Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#205. Planet of the Rani ~ 8/10

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◆ An Introduction

My journey with the audio dramas started nearly eight years ago, and my bank account has never forgiven me. Almost immediately, I became fascinated by one renegade Time Lord in particular: a brilliant mind corrupted, her villainy came from a mindset that treated everything as secondary to her research, including morality. Considering what we’re currently reviewing here, you’ve probably worked out that I’m talking about the Rani.

From her very first appearance on screen, the name Miasimia Goria has been mentioned as the Rani’s usual stomping ground. She experimented on the natives’ brains to heighten their awareness, which inadvertently made them restless and aggressive. That’s why she was extracting the chemical which promoted sleep from human brains in 19th century Killingworth: she was hoping to make her guinea pigs more docile.

The Rani vanished for a number of years due to her imprisonment, but now she’s finally returned home, and her favourite experiment has taken on a life of its own…

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

Miasimia Goria was a quiet planet, an ancient world of bucolic tranquillity… until the Rani arrived with ideas of her own.

She planned to create a race of new gods… gods that she could keep on her leash, but those plans went horribly wrong.

Now, she languishes in the high security of Teccaurora Penitentiary, consigned there by her arch enemy and old student colleague, the Doctor.

But the Rani, always resourceful, ever calculating, knows things about the Doctor’s past that he would rather forget. She wants revenge, even if it takes a hundred years… and then she has other unfinished business.

The ruins of Miasimia Goria await…

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◆ The Sixth Doctor

Does anyone else find it a bit strange the Doctor is just lumbered with a substitute companion for the majority of this adventure? You would’ve expected the writers to be using this time to develop his friendship with Constance. That being said, Marc Platt does an excellent job writing for this incarnation: a definite improvement over the last time he handled the Sixth Doctor (I challenge you to recall anything of note from ‘Paper Cuts’).

Colin Baker put on an excellent performance in ‘Planet of the Rani’.

Constance is quick to reprimand the Doctor for leaving dozens of emails unanswered, but he assures her that it’s nothing to worry about: most are unsolicited interplanetary spam, easily deleted. The tiresome strictures of a linear existence are rendered irrelevant when you travel in time – it’s all relative, you know? – and missing the post becomes a thing of the past. The Rani is not the first of his academic contemporaries to land up behind bars: they were a vintage year! The Doctor always bypasses reception desks. What’s the point of a surprise inspection if your arrival is anticipated? He finds that cutting things fine is an occupational hazard. What an egotistical bunch of know-alls they were during their Academy days! They thought they’d rule the universe, he hardly thinks any nonsense they came up with then would be relevant now. The Rani thinks he had something of the genius about him in those days, before he went astray. The Doctor will meet with Raj Kahnu, but he’s not ferrying him round the universe in his TARDIS: he is not a tour guide, or a nanny, that’s Chowdras’s problem.

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◆ Mrs. Constance Clarke

Any companion’s first adventure in the TARDIS should be jam-packed with moments of culture shock, with scenes where they’re allowed to take centre stage. This leads me neatly onto one of my major issues with this script, because Constance gets virtually nothing to do during the first half of the runtime. Luckily, this improves from part three onwards. During her conversations with Kahnu – the current prince of Miasimia Goria, who patrols his world from within a mechanised suit resembling an ornate cockroach – she becomes something of a soothing influence. The material is excellent, it’s just unfortunate that Marc Platt waited so long to show it off!

Miranda Raison delivered an excellent performance in ‘Planet of the Rani’. There was some obvious chemistry between her and James Joyce, something demonstrated in their many scenes together.

She can be quite persistent when she wants to be. Constance remembers her first home, in the African Bush. “Don’t go beyond the fence”, they said, but she didn’t listen… and now she’s half the sky away. Her father was determined to have a lawn, just like in England, but the warthogs kept digging it up. Constance tells Kahnu that the war back on Earth isn’t a good thing: it’s a necessity and a duty. Her husband went missing, and he might be in trouble. Their intelligence service was ready to haul her in, but the Doctor gave her a chance to get away.

