Doctor Who: Time And The Rani

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #128

by Pip Baker, Jane Baker

He glared bleakly at the Rani. "That asteroid's composed of strange matter! What monstrous experiment are you dabbling in now?"

Assailed by violent bouts of energy the TARDIS is blasted off course and forced to land on the barrent planet of Lakertya, and the violent buffeting triggers the Doctor's sixth regeneration. But that is the least of his worries. He has been hijacked by that ruthless renegade female Time Lord, the Rani.

Why has the Rani brought the Doctor to Lakertya? What are the hideous Tetrap guards? Who are the eleven geniuses she has imprisoned in her stronghold? What is the vital significance of the asteroid of Strange Matter? And can the Doctor stop the Rani's diabolical scheme before it affects the whole of creation throughout time and space?

Doctor Who - Time and the Rani is the first story to feature the seventh Doctor as played by Sylvester McCoy. This novelization is by Pip and Jane Baker, and is adapted from their original scripts.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel

144 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1987

About the author

"Pip" (Philip) and Jane Baker are British television writers best known for their contributions to the long running science fiction series Doctor Who. A husband-and-wife writing team, they wrote four serials for the programme: The Mark of the Rani, Parts 9–12 and 14 of The Trial of a Time Lord (aka Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe) and Time and the Rani. They have also written a number of novelisations of the series.

Reviews

[Polly Batchelor · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I've had enough of this drivel."

This is the first adventure of the seventh Doctor. The Doctor is suffering with amnesia due to his recent regeneration. You see the return of The Rani to begin with disguised as Mel to try and trick The Doctor.

The novel was slightly better than the tv episode. You get more out of the Sixth Doctor's regeneration and you finds out how The Rani escaped, with everything that happened at the end of 'Marks of The Rani.'
It seems when I can't get on with Pip and Jane's writing style, another book that I ended up rating low. I found that the plot felt flat. There are problems with the tv episode which you thought could have been fixed or slightly improved but last this wasn't the case.

"The more I know me, the less I like me."- The Doctor

[Danny Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have admired Pip and Jane Baker since I first watched their four-part story Time and the Rani, which first aired in 1987.

I liked the shock regeneration, it’s over in seconds. It had a big impact on me, especially because I didn’t know the reason for it (actor Colin Baker had refused to appear in the regeneration scene after being unceremoniously sacked from the job).

There are weird gadgets, which I like. The net gun is very cool in all its glittery strangeness.
And if you’re going to be a ‘screamer’, be a Mel.
When I first found out who the Doctor and companion were going to be in this new series, I (having only seen Tom Baker and Peter Davison and a few Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton episodes) thought it was very weird and camp casting but they both grew on me.

I recently bought a copy of the novelisation of Time and the Rani, and expectations were high. Pip and Jane are a fabulous scriptwriting team!

The novelisation is ridiculously wordy!
A few examples:
-He concertinaed the cuffs, absently rubbing his wrist where the injection needle had punctured the skin.
-The Doctor, obdurately ensconced on the bench, had not relented from his refusal to continue repairing the machine.
-She was no coward: if the Grim Reaper was about to swing his scythe, Mel didn't want to be fobbed off with a glib bromide.

An amazing pile up of words comes with such inventive and colourful descriptions. It's like reading a dictionary but with the words more entertainingly arranged.

And it's a dazzling and cleverly written story.

Glorious FUN!


Urak!


URAK!


LOL

[James Lark]

Whatever you make of the book, it resulted in a joyous discussion with Joe Ford at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...

[David T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why people hate this story so much. It really is just fine. Time And The Rani is the first 7th Doctor story. Although it feels a little jumpy at times it is still just fine. No one likes this story and I have no idea why. Some things are not explained very well and the story does feel a little bunched at times though I still think it is really good. I will admit some things with the Strange Matter and creating a Time Manipulator and how it works does not make much sense. When creating all of these ficonal elements, reactions, matters, and more it can be hard to explain how it all works. Though when looking past that the story is still good. Characters like Urak and Ikona work well and the dialogue was good. The book used a lot of upper level vocabulary which was nice too. I would have read this sooner too but when we ordered it they sent The Mark Of The Rani instead so I was put back a bit. Though in the end the first adventure of the 7th Doctor came out just fine in book-form, just like the episodes did. I would suggest it to anyone who likes weird but interesting Doctor Who stories.

The Rani has come to Lakertya and is preparing a deadly scheme that could mean the alteration of time itself! She needs the minds of 12 different geniuses to power her brain in order to devise a material that will be able to detonate Strange Matter. From this elaborate plan she could change the order of creation! On the planet Lakertya The Rani has enslaved its people and forced them to do her bidding. However Ikona refuses to give in and helps Mel as much as he can to find The Doctor and save the day. The Doctor who had just regenerated and is now trying to remember who is really was while The Rani holds him. Working with The Rani is Urak and the Tetraps, evil bat-like creatures who will not stop until The Rani succeeds and every Lakertyan is dead...

[Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who – Time and the Rani, by Pip and Jane Baker. Target, 1988. Number 128 in the Doctor Who Library. 143 pages, paperback. Original script by Pip and Jane Baker, BBC 1987.

This adventure introduces the 7th Doctor and features Mel.

