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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: BBC Video / Warner Bros.
Salesrank: 39709
Released: November 7, 2006 |
| Our Price: $12.96 |
| Used Price: $11.08 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The Doctor, the Master and another renegade Time Lord converge in 19th century England at the height of the Luddite rebellion.
Description of Doctor Who: Mark of the Rani (Story 140):
Fans of the Colin Baker-era Doctor Who (which is somewhat underrepresented on DVD) will be pleased with this terrific and well-liked serial from 1985 that pits Baker's Doctor and Peri (Nicola Bryant) against not one but two formidable foes against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in 19th-century England. The villains in question are the Doctor's longtime antagonist, the Master (Anthony Ainsley), who despite appearing to perish in 1984's Planet of Fire is back for more world domination, and the Rani (UK TV vet and former Hammer starlet Kate O'Mara), a cold and calculating renegade Time Lady whose experiments on the population of a mining town are turning the citizens into savage killers. Scripted by the husband-and-wife team of Pip and Jane Baker (who wrote three additional Doctor Who serials, as well as for Space: 1999), Rani is a literate and exciting Baker episode, well buoyed by O'Mara's elegantly evil performance and clever touches like the Doctor's brainstorming session with real-life engineering legend George Stephenson.
Chief among the wealth of extras on the Mark of the Rani DVD is a commentary track featuring a typically charming Baker and Bryant, who are joined by O'Mara; Baker, in particular, shines here by giving a considerable amount of production information along with personal reminiscences. "Lords and Luddites" is a 43-minute featurette about the serial's conception and production (narrated by UK television personality Louise Brady) that's chock full of interviews with the cast and crew, including the Bakers and composer Jonathan Gibbs (who is also profiled in a short interview piece), who replaced John Lewis, who died during production (both composers' soundtracks are offered in isolated music tracks). A battery of deleted and extended scenes, a return jaunt to the production locations, related clips from the children's TV programs Blue Peter and Saturday Superstore, and the by-now standard photo gallery, text-only information track, and PDF files for the Doctor Who Annual and Radio Times listings round out the supplements. --Paul Gaita
Doctor Who: Mark of the Rani (Story 140) Reviews:
One of the best Colin stories 
2008-07-06 - This is a pretty decent story which benefits with it's nice location and music score. Colin is also front and center for this one and as a result, it comes off very well. This is one of those simi historicals and it works very well. The other actors also do a good job in the story with both the production and the direction going well unlike some others from the JNT era. Personally, this is the one I would recommend to people who are just getting started in this era of the program.
One of the Overall Best Who Episodes
2008-06-11 - I think Colin Baker was wonderful as the Doctor, and this episode fires on all cylinders. Although rumour has it that Anthony Ainley was put out at having the villian Rani be percieved as having the upper hand, it was an absolutely great script, well acted by all. It has wonderful historical elements, and is among the best overall Who episodes. A funny sidebar: watch for the scene in which Colin rubs dirt on his face to blend in with the workers. In real life, the crew had placed "clean" dirt down for him. While during a break, one of the dogs relieved himself in it. Colin rubs dirt combined with dog pooh on his face. Listen to the wonderful commentary on the DVD for full details.
best colin baker episode
2007-10-10 - i love this dvd i have watched it 50 times already. i love seeing both the rani and the master together because you get two villians for the price of one and i love the rani she is my favorite villian in Doctor who and regardless of those people who say the rani is rubbish as a villian i find her fascinating because she is such an enigma like her conterpart the master. I just wish that john nathan turner didnt take over as producer for doctor who in the early eighties perhaps colin bakers potrayal of the doctor would have lasted longer without all those problems at the bbc.
One of Colin Baker's best outings as the Doctor
2007-08-24 - In most Doctor Who fandom quarters, Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor is revered as the least favorite incarnation of the time traveling Gallifreyan. I am not of that opinion. His obnoxious, demeaning attitude reminds the viewer that the Doctor is not human and as such will not have human characteristics.
I was waiting for this one to come out for a long time. It was top on my list of Colin Baker stories to get on DVD and I picked it up on the day it was released (although I am reviewing it a year later). The idea of yet another renegade Time Lord like the Rani skirting around the Universe appeals to me. Kate O'Mara makes the role her own. And to top it all off, she teams up (reluctantly) with the Master. So now the Doctor has two enemies to fight and this one is in a 19th Century setting. The Historical Whos always look good.
