1)"Hoist up your skirts, Peri, off we go!"
2)Why is the Master dressed as a scarecrow? I'm starting to think he just likes dressing up.
3)"Peri, how would like to meet a genius?" "I thought I already had."
4)I gather Ainley wasn't wild about having to share this story with another baddy. I kind of liked the interaction between the three Time Lords - it gives me an image of what they must've been like when they were young. I imagine an anime like a Gallifreyan version of Azumanga Daioh or Cromartie High School, with all of them and their high school shenanigans. I thought Kate O'Mara did well as the Rani - she and Baker had famously worked together years before on a show called Brothers wher ehe was the baddy and she was the goody.
5)"Occasionally - just occasionally - your smugness infuriates me." Then why do you keep her around?
6)This is how you know the Master's evil - he kills a dog.
7) He's also particularly verbose in this:
- "Fortuitous would be a more apposite epithet."
- "I believe your modern expression is 'snuff the candle'."
- "Finito TARDIS - how's that for style?"
8)"He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line."
9)"The Rani simply sees us as walking heaps of chemicals." All we really are, of course.
10)If that really was mustard gas, then Peri, at least, could be in alot of trouble. From what I've read, it can take up to 24 hours for effects to show, and they can be very nasty. The gas mask might've saved her lungs, but any exposed skin could get some nasty burns.
11)The Doctor's key can open the Rani's TARDIS? The way he messes with her console reminds me of the First Doctor in "The Time Meddler".
12)"No thanks, I've given them up. Guns can seriously damages your health, you know."
13)"Petty spite on the part of the Lord President - just because they ate his cat." We already knoew Gallifrey had celery, apparently they had cats and mice, too.
14)"The tree won't hurt you." OK, that blew up the Goofy Meter.
15)"All these mines look the same to me."
16)"What precisely do you do in there?" "Argue mainly."
17)Cliffhangers:
- Part One: The Doctor's about to go down the pit!
- Part Two: The Doctor and Peri leave!
Overall:
I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It works well as a sort of farce. I wouldn't want every story to be like this, but I found it perversely amusing seeing the mighty Time Lord portrayed as a guy squabbling with his idiot buddies.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
Replies
The gas mask might've saved her lungs, but any exposed skin could get some nasty burns.
Sometimes, my sense of decorum overrules my snark reflex. Sometimes.
The funny thing is, in this story, her only exposed skin was on her hands and face.
Watched this again last night to mark the passing of the late, great Kate O'Mara. A shame. Her two Who stories weren't necessarily the best-written ones, but I enjoyed her work.
She could have been one of the really great Dr. Who villains if the script had been just a little bit better. I always wanted a Rani/Romana showdown.