the final contenders for the part of the Seventh Doctor before the casting of Sylvester McCoy.
    • Ken Campbell, Tony Robinson, Hugh Futcher, Alexei Sayle, Andrew Sachs and Chris Jury also auditioned for the role of the Seventh Doctor before the casting of McCoy. Futcher and Sayle previously played Hickman and the DJ in "The Sea Devils" and "Revelation of the Daleks" respectively. Sachs would eventually voice an older version of Adric for Big Finish in "The Boy That Time Forgot", while Jury would go on to portray Deadbeat in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy"
    • A female Doctor was on the wishlist of many fans for decades before Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor, and Sydney Newman would have had one ready to go in 1987 if he had returned as showrunner - following a season where the Doctor regenerated back into Patrick Troughton - recommending Frances De La Tour, Dawn French, and Joanna Lumley for the Seventh Doctor. Lumley would later appear in the non-canonical "The Curse of Fatal Death" as the Thirteenth Doctor.
  • This serial was originally written with the Sixth Doctor in mind. Originally, he was to have regenerated at the end of this story instead of at the start; the script had the Doctor staying behind at the Rani's headquarters to ensure nothing went wrong with the missile strike, but the ensuing explosion causes him to regenerate. However, Colin Baker refused to come back for anything less than a full season, but the BBC executives responsible for his sacking would only permit one serial. Neither party could come to an agreement, hence the Sixth Doctor's unceremonious demise; following Baker's departure, it was hastily rewritten to accommodate the Seventh Doctor. Baker went on to regret turning down this story, stating that it was inconsiderate of the show's fans.
  • The original version of the Seventh Doctor's opening titles gave the Doctor's face a more subtle, reddish, skull-like appearance. This was discarded in favour of a harder, more visible, and blue-tinted image, but the first version was accidentally aired with Episode 4.
  • Judi Dench, Anna Massey, Ingrid Pitt and Billie Whitelaw were considered for Faroon.
  • The original pre-title scene had Albert Einstein kidnapped by the Rani.
  • John Nathan-Turner originally preferred not to include the regeneration. Urak would turn over the unconscious Doctor to reveal his new face. He later changed his mind. The director wanted to use a clip of Colin Baker, but Nathan-Turner refused.
  • Mel was going to be given a real introduction after being introduced last season as a future companion, but Colin Baker's firing made this impossible to rectify with her being seen as Six's companion, so the story just sort of keeps her already there out of nowhere.
• Working Title: The serial was originally titled Strange Matter back when it was Colin Baker's regeneration story. When Baker's refusal to return without a full season necessitated rewrites to make the story Sylvester McCoy's debut adventure instead, the title was changed concurrently.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: One reason for the story's problems was that Pip and Jane Baker had no idea who would be playing the new Doctor or how he would be characterised — and, at least when they started work on the project, the series had no script editor for them to discuss things with.
• You Look Familiar: Wanda Ventham (Faroon) and Donald Pickering (Beyus) previously appeared together in "The Faceless Ones". Pickering also played Eyesen in "The Keys of Marinus", while Ventham played Thea Ransome in "Image of the Fendahl".

---