(657) Time and the Rani - Part 4

It’s a welcome relief that this is the final episode of the story. Despite this being the final episode, there isn’t the sense of it being the big ending and that is due to the writing really but that isn’t the fault of Pip and Jane Baker but unfortunately its their names on the credits.

The Tetrap’s design is still something that I find impressive. This is the episode where they start to turn against the Rani. This leads to a rather amusing scene at the end where they have the Rani tied up in her TARDIS. It does seem odd that they haven’t made an appearance in a Big Finish story because I think that there is something good about them.

The Doctor is using his mixed sayings to annoy the Rani and so doesn’t spend too long in the cubicle.  I think that Sylvester McCoy plays the Doctor in the way that perhaps the way that the Doctor should be straight after the regeneration and the only thing that stops me from writing of Sylvester McCoy is that I know how good he becomes in future series. Bonnie Langford was rather disappointing in this story because I am struggling to think of what she did that was noteworthy. After the good start that had in the previous series, it is somewhat disappointing that she was reduced to pretty much supporting status.

The Rani finally reveals that she want to put right what went wrong with civilisations which doesn’t seem the sort of thing that the Rani had a better plan in her previous story. I think that this wasn’t the best story for Kate O’Mara but she still manages to give an entertaining performance. There aren’t many people in television that would shun sunny Hollywood and want to spend time in a wet grey quarry in Britain.

Despite all the problems with this story there are some positives. Firstly there is the music. Keff MucCulloch’s incidental music is rather good in this episode and even though its very much of the period, it still seems a lot more modern than the music that had been used the previous series.  Another thing that worked quite well were the models. The models used towards the end of the episode are rather good but I wish that there were more in this story.

The scene where the Doctor is in the TARDIS is one which is unusual because I cant recall many scenes that Sylvester McCoy would have in that set. It’s an odd thing to point out but McCoy’s Doctor is the one spends more time out of the TARDIS than in it.

It’s fair to say that this isn’t the greatest Doctor Who story that there has ever been and I wish I could write that this was the only blip in the season but things are about to get worst. There is always the possibility that now the opening story is over and done with that things can start to settle down but at the moment I don’t think so.