Doctor Who: Series 24, Episodes 1-4 – “Time and the Rani” (1987)

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.