N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
There aren’t many openings in Doctor Who as impressive as the first couple of minutes of The Mark of The Rani. The location, the camera work, the music all combine to set the scene for another of the show’s own brand of pseudo-historicals — this one set against a backdrop of the Industrial Revolution.
The Mark of The Rani has that almost-intangible Doctor Who feel that its two predecessors in season 22 perhaps lacked. For one, while there is violence, it’s not quite so gruesome. There’s no Lytton moment here (although some of the occasionally unconvincing accents do a fair bit of damage to the ears). And as much as I admire the ending to Part One of Vengeance on Varos, here we also get a proper cliffhanger (rather than just a freeze in the action with a close-up), with the Doctor Soapbox Derby-ing his way into peril.
“Safe? I haven’t been safe from the moment I first found myself in the TARDIS.”
Peri, The Mark of The Rani: Part One
More than that, the Doctor and Peri’s relationship seems to have settled down somewhat. They still argue, of course, but it seems more like Doctor / companion bickering than before, with perhaps my favourite example being when the Doctor asks Peri if she’d like to meet a genius and she witheringly remarks ‘I thought I already had.’
You’d be forgiven for forgetting Peri was a botany student, so seldom has it been mentioned but here she gets to show off her botany knowledge — and almost gets to make a sleeping draught!
“Fortuitous would be a more apposite epithet.”
The Master, The Mark of The Rani: Part One
It’s a bit of running joke that this version of this Master is invincible, alway managing to return from a seemingly inescapeable situation. He even remarks himself that he’s indestructible. I guess we’ll never know how the Master survived the flames of Sarn! And whilst I agree that the Rani is more than capable of carrying the story villainy on her own, I would miss the disdain with which she regards both the Master ‘devious and overcomplicated’ plans and his ‘petty squabbling’ with the Doctor.
Indeed, Kate O’Mara gets many of the best lines, commenting memorably that the Master would ‘get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line’ and frankly, there’s something gloriously bonkers about the Rani’s plan to turn humans into trees! For the second Sixth Doctor story in a row, we get a new villain worthy of a return.
The Mark of The Rani may not be quite as bold a piece of storytelling as Vengeance on Varos, but for me it’s every bit as good, and shows once again that, even twenty-two years in, Doctor Who was capable of shifting tone from one week to the next and still delivering a cracking story!
