Rani (Doctor Who)
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Template:Doctorwhocharacter The Rani is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. She was played by Kate O'Mara.
The Rani is a renegade Time Lady, an evil scientific genius whose villainy comes not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treats everything (including morality) as secondary to her research; she has been known to enslave entire planets in order to have a ready supply of experimental subjects and a place to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. Her major interest is in tinkering with other species' biochemistry - she was exiled from Gallifrey after some of her lab mice, as a result of an experiment, grew to enormous size and ate the President's pet cat. A past relationship between the Rani and the Doctor is hinted at, but never elaborated upon. It is established they are the same age.
The Rani was created in an attempt to give the Doctor another recurring foe like the Master, but eventually only appeared in two serials, The Mark of the Rani and Time and the Rani, before Doctor Who ended.
The Rani also appeared as the principal villain in Dimensions in Time, the Doctor Who charity special created for Children in Need.
Other appearances
The Rani appears in the Virgin Missing Adventures spin-off novel State of Change by Christopher Bulis, and in the BBV audio drama The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind by Pip and Jane Baker. She is also the villain in a Choose Your Own Adventure-style children's game book entitled The Garden of Evil (also written by Pip and Jane Baker).
The Past Doctor Adventure Divided Loyalties, by Gary Russell, states that the Rani was one of a group of promising young Time Lords called "the Decca" which included many future renegades, including the Doctor and the Master. The novel also gives her given name (or at least its first syllables) as Ushas (a reference to the Vedic goddess of that name). As with all spin-off media, the canonicity of this information is debatable.
In The End of the World the Doctor stated that his homeworld had been destroyed and that he was the last of the Time Lords. Whether the Rani was present on Gallifrey and was killed along with the rest is uncertain.