With the news of Kate O’Mara’s passing this past Sunday, a little dream of mine died. Her character the Rani was one of my all-time favorite Who villains, and I’d really wanted to meet her and get her autograph. She’d been scheduled as a guest at Gally this year, but had to cancel at the last minute.
I saw many other fans also expressing their dismay at her death, most for similar reasons. We admired the character she played, her own personality, and the strength she projected in her very carriage. And I believe many of us hoped, deep down, she’d eventually return to the show.
As my own way of coping with the loss, I returned to speculation about how the Rani could be shoehorned back into the modern narrative. I’ve suggested before that certain baddies might return with enough plot twists, but I’m pleased with the greater feasibility of my latest scheme.
In the 50th and subsequent Christmas specials, recent Time Lord history-as-we-knew-it got rewritten. The Time Lords are no longer completely extinct; they’re just trapped in an alternate universe (like Rose—and we all know how well that’s kept her away). If they were able to send a signal through the Crack, then surely other things could leak through (as, right at our first introduction to the Crack, Prisoner Zero did). Someone as brilliant (and contemptuous of rules that don’t suit her) as the Rani could certainly have squeezed through, too.
So imagine this, if you will: at some point in the next series or two, the Doctor is faced with a mysterious and brilliant adversary. This foe is always a step ahead of the Doctor, anticipating his responses to various situations and using his curiosity and ingenuity against him. The hallmarks are all there, but he doesn’t put two and two together until she’s already led him a merry chase, and it’s almost too late to stop her.
How would the Doctor react to learning that the Rani had also found a way to escape the Time War? Surely, like with the Master, some part of him would simply be glad to welcome one of his own people back to the land of the living. On the other hand, of all the individuals he could’ve hoped for, the Rani would undoubtedly be low on his list.
In contrast, she’s always been high on my own wishlist for returning characters. Kate O’Mara’s depiction was so perfect, it would be difficult to find the right person to do the character justice, but I’d love to see someone try. And really—we all know an alternate universe is a piddly barrier for a scientific mind as amazing as the Rani’s. Perhaps she could even create a sort of underground railroad for like-minded rogues as a means for funding her all-important research.
The possibilities are endless. Somebody get on that script.
More Rogue Time Lords
I for one want the return of the Master. I also felt unwell upon seeing your latest poll. Going by the Classic TV Series, the Target novelisations, interviews from the actual production teams, promotional material from the actual production teams, and actually confirmed by an episode of Mastermind….the Monk, War Chief and Master are THE SAME TIME LORD. 99% of people had enough common sense to understand this. Only a really dimwitted individual would have failed to pick it up.
However, Virgin Books head Peter Darvill-Evans was one of the 1%. He rejected anything from any author who stated that it was the same Time Lord, while happily giving the green light to rubbish like “No Future”(the return of ‘The Monk, which contradicts numerous tv stories, other Virgin Books, and itself’), or “The Dark Path”(an ‘origin’ story for the Master which contradicts nearly every Doctor Who tv story). This spread through the internet, then the fanzines. Today if you point out that it was always intended to be the same character, and explain how, you get some moron calling themselves something like “Wholahoop” making ignorant, vulgar comments. But going just by the tv show, it is still the same Time Lord. Many of the creeps hated John Simm as the Master, because he didn’t look and act EXACTLY like Delgado. But of course each incarnation of a Time Lord has a different appearance and a different personality…just look at the Doctor! And all those references to Harold Saxon, the Doctor’s companion realising what was going on by Yana’s anachronistic watch, the references to the “call to war” and the ending of The End of Time being a perfect mirror of the ending of The War Games. RTD knows. Yet people who weren’t even there claim to “know better”?! It is unfortunate that Virgin Books(and later Big Finish Audio with their Fourth Season of Eight Doctor/Lucie/Tamsin Audios) made such a grotesque continuity blunder. However going by the tv show, the comics, the BBC Books(that scene in Divided Loyalties is a NIGHTMARE, not reality), the BBC Audios, the Annuals, it’s clear……If the Master were to return, then the Monk and the War Chief would be returning at the exact same time. As would Harold Saxon, Professor Yana, Khalid, the Portreeve, the Abjudicator, Professor Keller, Sir Gilles Estram etc.
Identity questions
First, I want to thank you for taking the time to comment and share your opinion. I honestly appreciate it when readers find something on my blog they want to talk about, and put themselves out there.
Having said that, I would like to ask you to try to express yourself without insulting others in any future comments you post. I completely understand when something really sticks in your craw and you want to rant about it, but there’s a difference between saying, “You’re mistaken; here’s why” and saying, “You’re an idiot.” Please refrain from the latter.
Now, to your point. I would like you to clarify for me how the content of the televised stories—and only that content—indicates that the Master, the Monk, and the War Chief are the same individual. Since I’ve never read a Target novelization, have not seen any of the interviews or promotional materials from the production teams before about 2008 that aren’t on DVD, or ever seen a single episode of Mastermind, I don’t know how anyone could reasonably expect me to know all this “common sense” information.
You mention a parallel between “The War Games” and the end of Series Three and “The End of Time.” I have only seen “The War Games” something like three times, and it’s been a while, so I’m not remembering the specific connections you mention. They may be obvious to you, but I don’t think someone who hadn’t been soaking in Second Doctor stories and alternative media would necessarily pick up on them. I will have to watch those stories again with your comments in mind in order to note them for myself.
I will point out, though, that Khalid, the Portreeve, Professor Keller, and Sir Gilles Estram (I’m not remembering the Adjudicator off the top of my head; is that from a novel or audio?) were all aliases of the Delgado or Ainley Masters, not different incarnations, as you’re saying the Monk and the War Chief were. I don’t think anyone’s arguing that those “characters” would be separate from the Master.