N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

Why does the Doctor regenerate at the beginning of Time and The Rani? Too much carrot juice? If I were the Doctor, I’d be worried the next time I stubbed my toe, it might trigger a regeneration.

“Leave the girl. It’s the man I want.”

The Rani, Time and The Rani: Part One

For the first couple of episodes, especially when The Rani is pretending to be Mel, Time and The Rani is good fun. After my disappointment with the previous couple of seasons’ episode endings, the cliffhanger to Part One is pretty good — enough to put you off zorbing, for certain.

Unfortunately, after The Rani’s deceit is revealed, it goes downhill somewhat — to the extent that even after this, my second or third viewing, I’m left scratching my head as to what The Rani’s plan actually is.

“The more I know me, the less I like me.”

The Doctor, Time and The Rani: Part One

What of the new Doctor? It’s hard to judge. There are plenty of jumbled quotations and sayings — and Mrs Malaprop even gets a namecheck — but whether this will stick as a character trait or is forgotten next week is something I’ll have to keep an ear out for. I can’t remember much of Paradise Towers or Delta and the Bannermen — those memory blind spots again!. Of the many proverbs the Doctor mangles here, ‘Every dogma has its day’ has to be my favourite.

Given the somewhat rushed nature of his casting and the apparent re-working of the script for a new Doctor, in hindsight, it’s easy to forgive Sylvester McCoy the elements that don’t work. There are glimpses of what-might-be here, but thankfully the rest we can put down to post-regenerative trauma.

Elsewhere, new boy Keff McCulloch is certainly fond of the synth stab chord for creating tension. I have to admit I’m not a fan myself, although elements of the incidental music here are pretty good, with some Moroder-like sequencing in places and some lovely Legend of Zelda-like music accompanying the first visit to the Lakertyans’ Centre of Leisure. Like the updated theme tune and graphics in the opening credits, it’s all very 80’s though.

‘Why is the girl in pink yelling?’, my daughter asked as she passed through the room whilst my son and I were watching this. It’s true Mel does an awful lot of screaming, even when a Tetrap’s claw is clamped over her mouth. Frankly, it’s a waste of Bonnie Langford and Mel here almost doesn’t seem like the Mel we saw in The Trial of a Time Lord. It’s a shame that the companion’s best scenes in this story are when The Rani is impersonating her.

Time and The Rani marks the second Doctor in a row whose first story was less than auspicious. Unlike The Twin Dilemma, which was always planned in, given the circumstances surrounding its production we can perhaps be slightly more forgiving of Time and The Rani‘s flaws.

Besides, it’s not the worst Doctor Who story with the word ‘Time’ in the title …