Planet of the Rani

"Oblivion would be better than watching the world destroy itself."

Writer: Marc Platt

Format: Audio

Released: October 2015

Series: Monthly Adventures 205

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Constance

Synopsis

Miasimia Goria was a quiet planet, an ancient world of bucolic tranquility... 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...

Verdict

Planet of the Rani was a decent story to continue my way through the Monthly Adventures! Seventy to go now! It's exciting times as I look to complete this epic range that I started way back in 2013. This was an intriguing follow up to The Rani Elite with it essentially being a sequel as far as the Doctor and his old classmate were concerned. I quite liked how there was no messing around when it came to getting the Rani involve and the Doctor being late to a parol hearing for the Rani was a fun basis to start things. This was a good story for Constance after her recent arrival in Criss-Cross and I like the underlying factor of her wanting to utilise the TARDIS time travel capabilities to reunite with her lost husband. That's going to be really intriguing to explore and I have no idea how long that's going to last! It's certainly something I'm looking forward to finding out and going on that journey. The Rani having been waiting ninety-seven years for the Doctor to show up just shows what kind of long game the Time Lords can play. Especially when she claimed she could have left at any time and was merely waiting for the Doctor's arrival! She had no TARDIS but that didn't stop her from being ever so resourceful! I thought it was pretty amusing that in less than a century she had installed herself as the governor and was so revered on the planet now that she was essentially worshipped. That was also the case on Miasimia Goria which was delightful to visit after its mentions in The Mark of the Rani so visiting a planet where the Rani ruled was excellent. I thought the way she got there was decent in using the lives of the nine hundred other criminals that inhabited the Teccaurora Penitentiary and their combined mental strength along with the Doctor as the pathfinder, and I honestly thought that would be the end for whoever filled that position! Exploring the history between the Doctor and the Rani was good and I liked how she almost mocked him for a particular concoction he'd created in the Academy days. That was the ablative and its use to reduce people to almost a vegetative state. I think it's a tad coincidental and unbelievable that the Rani had been waiting all this time to utilise the one vial of its supply she happened to steal away, but it added to the emotional context between the pair. It became personal. Unfortunately, I don't think Siobhan Redmond embodied everything required of the Rani in this adventure which is a shame because I really liked her debut. It might be recency bias and the fact the Rani appeared on screen as the magnificent Archie Panjabi in Wish World/The Reality War, but she just didn't feel the same here. Maybe it's because as the Doctor pointed out her experiments ventured away from being biological and became a little more technologically inclined. Constance ending up with the Rani on the journey to Miasimia Goria was good but it did seem a bit silly when she was basically in a cockroach suit. Raj Kahnu was a decent character and I like the idea of him being the Rani's favourite experiment – probably because he works where so many others had failed! Having him think of the Rani as his mother was unsettling and the whole dynamic on the planet reacting to the Rani's return was intriguing. They'd moved on in the sixteen years she had been gone which was a little later than she had anticipated thanks to some subtle Doctor interference. I was a little miffed by the ending and Kahnu literally handing the Rani an escape pod from the TARDIS after all she'd done, but he was so angered by her that he wanted her off the planet. The Doctor was unhappy though at not bringing her back to Gallifrey for justice. He should have had that right after finding the antidote after all! Overall though, a decent tale and some fun throwbacks an exploration of the Doctor's relationship with the Rani. It's nice that things are left open for a rematch, but with this incarnation we are yet to have it which is a shame. I hope we get more as the potential is certainly there! A decent listen! 

Rating: 7/10