The Mark of the Rani

139 – The Mark of The Rani
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor at the Rani's mercy
Cast
Doctor Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor)
Companion Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown)
Others Anthony Ainley — The Master Kate O'Mara — The Rani Terence Alexander — Lord Ravensworth Gawn Grainger — George Stephenson Peter Childs — Jack Ward Gary Cady — Luke Ward William Ilkley — Tim Bass Hus Levent — Edwin Green Kevin White — Sam Rudge Martyn Whitby — Drayman Sarah James, Cordelia Ditton — Women Richard Steele — Guard
Production
Directed by	Sarah Hellings
Written by	Pip and Jane Baker
Script editor	Eric Saward
Produced by	John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Jonathan Gibbs
Production code	6X
Series	Season 22
Length	2 episodes, 45 minutes each
Originally broadcast	2 February–9 February 1985
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → Vengeance on Varos The Two Doctors
List of Doctor Who serials

The Mark of the Rani

Author	Pip and Jane Baker
Cover artist	Andrew Skilleter
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	107
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	January 1986 (Hardback) 12 June 1986 (Paperback)
ISBN

The Mark of The Rani is the third serial of the 22nd season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from 2 February to 9 February 1985. This story is the first to feature the renegade female Time Lord known as the Rani.

Something is amiss in the mining village of Killingworth, in 19th-century England. Miners are being gassed in the washhouse and transformed into thugs and vandals, attacking men and machinery, being perceived as Luddites by other locals. The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown witness the phenomenon when they arrive in Killingworth looking for the cause of some sort of time distortion, and he also notices one of the rampaging miners has a strange red mark on his neck. With his usual audacity, The Doctor foists himself upon the local landowner, Lord Ravensworth, who is concerned by the ferocity of the local Luddite attacks, with the most passive of men suddenly turning violent and unpredictable.

The answer lies in the local washhouse. The Master has turned up at this key point in human history and forces his way into the presence of the old woman who runs the washhouse: in reality another Time Lord known as the Rani. She is a gifted chemist and is using the set-up of the washhouse to anaesthetise the miners and distill from them the neurochemicals that enable sleep. This is what accounts for the red mark on the victims. These chemicals are then synthesised for use back on Miasimia Goria, a planet she rules and which the Master visited, where her other experiments have left the inhabitants without the ability to rest. He persuades her that they need to deal with the Doctor together, but also steals some of the precious brain fluid she collected to ensure her collaboration. It is a rocky partnership, full of half-truths and deceptions. The Master heads off to deal with the Doctor, egging on local miners to attack his enemy and persuading some of them to throw the Doctor's TARDIS down a mineshaft.