A ruthless and amoral Time Lady scientist. She was the same age as the Doctor, so presumably attended the Academy with him.
She left Gallifrey in disgrace after a genetically engineered mouse - part of one of her experiments - bit the Lord President of the High Council.
She eventually found her way to the planet Miasimia Goria, becoming its ruler.
In order to increase productivity amongst its workers, she tampered with their brain chemistry and removed the need for sleep. This had the unfortunate side effect of making them aggressive and unruly. Seeking a compatible humanoid species from which she could extract a chemical to counter this and so calm the populace, she decided on Earth. Its many conflicts could be used to mask her activities.
During Britain's industrial revolution, she set up a base in the northern town of Killingworth - posing as the elderly owner of a bath house serving the local miners.
Once inside, the men were tranquilised with gas and the chemical extracted. The only outward sign was a red mark on the neck - and an increased level of violence and aggression. The area had previously been blighted by Luddite activity, where workers destroyed machinery in the fear that it would take their jobs away from them.
Those who bore the red mark could be killed by her remotely.
The TARDIS was drawn off course to land here - the work of the Master, who sought to interfere with Earth history by disrupting industrial progress.
The Rani found herself caught in the middle of their long-running feud.
The Master stole the quantity of brain fluid she had already gathered in order to force her into helping him destroy the Doctor. He also helped himself to some chemically impregnated worms which she employed to mentally control people.
The Doctor traced energy signals to the bath house and discovered the Rani's TARDIS there, disguised as a large cabinet.
Posing as a miner, he was gassed and the Rani discovered who he was when she examined his brain.
Later, his companion Peri went into a local wood to find plants for a herbal remedy - unaware that the Rani had planted landmines which transformed their victims into trees.
She was saved by the Doctor, though he almost met the same fate after being captured by miners under the Master's control.
The Rani and Master tried to trap the Doctor in a collapsing mine tunnel. When they tried to leave in her TARDIS, they discovered that the Doctor had sabotaged it. It was sent hurtling forward in time. An embryo T-Rex, kept as a specimen in her ship, began to rapidly grow as centrifugal forces trapped them against the walls...
Some time later, the Rani began working on the planet Lakertya - first enslaving its indolent inhabitants. Their leader, Beyus, and his daughter Sarn were forced to work for her. The Rani was assisted in these activities by the giant bat-like Tetraps, led by Urak.
She had identified an asteroid which orbited the planet as being composed of Strange Matter, which is incredibly dense.
A missile was aimed at this, but she needed a substance strong enough to mount in its warhead - loyhargil. At the same time, she created a huge brain and began kidnapping scientists from across time and space. They would be harnessed to the brain - increasing its intelligence to the point that it would give her the formula for loyhargil. The explosion of the asteroid would not only destroy the planet, but set in motion an elaborate process whereby chronons would form - particles of time. A shell of these would form around Lakertya's remains, and the brain would expand to fill it - becoming a Time Manipulator. The Rani could then use this to interfere in the evolutionary processes of any given planet.
The final scientist she sought, needed to repair her laboratory, was the Doctor. She caused the TARDIS to crashland on the planet, with the fortuitous side-effect of triggering his sixth regeneration. She was able to exploit his post-regeneration trauma - which included amnesia - to get him to work for her. To aid this deception, she impersonated his companion Mel.
Eventually, Beyus took a stand against her by sacrificing his life to blow up her base, after the Doctor had meddled with the missile launch sequence - causing it to miss the asteroid.
Urak discovered that the Rani had intended to abandon him and his people when the missile was fired, and so they broke into her TARDIS - now in the form of a low metallic pyramid - and captured her. They planned to take her back to their home planet.
Later, she then moved in next door to his next companion, Belinda Chandra.
She began following them through time and space using a Gallifreyan Time Ring. Seemingly unable to get the TARDIS to land back in London on 24th May 2025, the Doctor used a device he called the Vindicator to take readings at various locations, and these would help guide the ship to the intended date. The Rani then captured these readings herself as part of her ultimate plan.
After being jettisoned into space during the Interstellar Song Contest, the Rani regenerated. However, this proved to be a bi-generation.
Mrs Flood remained, whilst a new, younger-looking Rani emerged.
Their relationship was not one of equals, however, as the Mrs Flood incarnation was very much subservient to her new persona.
