Series 24 on the whole
is a little unusual, because it doesn’t wind up being too reflective of who
Seven is overall. It leans more into
typical “quirky Doctor” stuff and far less into the mysterious/Machiavellian
elments that make Seven stand out from a lot of other Doctors. This is especially true of “Time and the
Rani,” his debut story, but I still like it quite a bit, even if it’s a little
more generic than representative of Seven.
The Rani has a secret/evil
plan (what else?) involving renowned geniuses, so naturally, the Doctor comes
into play. His encounter with the Rani
leads to his regeneration into his seventh form, and the Rani adds some extra
confusion to his usual post-regeneration wonkiness, allowing her to masquerade
as Mel and attempt to gain his unwitting participation in her scheme.
I enjoy the Rani a
lot. Having a dastardly Time Lady villain
is fun, and I like how different she is from the Master – plus, I’ll never
forget the preserved baby dinosaur specimens she just keeps in jars sitting
around her TARDIS. It’s interesting to
see her plan unfold here. And, even
though we still don’t know Mel very well as a companion at this point, it’s
immediately clear that the Rani pretending to be her is just wild.
Speaking of which, Mel
herself has a time of it in this story.
She and the Doctor are both knocked out when the regeneration happens
and she then spends much of the adventure away from him, being chased by
baddies and showing off her impressive set of lungs. This means that, when she does meet up with the Doctor again, she
doesn’t know what happened, giving her one of the more confused companion
reactions to a regeneration. Add in the
Doctor’s own scrambled mind and memories, and they have a hard time figuring
each other out.
And how about our
intrepid Seventh Doctor? Like I said,
this story really doesn’t even hint at the more enigmatic figure he’ll become
in the following season, but it’s still a fun introduction to the series-24
version of the character. There’s some
of the usual post-regeneration goofiness – his session of trying on new outfits
is very reminiscent of Four’s – and I like his habit of botching his aphorisms
in oddly-apt ways, like, “Time and tide melts the snowman.” And as usual for any Doctor struggling to
combobulate themselves after a regeneration, he still pulls it together enough
to figure out the villain’s plan and save the day.
The best part of this
story involves the scenes between Seven and the Rani. Pretending to be a companion is so not in the
Rani’s wheelhouse anyway, and since it seems Doctors are always the most
outrageously Doctor right after a regeneration (the spoon-playing, oh my god,)
she has a hard time trying to put up
with his quirks and ADD-ness. Combine
that with both the regeneration and the Rani’s manipulations screwing with the
Doctor’s head, and it leads to some really fun, funny interactions between them.
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