The latest War Doctor effort was notable for featuring the audio return of the Rani, and with it a really interesting look into the character that I wasn’t expecting, honestly. The story also goes into some fun lore and works really hard to try and explain the confusing Rani portrayal during her recent TV appearances. Though no doubt it might disappoint someone looking for more of an action-packed adventure I was pleasantly surprised given Rani stories don’t have a high hit rate with me… Let’s take a look!
The story kicks off with The War Doctor (Jonathon Carley) attempting to rescue some Time Lords but only successfully rescuing one called Vaylen (Thomas Arnold), who is caught mid-regeneration but can’t actually “finish” it. They’re pursued by a Dalek Fleet and the only way to escape is to accept help from The Rani (Siobhán Redmond), who beeps in. Initially not willing to trust her for obvious reasons The Doctor eventually has no choice and his TARDIS is pulled to where the Rani is currently hiding out. She greets him alongside her mutated Tetrap Malvore (Barnaby Edwards) and even offers to help Vaylen, but The Doctor is still weary (and with good cause!) Most of the first part is essentially The Rani trying to sway The Doctor to her side, eventually showing him a super-advanced computer simulation of the Time War that ends with Gallifrey’s destruction, finally forcing The Doctor to consider her plan as the best alternative. Basically her plan is genetically changing Daleks’ personality and then effectively spreading it like an airborne virus, sort of like the Second Doctor in “Evil of the Daleks” only instead of making them playful she wants to make them emotional and doubt the cold hard racist views of the Dalek hive mind. Most of the test subjects have gone doolally but one is aware enough that he’s changing but he’s resisting the idea of going against the Dalek doctrine.
While this is going on we still have Vaylen, who does eventually regenerate into a female body (Ony Uhiara) but it need stabilising, during which she struggles with her past self and their want to be a poet instead of a warrior, so basically she’s going through The Doctor’s own dilemma so it’s funny to hear him push her towards the former as if hoping she does the right thing rather than take the path he did. We also hear some lore drops during this time, like how The Doctor and The Rani are relieved when they both mention remembering when regeneration was different and how the Time War has changed it to its explode-y golden state, something Rani is looking at the science behind (naming the energy after herself, naturally), so it’s nice to have that actually mentioned as a fact rather than just assuming it was a Time War thing as a fan. As you might imagine though it soon becomes obvious that The Rani’s plans have an ulterior motive (GASP!) and she actually wants to change the Daleks into a force with undying loyalty to her, and that airborne virus effect? It wasn’t just the Daleks, The Doctor has been slowly succumbing to it as well, and by the end of Part 2 he finds himself 100% devoted to her, and for the sake of ending the war happy to help her plans, though getting forcefully pumped full of Vaylen’s explosive regeneration energy might have been going a bit to far…
The sum up of the story can be “three-ish hours dedicated to trying to tie the Rani from the classic series in with the off-the-wall RTD2 era Rani” and in that sense it works, and honestly if you feel the need to plug that gap at least these three-ish hours were entertaining as a whole.
The Continuity:
A fun, if not very visually busy cover. Not sure about the Tetrap and Daleks poking out of random triangles though…
The Rani first appeared on TV in the Sixth Doctor story “Mark of the Rani” and then later in the Seventh Doctor story “Time and the Rani”. This incarnation of the character had previously appeared in two Sixth Doctor audios in “The Rani Elite” and “Planet of the Rani”, but hasn’t appeared since due to complications with the rights. The Rani eventually reappeared in the TV show in the Fifteenth Doctor two-parter “Wish World/The Reality War”, where she acts completely out of character compared to how she was in the original continuity, which is explained at least in part in this story. This is also the first audio appearance of the Tetraps, who appeared in “Time and the Rani” as well.
Apart from that, not a lot. As mentioned The Rani’s initial plans to make Daleks more emotional and independent mirror’s The Doctor’s plan to give Daleks the “Human Factor” in the Second Doctor TV story “The Evil of the Daleks”, which I guess given a lot of this story has The Rani mention how she’s not too different from the Doctor means it was probably intentional…
Overall Thoughts:
“Fear of the Light” was a fun three hours of examining The Rani, seeing what makes her tick and then using technobabble to try and make the two contrasting portrayals of the character on TV work a bit better, and doing a satisfying job of it too. Not a big blow-away story but then not everyone needs to be, happy to recommend it.
After a Dalek assault (that kills off the experimental Daleks Rani had been working on) The Doctor, The Rani and Malvore end up on the surface of the planet, a planet whose sun has a deadly effect on the body, though as it turns out, the only real effect is that it begins undoing The Rani’s genetic and mental manipulation, not just on The Doctor but on herself as it turns out. It’s revealed that The Rani experimented on herself to get rid of her more caring and playful side so she could focus only on science but now as the sunlight begins to burn her alterations away she begins to actually care for those around her… a bit. The Doctor is soon led to a lair where other mutated Tetraps, called “Gloomwalkers”, are held up and his uses his extra Vaylen-stolen regeneration energy to cure them of Rani’s tampering, allowing them to walk into the sunlight once more.
The Doctor promises to take them somewhere safe and heads off, meanwhile The Rani is picked up by the Time Lords, who wish to use her knowledge and cold-blooded ethics to help them win the war, but she warns them she’s not quite herself anymore as she begins to regenerate into her next self…