I love the Sixth Doctor's incredulous reaction to seeing the Rani for the first time while he's strapped to an operating table. For some reason that scene always makes me laugh. Then there is the final scene when the Doctor and Peri disappear into the vast unknown. "What do you do in there?" Doctor: "Argue...mainly." What a kick.
The extras aren't extraordinary on this DVD but they're still enjoyable, particularly the "Making of" documentary. I also enjoy the Then and Now location pieces that find their way onto these DVD's like in this case.
"He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line!"
2007-08-06 - As a story, "Mark of the Rani" is all over the place. Well, in a way. Every bit of the action takes place in or around a single coal mine in Killingworth, England, some time during the early 1800's--the very cusp of the Industrial Revolution. And the plot is fairly straightforward, too: The Rani, a renegade Time Lord scientist, is going about her own business performing unethical medical experiments on Earthlings when along come the Master and the Doctor, the one trying to force her into an alliance, the other trying to stop her after discovering her cruel if clinically efficient work. And yet, given such a unified setting and uncomplicated premise, all the characters involved seem to wander here and there, back and forth, around and around, endlessly criss-crossing the mine's environs--as if the writers would get dizzy if they tried to pen a straight plotline. In this case that's a plus, though, maximizing the incredibly authentic and historically accurate location shots to great advantage. "Doctor Who" has often benefited from BBC expertise in historical dramas, and they've done so here in spades.
Which means of course that this storyline is a pseudo-historical, an unusual genre highly characteristic of this show throughout its long and (now) continuing run--you could almost say unique to it--with a futuristic science fiction premise set in some interesting time in Earth's past (okay, more often than not England's past, but you know what they say, write what you know). "Mark of the Rani" is a prime example in fact, including as it does an actual historical figure as a character (George Stephenson, self-made man and engineer responsible for innovating the public use of steam locomotives on railways) and skillfully incorporating aspects of this time frame into the plot. Also characteristic of the show, this storyline includes the obligatory unconvincing special effect puzzlingly superfluous to the plot but without which the show would lose some of its charm (the tree. You'll know it when you see it).
As for the Doctor, Colin Baker is in top form in this story: wittily sarcastic and yet almost boyishly curious, benignly arrogant and yet profoundly ethical without being a boring prig about it. His rapport with Peri almost seems plausible here too, though Peri is still, well, Peri--annoying and unconvincing. The Rani on the other hand is a great character, a formidable opponent and a believably complex villain--in her own mind and according to her own standards she's doing nothing wrong and feels no more guilt about harming humans in her scientific experiments than we do about mice. Kate O'Mara gives a wonderfully superior performance here and totally brings this interesting character to life. And her Tardis is a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship (more than making up for the tree effects-wise)--funny how it follows the same basic structure as the Doctor's Tardis and yet seems like the Gallifreyan equivalent of the latest model of a Lexus to the Doctor's old beat-up '66 Dodge. Breathtakingly beautiful and yet decorated with disturbingly preserved pickled specimens--the perfect symbol of her personality. As for the Master, though, my, how the mighty have fallen. Anthony Ainley does pretty well here, not hamming it up so much as sometimes, but we've degenerated from Roger Delgado's suavely sinister mastermind and even from Ainley's scheming cackling villain who inevitably reminds me of the overdone bad guys in the early silent films to...comic relief! It's all over for you as an arch-enemy and nemesis when you're mainly there for the laughs. But there he is, the constant butt of the Rani's derisive remarks and sarcastic jokes, and by this point in the show's history the part that really stings is that she's pretty much right. He's a bungler throughout the story, and every time she's about got the Doctor and company up a creek, he screws it up somehow--making it even more comical that he persists in wondering why she doesn't want to be partners in crime!
In short, what we have here is a very Doctor-like Doctor along with his (diminished) arch-nemesis and a new renegade Time Lord (just how many are out there anyway?) in a finely crafted and well-written pseudo-historical sci-fi adventure with lots of wandering around in realistic outdoor locations and highly creative and/or authentic sets, all topped off with one really fake special effect as if to say, hey, nobody's perfect. This without doubt is quintessential "Doctor Who"--watch and enjoy!
