THE PLOT
The TARDIS is drawn off-course, materializing in a 19th-century mining community. Here, the Doctor is pleased to learn that the genius engineer, George Stephenson (Gawn Grainger), is hosting a meeting of some of the most brilliant scientific minds of the age.
But there is evil lurking within this village. A renegade Time Lord scientist known as the Rani (Kate O'Mara) has set up shop in the town bathhouse, using the miners to extract a fluid from the brain, and leaving them paranoid and murderously aggressive afterwards. Lord Ravensworth (Terence Alexander), the owner of the mine, believes these are simply Luddite rioters. And an extra complication is about to be added. Because the Doctor has been drawn to this point by his old enemy, the Master (Anthony Ainley). The Master has chosen this community as the site of his final battleground with the Doctor. If he has his way, the Rani will be his ally - whether she likes it or not.
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Colin Baker gives his most relaxed and confident performance yet. He is very protective of Peri, repeatedly trying to get her to stay back from danger even when he's in imminent danger. The "rudeness" that tends to be associated with the Sixth Doctor is still there, but he doesn't come across as deliberately unpleasant. He's simply focused on the puzzle, and doesn't have time for social niceties.
Peri: Has taken to filling in the social niceties the Doctor forgets, such as when she darts back to thank the driver, or when she smoothes relations between the Doctor and Ravensworth. The writers actually remember Peri's botany background, and use it. In Part One, she reflects on how various farming advances will cause much of the vegetation around them to be gone by her time, while in Part Two she is drawn into the Master and the Rani's trap by going off with Luke to find herbs for a sedative. All of this makes for the best characterization Peri has received since the Sixth Doctor's introduction.
The Master: Anthony Ainley's early performances as the Master were very good, with his Master being both extremely dangerous and unstable. Ainley's actually still rather good, but his Master has become strictly one-note at this point. He disguises himself a scarecrow for no real reason save that in any Master story of this era, he must disguise himself at some point. His obsession with the Doctor has reduced itself to a desire to kill him. It no longer has to be due to his own cleverness. If he can get the Rani to do it for him, or even the Rani's frenzied victims, then that's perfectly fine by him. Oh, and he even kills a dog at one point - though he manages to not go "Mwuh-ha-ha!" when he does so.
The Rani: In her debut story, the Rani is more than just a female Master. She is a scientist with no scruples, not so much evil as amoral. She has a goal - gaining the chemicals in the miners' brains - and is determined to achieve it. The vendetta between the Doctor and the Master is an inconvenience. She allies with the Master because it's the best alternative open to her, but she clearly despises him. "He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line," she observes of his endless convoluted schemes. Kate O'Mara is quite good, and both characterization and performance lead me to wonder what this character might have become if return appearances had happened under more favorable conditions.
ALTERNATE SOUNDTRACK
On this viewing, I chose to watch Part One using the originally-commissioned "alternative soundtrack" by John Lewis. This score is wonderful when establishing the village and/or the miners, though it should be said that in the "science fiction" scenes with the Rani, the music becomes self-conscious and draws too much attention to itself. Despite this, I do prefer the Lewis soundtrack overall to the competent but generic Jonathan Gibbs score that was ultimately used.
THOUGHTS
There is much to like about The Mark of the Rani. Doctor Who's production values tended to be at their best in historical pieces, and that proves to be the case here. The coal mining community is visually convincing, and the historical context of the Luddite riots creates a solid backdrop for the story. Relatively little explanation is given as to who George Stephenson is for those who don't already know, but this is not a major impediment to enjoying the story.
Sarah Hellings' direction is fluid and visually confident. Both she and writers Pip and Jane Baker (in their first script for the series) use the opening sequence to provide a solid sense of the geography. We know where the village is, we know where the mine is. When the Doctor and Peri arrive, they walk through a wooded area to reach the village, further establishing the physical layout. This means that, when the action comes, we know how all the major settings connect. There are a number of lovely visual touches, from the opening crane shots to a simple but effective rack-focus shot that shifts emphasis from a spider-web in the foreground to the Doctor in the background. It's a pity Hellings did not do more work for the series after this.
Pip and Jane Baker are often slated as Who writers, to an extent that I often think is out of proportion to their actual weaknesses. In their debut Who script, they write reasonably well for all the lead characters, and give solid sketches for the major guest roles. The story is well-paced, with the Doctor and Peri getting involved in the story fairly quickly, and with the relationship between the Doctor and Peri written quite well.
Still, it must be said that the only major thing wrong with this serial is the script. The story's well-directed, well-acted, visually lovely, even quite well-paced. All that's missing, to paraphrase Leonard Maltin, is a plot. The Rani is draining brain fluid from miners, the Master shows up and blackmails her into helping him kill the Doctor, and the Doctor stops them. That's really about it. There's a lot of build-up involving a meeting of scientists... but the meeting never happens within the story, nor do we ever see the Master or the Rani doing anything about it. Neither Master nor Rani has any further hidden plot. She just wants brain fluid; he just wants to kill the Doctor. It's all very watchable, even if the Rani's tree-trap is one of the stupidest set pieces I've yet encountered in these reviews. But the story has the opposite problem of Attack of the Cybermen. There just isn't anything there, other than a string of fairly mild set pieces.
Though it's mild and under-plotted, the story is genuinely enjoyable. Colin is a much more immediately engaging Doctor than audience reception at the time would have one believe. The story itself may be a very mild triumph of style over substance, but it is a pleasant way to pass 90 minutes.
Torn between a "5" and a "6," I'll tilt this just barely toward the slightly-higher score.
Rating: 6/10.
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