The TARDIS is forced to land on the planet Lakertya. The turbulence triggers the Doctor’s regeneration. While unconscious, he is kidnapped by Tetraps, bat-like agents of the Rani. The Rani has also kidnapped geniuses from various places and times. To dupe the Doctor into cooperating in repairing her broken machinery, the Rani gives him an amnesia drug and disguises herself as Mel.

Mel wakes to go in search of the Doctor but encounters Ilona, a Lakertyan freedom fighter. The Rani has forced his people to do her bidding by hold Beyus, their leader, hostage. She also uses the brutish Tetraps to keep the Lakertyan inline.

What does the Rani need the geniuses for? What does the asteroid made of strange matter have to do with her plans? Can the Doctor recover his memory in time to save the planet from certain doom?

This was a difficult book to get through for me. The Bakers sesquipedalian writing style and constant attempts at raising the stakes made an already silly story outright laughable. In fairness, the story itself is quite dark but the Rani’s dialogue when disguised as Mel and the Doctor’s getting proverbs wrong dilute the darkness to an almost comic tone.

I can’t say that I liked Time and the Rani and can’t really recommend it.

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a weird one this one really, is the first Seventh Doctor story (and a poor way for the Sixth to have to go out really, with his end portrayed here), and brings back the Rani who is an interesting character, but whose motivations / plans here seem more in line with what the Master would try, than really in character for the Rani, against how she was portrayed in her first story, and no regeneration to help explain such a change.
The story itself has some interesting twists with the interactions between the Rani, the Doctor and Mel, but outside of that is a bit run of the mill, and the nature of the twists means it is a bit harder to get a good grasp on the Seventh Doctor at this point.
Mel is in reasonable form here though, and overall is still a reasonable read, if nothing amazing :)

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who : Time and the Rani (1987) by Pip and Jane Baker is the novelisation of the first serial of the twenty fourth season of Doctor Who and the first episode for the Seventh Doctor.

The Doctor and Mel are in the TARDIS which taken to the planet Lakertya. The TARDIS crash lands and the poor landing causes the Doctor to regenerate. The Doctor is confused and has some post regeneration amnesia. He is captured by the Rani who impersonates Mel and convinces the Doctor to do her bidding. Meanwhile the Rani’s bat like servants the Tetraps keep the Lakertyans down. Slowly the Doctor recovers and begins to realise what the Rani is up to.

Time and the Rani isn’t a bad start for the Seventh Doctor.

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a technically competent novel that manages to suck the tension out of a quite dramatic story. It reads quite excitingly and a lot of the problems with the tv version come across a lot more effectively on the page,but the need to ensure that the reader does not do any thinking of their own throughout does frustrate: EVERYTHING here is explained, down to the rather good mashed-up quotes which could have been left alone as a gift for the reader to work out. Which is a shame because I rather like the Baker’s ideas about the Doctor.

[Mad Medico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though I think Time And The Rani is an underrated serial, this novelisation is, to use the Tetrapian tongue, a daol fo dlo esra. Most of the enjoyment comes from the Baker’s clumsy, at times laughable prose. Highlights include: ‘[b]raying the equivalent of Tetrapian tally-hos, the winged bipeds romped cumbersomely into the hunt’; ‘a troubled frown on his chubby countenance’; and ‘a tawny, membraned claw crept over a craggy rim…’

[Julian White · Rating 1 out of 5]

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This is really poor - uninspired writing and scientifically inept and incomprehensible, scattered with what might be random selections from a thesaurus to elicit some spurious feeling of scholarship.

[Domiron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do like the TV serial a lot, but it's all in the acting it seems. Pip and Jane's unconventional language makes the dialogue crazy on TV in a good way but honestly it goes a bit too far when it's all narration too

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a terrible story. I like the Rani and I like the Seventh Doctor. Mel was a bit too much for me at times with her screaming

[Joe Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea sentences could be constructed in such a way. An education.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pip and Jane Baker clearly saw "Doctor Who" as a show for children, young children especially. "Time and the Rani," happily their last script for the show, amply proves this point. The novelization is in the Terrance Dicks mold of novelizations, basically the script with almost all the dialogue as aired on TV plus a few bits of narrative commentary to make it read like a story. The plot is rather lame. The Rani hijacks The Doctor's TARDIS from a distance (how did she know he was there?) to use The Doctor to fix her equipment so she can complete her grand scheme of biologically reprogramming the universe. It all plays out on the simplest good vs. evil level. The Bakers never miss an opportunity to praise their evil Time Lord creation and manage to take a swipe at The Master one more time (see their prior Rani + Master story "The Mark of the Rani" for multiple examples of "The Rani is brilliant, The Master is an idiot" remarks), just to say again, "See, our evil Time Lord is better." This novelization fixes none of the major defects of the original script.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite probably the weakest regeneration story of any of the Doctors.
Some decent ideas, but it all feels pretty flat and by the numbers. Maybe it works better on TV, I haven't seen this episode.
The idea of Sylvester McCoy running around in Colin Baker's costume and the Rani disguising herself as the overly perky Mel has potential, but there's no humor in this book and it all feels pretty generic.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "Spock's Brain" of Doctor Who novelizations. The overdose of preposterous purple prose is a blast to read out loud at dinner parties, while drinking a bottle of wine with friends.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it's pants. But it's still better than Eric Sayward's novelisation of The Twin Dilemma, the worst Doctor Who regeneration story.