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◆ To Tame a Living God

Established as a brilliant chemist during her first appearance, the Rani had created a mental expansion programme intended to heighten the awareness of the Miasimia Gorians. However, the process lowered their ability to sleep and chaos erupted. The Rani came to 19th century Killingworth in the hopes of extracting the chemical which promoted sleep, but thanks to the combined interference of the Doctor and the Master, her expedition was left a total write-off!

During her many years of incarceration, Miasimia Goria fell into a state of complete social collapse. The natives wandered aimlessly and entered a torpor following the experiment, because they were exposed to the Ablative: a bacteria which reduced multi-cellular life to a comatose state. They hid under the Roof of Trees, waiting for salvation. Only one person survived the mental expansion programme, so it seemed only fitting that he would become the planet’s new ruler.

Kahnu was to all intents and purposes a living god, but also someone who felt the pain of being abandoned by the closest thing he’d ever known to a mother: the Rani. Throughout the story he suffers from traumatic outbursts which reveal he has latent telekinetic powers… but he can’t control them.

A genius inventor who realised his species were vulnerable, Kahnu crafted armoured suits for them: they resembled mechanised cockroaches, covered in ornate scripture.

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◆ Sound Design

Miasimia Goria features some stunning scenery; statues of trees that resemble stacks of dinner plates, a remembrance of the great forest that once covered the land. It was a wild world before, there was harmony… until the Rani arrived. My biggest gripe with this production comes from the fact the imagery is derived from the script itself, NOT the sound design. Regular readers of my reviews will be fully aware that I’m biased towards any production Fox and Yason put their names to, but I cannot deny that this soundscape is pretty bare-bones.

Bleeping machines are wired up to all the prisoners in the Teccaurora Penitentiary, drip-feeding samples of the Ablative into their bodies. Blaring alarms as the Pathfinder Suite is prepared. Wind rushes through the suite when the Rani activates her portal back home. Security officers begin storming Teccaurora, energy weapons are fired down the cramped corridors. The prototype manned flying machine crash lands into the old hospital wing of the Rani’s palace. The clockwork gears of Kahnu’s mechanised cockroach armour click and grind as he moves. The Roof of Trees crumbles away… causing Chowdras to fall to his death. Kahnu’s foundry is a production line of flying sparks and machinery, his mechanised cockroach armour being crafted en masse. The walls of the Rani’s palace begin shifting as she reconfigures her TARDIS.

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◆ Music

As any regular reader of my reviews will tell you, I’ll take any opportunity to gush over this spectacular composing duo. Fox and Yason scores have typically been a lot softer than those created by their peers, resulting in some deeply atmospheric pieces.

That’s not to say they’re incapable of amping up the drama when necessary, as demonstrated when the Pathfinder Suite is being powered up towards the end of part one: the tension is palpable as the Rani makes her final preparations to return home.

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◆ Conclusion

“I am Raj Kahnu… the child of the Rani!”

Almost everyone from the mental expansion programme perished, whilst the rest of the population hid beneath the Roof of Trees… waiting for a salvation that might never arrive. The programme’s sole survivor is to all intents and purposes a living god, but also someone who felt the pain of being abandoned by the closest thing he’d ever known to a mother: the Rani. During her many years of incarceration, Miasimia Goria fell into a state of complete social collapse… but now she’s finally returned home, and she wont let her favourite experiment usurp the throne any longer!

Marc Platt is often treated to a degree of reverence by the fandom – people still treat ‘Lungbarrow’ like sacred scripture, which means scalpers on eBay can charge £80 for it without a care in the world – but I’m aware that even he can have off days. Considering how much I adore the Rani, I was expecting great things from this adventure.

Siobhan Redmond continues to impress as the second incarnation of this gifted chemist, which means I’ve got my fingers crossed that someone within BigFinish is working hard to sort out the rights issues – I’m still rather foolishly holding out hope that the Rani will appear in ‘Dark Gallifrey’.

Colin Baker and Miranda Raison both delivered some marvellous performances, though I’m still baffled as to why Constance was given virtually nothing to do for the first half of this adventure. It seems like a very odd decision to make for a companion’s first adventure in the TARDIS.

‘Planet of the Rani’ was among the first BigFinish plays I ever purchased, so there was definitely a degree of nostalgia tinting my opinions in this review, but it’s still a marvellous little script.