The Rani travelled to a remote rural area of Bavaria in 1865 and abducted a baby, who was actually the reincarnation of Desiderium - the god of wishes. She turned the child's mother into flower petals, and his father and siblings into animals, using a chemical mouth spray.
Mrs Flood had earlier released from prison a young man named Conrad Clark, who was an enemy of UNIT and the Doctor. He held extreme right-wing views, and wished to see a society which adhered only to his ideology. This world was brought into being as an alternate time-line by the Rani, who used Desiderium to create it.
His world, however, was one specifically designed to collapse under the weight of doubt. When enough people challenged this new reality, the Earth would become inverted - releasing the Underverse.
The Rani was based in the Bone Palace - a huge skeletal structure which straddled London like a spider. She employed Droneguard robots as security, and her equipment was operated by cyborg humanoids who were physically integrated into the systems. There was no sign of her still having a TARDIS.
The Doctor and Belinda had been captured, their memories tampered with so that they would initially believe themselves part of this timeline. The Rani also obtained the Vindicator, which would be used to locate someone within the Underverse - Omega.
The doubt of a Time Lord would be the breaking point for Conrad's world, an event which would trigger the final phase of the Rani's plan. The final destruction of the Earth was repeated each night, until the Doctor was made ready. Once he regained his memories, he warned the Rani that Omega was now a mad god - one whom she would be unable to control. The Time Lords had been rendered sterile after the Master's actions on Gallifrey, and the Rani wanted Omega's pure DNA to help reconstitute the race. On this occasion, the Rani insisted that she never hated the Doctor. In the past she had merely exploited him, or acted against him at the Master's instigation and to prevent him meddling in her work.
The Doctor's warnings proved to be true and, on being released, Omega - now a giant skeletal figure - devoured the Rani. Mrs Flood escaped using the Time Ring, whilst the Doctor used the Vindicator to force Omega back into the Underverse.
Played by Kate O'Mara, Anita Dobson, Archie Panjabi.
Appearances: Mark of the Rani (1985), Time and the Rani (1987), The Church on Ruby Road (2023), The Legend of Ruby Sunday / The Empire of Death (2024), The Robot Revolution - The Reality War (2025).
- The Rani was created by husband and wife team Pip & Jane Baker. Pip claimed that he had been speaking with a scientist at a party, who pointed out that human beings were simply collections of chemicals - which gave him the idea for a thoroughly amoral scientist.
- Rani means "princess" or "queen" on the Indian subcontinent - the wife of a Raja. It derives from the Sanskrit word rajni.
- The Rani was also employed as the chief villain in the EastEnders / Doctor Who crossover special for Children in Need in 1993 - "Dimensions in Time". In this she was once again played by Kate O'Mara, and the Rani had gained a companion - Cyrian, played by Samuel West (named because JNT had hoped to interest Sir Ian McKellen in the role). The Rani's TARDIS was this time disguised as the Queen Vic pub.
- O'Mara's screen appearances, such as her role in Dynasty, were mainly to fund her theatrical enterprises, specifically works by Shakespeare.
- She featured in two Hammer Horrors - The Vampire Lovers and Horror of Frankenstein. It was this work which prevented her from taking on the role of Petra Williams in Inferno.
- She was married twice: to Jeremy Young (An Unearthly Child / Mission to the Unknown) and then to Richard Willis (Full Circle). Ian Cullen (Ixta - The Aztecs) was the biological father to one of her children.
- Anita Dobson had already left EastEnders before "Dimensions in Time" was made. She came to fame in the soap playing Angie Watts, landlady of the Queen Vic and wife of "Dirty Den" (Leslie Grantham - Resurrection of the Daleks). She returned for a cameo in the programme's 40th anniversary episode - an hallucination experienced by her daughter.
- She also has a singing career, appearing in a number of stage musicals and had a No.4 hit in the UK in 1986 singing Anyone Can Fall In Love, which was set to the EastEnders theme tune.
- Since 2000, she has been married to Queen's Brian May.
- Archie Panjabi had roles in the British movies East Is East and Bend It Like Beckham, and was later nominated for a number of awards for her performance in the CBS series The Good Wife, which ran from 2009 - 2015.
- Since 2005, nearly every female villain has been rumoured to be the Rani. Steven Moffat teased fans during the filming of Dark Water by having Michelle Gomez declare herself on location at St Paul's to be a Random Access Neural Integrator - or RANI for short. Her real identity was added in dubbing later.
- Scots actress Siobhan Redmond has also played the Rani, on audio.
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